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The Book of the Damned

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Hailed as the man who kick-started modern day scepticism for the findings and conclusions of mainstream science, Charles Fort is actually a man who is paid more tribute now than ever before with the advent of alternative archaeology and science in general and with more and more people (researchers, scientists or not) actually doubting some of our more precious scientific dogmas.

This book is a celebration of humor as well as scepticism, the humor part being the one which most people have greatly misunderstood about C.Fort.
Fort takes literally 100s of examples of bizzare unexplained phenomena such as things falling from the sky (ranging from frogs or fish to metal objects) to spontaneous combustion, to unidentified flying objects, to time travel among others and actually exposes science's comical "answers" to these phenomena.
Frogs that have been rained by the sky or fish for that matter are not a phenomenon that has stopped. It still happens. The "official explanation" remains as hilarious as it was back in Fort's times, namely: a hurricane or a whirlwind picks them up and "rains" them somewhere else. However, why these winds are selective in what they pick up remains unaswered by science.

The usual and continuing up to this day explanation about UFOs which concerns mass illusion or the classic "weather baloon" explanation is picked up by Fort and given the ridiculing treatment it deserves.

What makes Fort such a classic and cult figure is his ability to use subtle (mostly) but lethal sarcasm to debunk the dogmatic and more than often funny explanations that scientists offer when cornered with occurences that dont fit or even shutter their sacred theories.

Fort's intention is none other than to highlight our trait of mixing cluelessness with arrogance and at the same time to trigger openmindedness or more importantly thinking for oneself and not religiously depending on science to shape the answers so that they fit the question.

The problem that Fort brings out with the "Book of the damned" is one that persists today as well. With Darwinistic theories being heavily challenged, with the Bing Bang theory being literally taken apart by daring scientists, and with Quantum physics proving that the "unthinkable" might actually be very thinkable indeed it's the Fortean spirit celebrated all over again on a grand scale.

Fort's critics (and they aren't few) take his theories the way they take the theories of mainstream science as well: for granted. Fort offers in this book for example a theory of a "super Sargasso sea" where all these living organisms keep falling from. One would have to be tremendously lacking in humour or imagination not to gather that Fort is yanking the collective chain here. What he does say in reality is: "if you can offer such a ridiculous theory about this phenomenon (insert unexplained phenomenon here) then i might as well add my own which by no means is less or more serious but it's nevertheless just as unproven as yours".
It's as simple as that really and Fort uses this technique repeateadly in his "Book of the damned" calling damned those who "dare" refuse official dogma.

There has been much criticism as well concerning the overwhelming bulk of paradigms that Fort uses in this book and the critics are probably right in this case. There was no need for such volume as the point would easily get across with 1/3 of these examples.
But that aside, this is in fact a book way, way ahead of its time.
It's funny how a man can be thrown to the pyre exactly because he uses his humour to dismiss our fear of not being able to explain the world around us. It's even funnier that we keep insisting we can despite alarming failures.
The "Book of the damned" is a grand example of a brave mind. The problem with brave minds is that they are usually shoved under the gigantic rug tagged "truth" for a very long time before anyone recognises their impact.

This book, one of four he published before passing away in 1932, exploits Fort's research into reports of peculiar things in the sky or fallen from the sky to challenge the authority of establishment science. He describes the book as an assemblage of data of external relations of this earth, "damned" by those who hold for our planet's isolation. According to Fort, the attitude of Science and Christian Science toward the unwelcome is the same: it does not exist.

Some of the events described in these reports would be described today as UFO's. While some of these cases may warrant attention, others seem marginal.

Fort hypothesizes that "there is somewhere aloft a place" where life may have orginated; "evolution on this earth has been induced by external influences." He offers alternative explanations for unexplained sightings: another world that is in secret communication with certain "esoteric" inhabitants of this earth; other worlds that are trying to establish communication with all the inhabitants of the earth; other worlds and vast structures that pass us by without the slightest desire to communicate; a vast construction that has often come to this earth, dipped into an ocean, then gone away. At one point, Fort writes that the earth was a no-man's land explored and colonized by other worlds; now something owns this earth, warning off all others. All this, he goes on, has been known, perhaps for ages, to certain ones upon the earth.

