Article On How Fort's "Teleportation" Won Over Other Terms

[Danian]

Hello dabblers in Fortean knowledge,

In a recent issue of Fortean Times, there was an article about how the word "teleportation" coined by Charles Fort won the preference of writers and scientists over other less glamorous terms also describing the instantaneous displacement of matter. I can't recall where to find this article in my collection of FT, so I'll be thankfull if anybody can tell me the name of the article and in which issue it was published.

Thanks in advance,

Danian

 

[EnolaGaia]

Could you be referring to this article that appeared in the July 2017 (#355?) issue of FT?

It appears in the 'Blasts from the Past' section under the title:

The Vanishing of Gertrude Strassburger

The title's vanishing is an incident used to introduce a broader review of 'teleportation'. The references to Fort's contribution consist of a chunk in the middle and attributing him credit in the end.

If you're able to access this site, it presents an online copy:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/fortean-times/20170701/textview

 

[Danian]

Thank you EnolaGaia,

This is it, but its title is in fact: "The teleport before Fort" by Theo Paijmans, FT355, 30-31.

The title "The vanishing of Gertrude Strassburger" on the contents page had been teleported directly from FT354!

Danian

 

[Reverend D]

Now here's a thing: I'm sure that, in books and magazines I read in my youth, the word teleportation was used to describe instantaneous travel by the power of the mind, similarly to how the word telepathy refers to the mind.

Nowadays, it seems to be used to refer to instant transport by technological means - I remember hearing it used this way in an Eccleston or Tennant Doctor Who episode and thinking it didn't sound right.

Has the meaning of the word changed, or has it always meant this and I just misunderstood it years ago?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's what Fort wrote in Lo! (credited as the term's origin):

... If we accept that Teleportation, as a "natural force," exists, and suspect that some human beings have known this and have used it; and, if we think that the culmination of a series of tele-operations will be the commercial and recreational teleportation of objects and beings, we are concerned little with other considerations, and conceive of inhabitants of this earth willing themselves -- if that's the way it's done -- to Mars, or the moon, or Polaris. But I take for a proposition that there is an underlying irony, if not sadism, in our existence, which rejoices in driving the most easily driven beings of this earth into doing, at enormous pains and expenses, the unnecessary -- the building of complicated telegraph-systems, with the use of two wires -- then reducing to one wire -- then the discovery that the desired effects could be achieved wirelessly. Labours and sufferings of early Arctic explorers to push northward over piles of ice, at a rate of three of four miles a day -- then Byrd does it with a whir.

You'll notice that this passage accommodates both interpretations - i.e., teleportation by both non-technological and technological means.

The key concept is the instantaneous overcoming of a distance without having to traverse whatever that distance entails. This key concept remains the same whether you're accomplishing the jump using personal willpower / magick or a sophisticated machine.

 

[Reverend D]

Here's what Fort wrote in Lo! (credited as the term's origin):



You'll notice that this passage accommodates both interpretations - i.e., teleportation by both non-technological and technological means.

The key concept is the instantaneous overcoming of a distance without having to traverse whatever that distance entails. This key concept remains the same whether you're accomplishing the jump using personal willpower / magick or a sophisticated machine.

Very interesting, thanks for that! I hadn't realised that Fort had speculated about Star Trek-style transporters!

 

[Timble2]

Alfred Bester used "Jaunting" for teleportation by the power of the mind in "The Stars My Destination" (Tiger, Tiger), and some of SF writers picked up on it; they use in in the ITV series "The Tomorrow People" but it never really caught on beyond that.

There's also apportation, but that never really caught on widely as it's instantaneous tranportation by paranormal means, and apports refer to the objects that mediums manifest in seances.