Wild Talents [Paperback]

Charles Fort (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 26, 2009

Like Fort's previous works Wild Talents deals with a number of anomalous phenomena and Fort's ongoing attack on scientific dogma. Though not as well-known as some of his other works, Wild Talents is arguably Fort's best work. Fort's writing style and tongue-in-cheek sense of self-deprecating humor is on full display in this book as a result, this book is generally easier to read than his earlier works.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

"Born in Albany, New York, in 1874, Charles Fort was (and arguably still is) the world's finest chronicler of all things mysterious. From his youth and practically up until the time of his death in 1932 at the age of 58, Fort was a copious collector of newspaper and magazine stories, tales and anecdotes on all aspects of what could be broadly termed 'the unexplained.' Unusual lights in the sky, strange creatures, ghosts, ghouls, and bizarre anomalies of both science and nature were daily and integral parts of Fort's life and featured heavily in his books. Today, students of the unknown throughout the world revere Fort. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Wilder Publications (March 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1604595817
• ISBN-13: 978-1604595819
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,358,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fitting End, September 5, 2011

By 

Doctor S. "MD" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wild Talents (Hardcover)

Having read all of Charles Fort's books concerning unexplained, ignored and utterly fascinating phenomena of history, I was not at all disappointed with what some critics consider to be one of his weaker, less coherent efforts. What Mr. Fort does so masterfully is to make compelling observations on the world of the bizarre and paranormal, turning what could be very bewildering reading into something that's engrossing and hard to put down. Yes, it may seem a stretch when he suggests a parallel between two men named 'Ambrose' managing to vanish from the face of the earth, but the fact that one of those men- author Ambrose Bierce- had been investigating and writing about strange disappearances at the time of of his own is the sort of secondary information that redeems Fort's debatable consideration of the matter.
The bottom line is that Charles Fort was dealing with paranormal situations and phenomena long before the boom in occult literature of the 60s and 70s which now makes some of his speculations seem outlandish or uninformed. When he mentions that seemingly unrelated paranormal events may in fact be connected in some unknown (or unknowable) way, he is on the verge of a very modern 'Chaos Theory', but limited to the understanding of his times. No, he is no scientist, and he takes great pride in this- his relentless exposure of the failures and ineptitude of scientific minds who seem far more interested with other galaxies than what goes on under their nose makes it plain why lay-men such as Fort are so valuable in 'keeping the Fact Men honest'. Nor is he an occultist; his opinions are therefore usually of a very practical and down-to-earth character. Just a man of great intelligence and insight trying to make some sense of things that the 'experts' will not even acknowledge in their highly selective 'textbook' concept of reality. It is interesting to consider that a single genuine talking dog or invisible burglar would wreak utter havoc in the jealously guarded realm of scientific dogma- this is an obvious reason why his books have been so aggressively ridiculed, dismissed and howled-down by mainstream theorists who do not appreciate any sort of threat to the dominion of accepted 'scientific truths'.
In this final book, Fort chooses to examine the somewhat 'Wild' nature of human and animal existence- subjects such as tele-kinesis, mental telepathy, invisible intelligences, precognition, super-human strength, teleportation, inexplicable coincidences, mysterious deaths, time travel and other oddities you won't find in most school books. As in his other books, the examples he provides are gleaned mostly from scientific journals, public historical archives and other sources which Fort went to great pains to examine for reliability- whatever you may think about the validity of his conclusions, they are mostly very witty, inciteful and often very eye-opening and mind-expanding. Even if you choose to dismiss Fort's commentary entirely, you are still left with a treasure trove of strange (but documented) information, which can and should invite the reader's own evaluation.
An entertaining and thought provoking final effort from the trail-blazing Czar of Bizarre.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Twice is Coincidence, June 7, 2010

By 

Paul Camp (Chattanooga, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wild Talents (Paperback)

_Goldfinger said, 'Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action."'_
_Goldfinger_


_Wild Talents_ (1932) is the fourth of Charles Fort's stranger-than-science books. It was published a few months after his death, and it might give the reader the impression that it is an odd stew, with chunks of meat and vegetables floating about in it at random. But there is a theme that holds the concoction together-- the theme of coincidence. Fort seems to be fascinated with the "relations of things" and with "the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences" (chapter two). And Fort being Fort, he is full of specific examples. Here is one:

In England, during the Pytchley hunt, Gen. Mayow fell dead from his saddle... about the same time, in Gloucestershire, the daughter of the bishop of Gloucestershire, while hunting, was seriously injured; and... upon the same day, in the north of England, a Miss Cavendish, while hunting, was killed. Not long afterward, a clergyman was killed, while hunting in Lincolnshire. About the same time, two hunters, near Sanders' Gorse, were thrown, and were seriously injured. (chapter four)

And here is another:

In Hyde Park, London, an orator shouts: "What we want is no king and no law! How we'll get it will be, not with ballots, but with bullets!"
Far away, in Gloucestershire, a house that dates back to Elizabethan times unaccountably bursts into flame. (chapter four)

Fort continues with other examples: The disappearance of Ambrose Bierce in Mexico and Ambrose Small in Canada that led him to speculate as to whether somebody was collecting Ambroses. The case of three workers in a vineyard who dropped dead from a heart attack, one right after another. The dog that said "Good morning!" and then vanished in a puff of green smoke. And there are still other cases: serial hair-cutters, slipper stealers, stabbers, and serial killers; several series of mysterious arsons; a cat burglar who piled up jewelery but stole nothing from mansions; and alleged cases of vampirism, ghoulism, and poltergeist pranks.

But wait, you may say. Aren't some of these coincidences a bit forced? Aren't there likely to be a lot of horseback accidents at the beginning of the fox hunting season? And isn't it a bit far-fetched to assume that a speech in Hyde Park _caused_ a fire many miles away? And even Fort somewhat reluctantly dismisses the story about the dog.

And yet, you know, we make these connections all the time. Lady Diana and Mother Teresa die on the same day. C.S. Lewis dies on the same day that Jack Kennedy is shot. We notice that. A relative dies on a national holiday. We make a connection. We notice on the news that there have been several similar automobile accidents or several similar natural disasters in a short span of time. But these coincidences are just that-- coincidences. We probably should not be preparing for enemy action against Mysterious Forces Beyond the Pale. That way lies paranoia.

Fort makes allusions to his cosmology of a pancake shaped Earth with a crystal sky and a Super Sarasso Sea up above. But he doesn't treat these things in great detail. By focussing his attention on strange crimes, disasters, and paranormal mental powers he manages to make _Wild Talents_ the most credible of his books. As always, the reader should remember that Fort constantly wrote with his tongue in his cheek. At one point in this book he comments that people cannot decide whether he is more of a scientist or a humorist. That may have been true in his time, but it is no longer true today. Fort was not a scientist.