It is hard to know how much of this is serious and how much is just satire. Fort's imagined super-constructions a few miles above the earth stretch credibility too far. His quirky writing style, though sometimes entertaining, tends to further undermine his believability. Nonetheless, anyone wanting to read into the UFO phenomenon may find this book useful background.

This is not a new book, but was written sometime around the turn of century and has been considered a classic on most 'required reading' lists. A spoof on the awe in which society holds the Holy Writs of the scientific community, the author marshalled an impressive army of established, documented facts for which the official scientific explanations are simply absurd. A 'must read' for anyone who believes science teaches The Truth -- or for anyone who suspects otherwise.

Weird rains of fish, frogs, blood, powders, meat, marsh paper, butter. Mysterious planets and black spots. UFOs. Giant axes. Fairy crosses and coffins. Huge footprints. Devil's walks. Rock-throwing poltergeists.

All this and more can be found in Charles Fort's "The Book of the Damned".

Fort's work is, of course, a satire on the dogmatism of science. Personally, I didn't find Fort very funny, and his work was very plodding, but well worth the time and effort.

Fort's first two chapters are a good build up. An interesting quote: "A procession of the damned.

By the damned, I mean the excluded.

We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded.

Battalions of the accursed, captained by pallid data that I have exhumed, will march. You'll read them -- or they'll march. Some of them livid and some of them fiery and some of them rotten.

Some of them are corpses, skeletons, mummies, twitching, tottering, animated by companions that have been damned alive. There are giants that will walk by, though sound asleep. There are things that are theorems and things that are rags: they'll go by like Euclid arm in arm with the spirit of anarchy. Here and there will flit little harlots. Many are clowns. But many are of the highest respectability. Some are assassins. There are pale stenches and gaunt superstitions and mere shadows and lively malices: whims and amiabilities. The naïve and the pedantic and the bizarre and the grotesque and the sincere and the insincere, the profound and the puerile."

He goes on to cite red, white, and grey hailstones, and hail the size of elephants, before he gets into his rains.

Fort's writing style is biting and interesting. It is certainly very draining on many; he smothers you with a catalogue-like listing of all kinds of falls, evidence for giants, UFOs, etc. You're getting very anxious. But when you finally get to the end . . . nothing.

If you're like me and for some reason just want to hear about the events, then this book is great.

While some of his theories have been outdated, I reccomend Charles Hoy Fort's "The Book of the Damned" for anyone who is even vaguely interested in the paranormal. Long but well worth the read. 7 out of 10

_The Book of the Damned_ (1919) is the first of Charles Fort's four stranger-than-science books. The other three are: _New Lands_ (1923), _Lo!_ (1931), and _Wild Talents_ (1932). The "damned" in Fort's book are anomolies, phenomena, and odd occurences that cannot be adequately explained (and are therefore excluded) by Orthodox Science. It is hard not to be impressed by his Halloweenlike procession of data:

Some of them are corpses, skeletons, mummies, twitching, tottering, animated by companions that have been damned alive. There are giants that will walk by, though sound asleep. There are things that are theorems and things that are rags: they'll go like Euclid arm in arm with the spirit of anarchy. Here and there will flit little harlots. Many are clowns. But many are of the highest respectability. Some are assassins. There are pale stenches and gaunt superstitions and mere shadows and lively malices: whims and amiabilities. The naive and the pedantic and the bizarre and the grotesque and the sincere and the insincere, the profound and the puerile. (chapter one)

And it is hard not to be impressed by the sheer quantity of Fort's data. He piles on example after example of oddities. There are red and black rains and snows. There are giant hailstones (even one as big as an elephant). There are rains of beans, arrow-shaped objects, coal, bits of silk, and glutinous matter. There are also falls of fish, frogs (Fort can find no reports of tadpoles), lizards, snakes, snails, and insects. There are meteorites and thunderstones and cannon balls falling from the sky. There are wheels of fire, objects with a sulfurous odor, strange lights in the sky, unidentified flying objects, and even angels. Fort spent many years in libraries and museums combing back issues of newspapers and magazines for anomalies, and he virtually buries the readers with examples.

