• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

I Fort Therefore I Am? Or I Am Therefore I Fort?

A

Anonymous

Guest
So, what I'm wondering is this:

How many people had an interest in Forteana before they encountered the term Forteana or became aware of Charles Fort?

|Are there some of us who discovered the man and his ideas before (or simultaneous to) developing an interest in UFOS or ghosts or ULs or esoterica or Conspiracy or changing Paradigms or whatever.

For my own part, I had an interest in ghost stories, UFO sightings and such unexplained phenomena from a very early age. My awareness of Fort and the now catch-all tag of Forteana came through this interest. As far as I recall, a relative gave me a big book full of information about mysterious stuff, knowing I was into that kind of thing, and there, after all the chapters on MIBs, UFO flaps, ghosts, poltergeists, SHC and all the rest was a section on this chap named Fort and what he did. It wasn't until even later, in my teenage years, that I discovered the range of the chap's influence in discussion of such things.


Anyhow - are we born Forteans, and just learn the word later, or can one become a Fortean?
 
I certainly did learn the word later. I've been interested in UFOs and stuff since I was a wee lass. I think Chariots of the Gods (yes I know) really kicked it off plus hints of strangeness like the Philedelphia experiment and so on.

I hadn't even heard of Charles Fort till I bought the magazine.
 
Same here. It was the magazine that made me aware of Fort and the term Fortean.
My parents can be blamed fairly and squarely for my interests.
The bookshelves at home had a selection of wierd, offbeat and esoteric subjects, and as a non-book destroying tot, I had free range of them. In fact, I had a realisation aged about 7 that I was finally able to read with the required aptitude, and not just look at the pictures, so did in earnest.
Despite my C of E primary school, I was probably as familiar with alchemical and magical symbols as I was with Christian ones.
:)
 
101 said:
Anyhow - are we born Forteans, and just learn the word later, or can one become a Fortean?
Click to expand...

I'd say I was born fortean; I was interested in nature, sci-fi and spooky stuff when I was a kid. Largely 'cos, I think, I wanted Star Wars to be real, I remember being disappointed with UFO's when they never strafed anywhere they were seen like a Cylon fighter would. I would also pour over an illustrated Peter Underwood book of Ghosts. Siiiiigh.

I remember the Unexplained coming out when I was little and collecting that and collecting lots of copies of the wee digest The Unknown. Fortean Times was far too below my radar at the time. I frist read about Fort in a Readers Digest anthology called 'World of Mysteries', or something, that was bias toward him.

Started buy FT at about issue 63 and by then I was enough of a goat to be wary of the sc(k)eptics and believers. I think the openness and sense of mischief within forteana suits me down to the ground.

Charles Fort has a lot to say about the nature of life, thought and perception in his books and he should be on the national curriculum.

Forteans, in my experience, read a lot, don’t take things too seriously and have been known to enjoy a chat/debate/rant over a beer.

They often like cats too.
 
Re: Re: I Fort Therefore I Am? Or I Am Therefore I Fort?

skitster said:
Forteans, in my experience, read a lot, don’t take things too seriously and have been known to enjoy a chat/debate/rant over a beer.

They often like cats too.
Click to expand...

I'd go along with that. But... Do they acquire these traits through nature, nurture or reincarnation?:D
 
As a wise man, once said: "A little from column A, and a little from column B."

I was definitely interested in the odd stuff before ever hearing of Fort or Forteana. Partly fuelled by programs like The Search For... and Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, as well as science fiction (influenced by my mother and my brother), and other shows like Doctor Who etc.

On the nature side, my family is full of readers, and cat-lovers. And a full and frank discussion of all sorts of matters.

Of course, I don't drink beer. So that's another theory out the window.
 
I prefer dogs. Cats are too fond of random killing. Cute, though.
;)
 
I got my Fortean streak from my mothers family and i'm sure they'd never heard of Charlie. Mum and i shared a love of Gothic horror, the ladies in her family were all 'sensitive' and discussions of the weird and wonderful abounded.
Dad was an army man and a believer in QED. Far too grounded and cynical to 'believe in any of that rubbish' although he did respect my mothers beliefs and occassionally would tease her about being a witch....
 
Book and compendia about unexplained phenonema often have a little chapter about Fort, as tribute I suppose. It always used to seem irrelevant. And then I got into him, yet somehow it still does somewhat. Often, I suppose, because these books don't have so much a Fortean angle as a believery one.
 
Someone gave me a book called Timothy's Space Book in 1962 as a Birthday present at I liked things like Supercar on TV.

At:
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~jsisson/timspbk.htm

From there via Doctor Who and the other Gerry Anderson series to SF (at first Asimov, Clarke and bizarrely WE Johns) and a interest in UFOs generally. First 'Fortean' book proper was John Michell's 'The Flying Saucer Vision', then 'Chariot's Of the Gods', which even then I thought was pushing it a bit. Hit Fort around 1974 with the Abacus edition of 'Book of the Damned'.

A couple of early editions of Fortean Times (long since lost) which I picked up in alternative bookshops. Started buying it regularly about 1992, when you started to see it in ordinary newsagents.
 
I was a bit to into ghosts and b-movies when I was a child (I saw 'Earth V the flying Saucers' and the origional Flash Gorden serieses on TV when I was about 9) but I didn't find Fort untill i found FT.

Nature? Nurture? I think it was my parehts leting us watch anything and everything that came on TV while they got on with other stuff. Monty Python will warp a young mind...
 
I've always been interested in Forteana and the Paranormal and other such suchness, I hadn't heard of Charles Fort or Forteanism until I saw the mag. The first propr book I remember reading that really inspired me about it was me mams copy of 'searching for lost gods', but since I can remember I'd gotten my parent's to by me kids books of the unexplained, and tell me ghost stories...
 
First to Fort

I came to FT first - the first ever issue I saw, with a mokele mbembe on the cover - and came to Fort's books through that - Lo! first, then Wild Talents, New Lands and finally to The Book of the Damned - backwards, but still effective! I'd always had an interest in ''the paranormal'' - I remember going into my local library, a shy little kid hanging around my dad's elbow, and him asking the librarian woman for books on the supernatural - she taking me to the comics - and my intrepid little face, disgusted at this choice of fiction - ''No,'' said my dad, ''he wants to read about the history of paranormal phenomena.'' The woman gave one look to the precocious little child I was, and took me to the hidden-away dangers of books about ghosts, wolfmen, ESP and Kaspar Hauser! Excitement and interest all the way, but always being of a more philosophical bent, and too lazy to make the effort to specialise - that's honesty, that - and coming to Fort, finally, and finding in him the source of what I was after - a revelation, deepening with each reading, and I've only just really started! Fort's stories also make for fine reading - thank Mr X for that - and give insight into him. The man fascinates me - his life, work, ideas - though Bennett's book was a let-down, I think. Fort needs more attention, even from the priestcraft that excluded him. Even theologians spend time talking about the Devil - can't give God all the credit for the way things are now, eh?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top