But how valid is the data? Ah, now. That is another question. Fort does little to separate legitimate observations from hoaxes, frauds, and silly season stories. And while Fort repeatedly satirized what he called the Scientific Priestcraft, he didn't really understand science very well. He thought that science was simply another version of myth and superstition, that a scientific theory was simply one person's opinion or biases, and that one theory was just as good as another. All of these assumptions are false. Fort also tended to assume that _any_ scientific explanation, however reasonable, should be trumped by _any_ unorthodox explanation, however bizarre.

One example should suffice. Fort talks about strange sunsets and blue moons beginning around 1883. But because scientists claimed that their cause was the eruption of Krakatoa, Fort goes through a lot of convoluted arguments to show that the Krakatoa explanation was a cover story manufactured by a conspiracy of scientists to hide the fact that these phenomena Couldn't Be Explained. Could it be that we had Men in Black back in 1919? Or could it be that the simpler explanation is really true? For a more plausible account than that of Fort, read Simon Winchester's _Krakatoa_(2005).

_The Book of the Damned_ is where we first encounter Fort's hypothetical cosmology. The Earth, he says, is shaped like a pancake and is surrounded by a crystal ceiling. What we call stars are merely holes in this ceiling through which light shines. There is a Super Sargasso Sea on the ceiling with an island called Genesistrine in its middle. The sea has accumulated all kinds of plant and animal life in it, and these frequently rain down upon the Earth. Fort even speculated that there might be wrecks of alien spacecraft in this sea. It is hard to take any of this seriously today (unless, of course, you believe that the whole space program is a gigantic hoax perpetrated by a worldwide conspiracy).

But it is also important to remember that Fort didn't take his writing too seriously. He was in large part a humorist, with his tongue held firmly in his cheek. This book deserves to be read today for its wit, its humor, and its lively style that edges into the poetic from time to time.

_A Footnote_: A few days after writing this review, I saw a TV news story about a mass of hundreds of frogs crossing a highway. No mention was made of them raining. It seems that they were making an exodus from a pond that was drying up in search of another. But it was an impressive sight, and I thought to myself: "Charles Fort would have loved this".

Rains of fish, blood, and gelatinous substances; strange meteors, unexplained lights, mysterious markings: The Book of the Damned is a catalog of data dismissed and excluded from modern science--most of all of which remains a mystery today. Fort builds explanations and theories based on this data, and while his attempts at scientific explanation may seem comically disproven now, his theories--perhaps better called a philosophy or a worldview--remain valid and compelling: that we must broaden our definition of "real" to include all aberrant data. Fort rejects dogma and willingly overthrows even his own conclusions, critiques the selectivity of science and generally acknowledged "reality," denies the existence of hard fact and absolute truth, and instead espouses an Intermedialist approach: that all things are relative, nothing is real or unreal, and anything may be contradictory. His possible explanations are secondary; Fort's unexplained data and Intermedialist approach have both stood the test of time, and so The Book of the Damned is intriguing stuff, demanding the reader's attention and future thought.

Fort's writing style is wry and dense, a tangle of rambling data, fluid theory, and strange diction which can make some passages--especially while the reader is still adjusting to Fort's style--a frustrating slog. But in time the writing style develops a certain charm and becomes easier to decipher, and the content never fails to hold the reader's attention. The Book of the Damned is thoughtful and fascinating, sharp and sometimes humorous, dense and confusing, packed full of haunting data and unusual philosophy. The strange content and inscrutable style isn't for everyone, but readers with patience and a penchant for the weird may find it a book to intrigue and beg a reconsideration of "reality." I enjoyed and recommend it, and I imagine I'll pick up Fort's other books in the months to come.

Why read Charles Fort's The Book of the Damned?

Answer: It will teach you to think outside your box, your commonly held and usually unconscious assumptions about `what is true'.

The point of reading the book is to experience the process of feeling the challenges to your unconscious assumptions about the nature of reality. Fort never intended for anyone to take his `explanations'/'theories' he offers to explain the long list of damned facts he presents. He knows they are preposterous. The point isn't the `answers' the point is the process of thinking outside of your box. He wants you to challenge your assumptions and to imagine `what if'.

Those reviewers who take Fort's `theories'/ `explanations' as being a serious attempt to explain those damned facts he lists, are utterly mistaken. Fort didn't want to substitute one set of nonsense for another set. He only wants you to learn to realize that you live with previously unconscious sets of beliefs about what is real and true.

Please - please don't give in to the folly of actually thinking that his explanations were meant to explain anything. If you do, then you miss the whole point of Fort's book. Fort wants you to challenge your expectations and assumptions.

Fort is having great fun in getting you to experience the unexplained and the unknown. The point is the experience, the process of thinking new thoughts and new ideas. Fort is about questions not answers.

If you want to learn to think outside of the box you have been living in - read this book and enjoy the experience of having your box exploded!

Charles Fort spent 27 years of his life searching library archives for credible reports of anomalous phenomena.

The Book of The Damned is a product of this exhaustive research. Apart from the massive quantity of data he uncovered for this book, he also adds his humor, wit, speculation, and genius. The end result is a book that will, in all probability, redefine the reader's conception of reality.

This book is a must read for the curious intellectual!

I recently learned of Charles Fort and his dedicated followers, self-described "Forteans". Forteans try to think outside of the box, "question everything" could be considered their motto. The "Book of the Dammed" is regarded by many to be his finest work.

The Good:

Fort does a great job at criticizing scientists, doctors and other experts. Through hundreds of examples he skillfully punches holes in their observations and conclusions, showing them to be slaves to a science that has closed the door on new phenomena. He offers interesting theories on relationships of objects and our understanding of them, dissecting the art of communication and understanding. Fort questions science with a sharp tongue, humor and wit. Conspiring to make a entertaining read although written nearly 100 years ago.

The Bad:

Sources, sources, sources. With a purported 1001 examples of unexplainable phenomena Fort seems to take every report at face value. Being boldly skeptical of the findings of modern science and not being nearly as critical of his sources seems contradictory.

The Ugly:

Being the father of modern skepticism must be pretty big shoes to fill, maybe too big. Criticizing science is one thing but by coming up with equally as silly theories, Fort has painted himself into a corner. He believes that there is a "Super Sargasso Sea" in our upper atmosphere that harbors fish, frogs and gelatinous substances. Pretty bizarre for a skeptic, especially when his proof appears to be wholly circumstantial.

Conclusion:

Fort lived about 100 years ago and not much has changed, doctors and experts are still full of it when they act like they have all of the answers. Personally I believe that science has a long way to go toward explaining global warming, ozone depletion, UFO's etc... Kudos to Fort for pointing out the sham that science was and still is; perhaps his greatest achievement is that he has opened the eyes of many.

Charles Fort had intelligence, yes. But where do his theories stand now? For instance, his thoughts on the "raining frogs and fish" occurance goes like this: he denied the scientific theory that they were sucked up in a waterspout and made his own: that all lifeforms were created in a giant sargasso sea in the sky and occasionally intelligent aliens dropped them to Earth. He generalizes the entire scientific community in simple strokes, physicists, your doctor, astronomers, chemists, yes, he claims to debunk them all. Is evolution true to Fort? Nope, all life is created in the sargasso sea in the sky: Genesistrine, and is teleported or dropped by aliens to Earth. Crackpot lit 101: Charles Fort.