Lo! (7 page)
Authors: Charles Fort
There was, in June, 1919, at Islip, Northampton, England, an occurrence like the occurrences at Liverpool and Cupar. London
Daily Express,
June 12, 1919—a loud detonation—basketful of clothes shooting into the air. Then the clothes came down. There may be ineffective teleportative seizures.
London
Daily Mail,
May 6, 1910—phenomena near Cantillana, Spain. From ten o’clock in the morning until noon, May 4th, stones shot up from a spot in the ground. Loud detonations were heard. “Traces of an extinct volcano are visible at the spot, and it is believed that a new crater is being formed.” But there is no findable record of volcanic activity in Spain, at this time—nor at any other time. I am reminded of the loud noises that often accompany poltergeist disturbances.
In
Niles’ Weekly Register,
Nov. 4, 1815, there is an account of stones that had been watched rising in a field, near Marbleton, Ulster County, New York—that these stones had been seen to rise three or four feet from the ground, then moving horizontally, from thirty to sixty feet.
Out in open fields, there have been showers of water, strictly localized, and of unknown origin. A Dr. Neel will be heard from. He has captured, not indefinitely alluded to insects, but
Proconia undata
Fab. Every mystery has its fishmonger. Considered figuratively, he need not be a seller of fish. His name may be Smith, or O’Brien, or it may be Proconia Undata Fab.
But presumably in the wintertime, in England, members of the Proconia family are not busy and available for explanations. In the
Chorley
(Lancashire)
Standard,
Feb. 15, 1873, is a story of excitement in the town of Eccleston. At Bank House, occupied by two elderly women and their niece, streams of water started falling, about the first of February, seemingly from ceilings. Furniture was soaked, and the occupants of the house were alarmed. The falls seemed to come from the ceiling, but “probably the most singular feature of the affair is that ceilings were apparently quite dry.” See back to Mr. Grottendieck’s story of objects that were appearing near a ceiling, or roof, with no signs of penetrating the material. Workmen had been called to the house, and had investigated, but were unable to explain. Openness again. House packed with neighbors, watching the showers. These data would make trouble for spiritualistic mediums and their requirements for special, or closed, conditions, and at least semi-darkness, if mediums were bothered by more than unquestioning or, occasionally politely questioning, faith. If some of them have been knocked about a bit, they were relatively few. Nobody in this house sat in a cabinet. Nobody was a logician. Nobody reasonably argued that chemists, for instance, must have special conditions, or their reactions will not work out. “For instance,” said nobody, “how could you develop a photograph, except in the special conditions of darkness, or semi-darkness?”
The look to me is that, throughout what is loosely called Nature, teleportation exists, as a means of distribution of things and materials, and that sometimes human beings have command, mostly unconsciously, though perhaps sometimes as a development from research and experiment, of this force. It is said that in savage tribes there are “rain makers,” and it may be that among savages there are teleportationists. Some years ago, I’d have looked superior, if anybody had said this to me but a good many of us are not so given to the “tut-tut!” as we used to be. It may be that in civilized communities, because of their storages, a power to attract flows of water, being no longer needed, has virtually died out, still appearing occasionally, however.
It could be that, in reading what most persons think are foolish little yarns of falling stones, we are, visionarily, in the presence of cosmic constructiveness—or that once upon a time this whole earth was built up by streams of rocks, teleported from other parts of an existence. The crash of falling islands—the humps of piling continents—and then the cosmic humor of it all—or utmost spectacularity functioning, then declining, and surviving only as a vestige— or that the force that once heaped the peaks of the Rocky Mountains now slings pebbles at a couple of farmers, near Trenton, N.J.
So I’d conceive of the existence of a force, and the use of it, unconsciously mostly, by human beings. It may be that, if somebody, gifted with what we think we mean by “agency,” fiercely hates somebody else, he can, out of intense visualizations, direct, by teleportation, bombardments of stones upon his enemy.
Water falls on a tree, in Oklahoma. It is told of in an entomological magazine. Water falls in a house in Eccleston. I read that in a spiritualists’ periodical, though I went to a newspaper for the data. These are the isolations, or the specializations, of conventional treatments. I tell of water falling upon a tree, in Oklahoma, and of water falling in a house, in Eccleston, and think that both phenomena are manifestations of one force. It is my attempt to smash false demarcations: to take data away from narrow and exclusive treatments by spiritualists, astronomers, meteorologists, entomologists: also denying the validity of usurpations of words and ideas by metaphysicians and theologians. But my interest is not only that of a unifier: it is in bringing together seeming incongruities, and finding that they have affinity. I am very much aware of the invigoration of products of ideas that are foreign to each other, if they mate. This is exogamy, practiced with thoughts—to fertilize a volcanic eruption with a storm of frogs—or to mingle the fall of an edible substance from the sky with the unexplained appearance of Cagliostro. But I am a pioneer and no purist, and some of these stud-stunts of introducing vagabond ideas to each other may have about the eugenic value of some of the romances in houses of ill fame. I cannot expect to be both promiscuous and respectable. Later, most likely, some of these unions will be properly licensed.
Sometimes, in what I call “teleportations,” there seems to be “agency” and sometimes not. That the “agency” is not exclusively human, and has nothing to do with “spirits of the departed” is indicated, I suppose, if we accept that sometimes there are “occult powers” of trees. Some other time I may be able more clearly to think out an expression upon flows of pigeons to their homes, and flows of migratory birds, as teleportative, or quasi-teleportative. My suggestion as to the frequently reported “agency” of children, is that “occult forces” were, in earlier times of human affairs, far more prevalent, and far more necessary to the help and maintenance of human communities than they are now, with political and economic mechanisms somewhat well-established, or working, after a fashion; and that, wherein children are atavistic, they may be in rapport with forces that mostly human beings have outgrown.
Though just at present I am no darling of the popes, I expect to end up holy, some other time, with a general expression that all stories of miracles are not lies, or are not altogether lies; and that in the primitive conditions of the Middle Ages there were hosts of occurrences that now, considerably, though not altogether, have been outgrown. Anybody who broadly accepts the doctrine of relativity should accept that there are phenomena that exist relatively to one age, that do not, or do not so pronouncedly, exist in another age. I more or less accept a great deal that religionists piously believe. As I see myself, I represent a modernization of the old-fashioned atheist, who so sweepingly denied everything that seemed to interfere with his disbeliefs.
There are of course other explanations of the “occult powers” of children. One is that children, instead of being atavistic, may occasionally be far in advance of adults, foreshadowing coming human powers, because their minds are not stifled by conventions. After that, they go to school and lose their superiority. Few boy-prodigies have survived an education.
The outstanding suggestion, which, however, like many other suggestions, I cannot now develop, is that, if teleportation exists, it may be used. It may be criminally used, or it may be used commercially. Cargoes, without ships, and freights, without trains, may be of the traffics of the future. There may be teleportative voyages from planet to planet.
Altogether, so many of our data are bound up with jokes, hoaxes, and flippant treatments that I think of the toy and play genesis of many practical inventions. Billions of dollars are today seriously drawing dividends from toys and games that were put to work. Billions of laughs and jeers have preceded solemn expressions of satisfaction with fat bank accounts. But this is only reasoning, and is nothing but logic and argument, and there have been billions of laughs that never turned into anything more satisfactory—though where do I get the idea that there is anything more satisfactory than a laugh?
If, in other worlds, or in other parts of one relatively little existence, there be people who are far ahead of terrestrians, perhaps, teleportatively, beings from other places have come to this earth. And have seen nothing to detain them. Or perhaps some of the more degraded ones have felt at home here, and have hung around, or have stayed here. I’d think of these fellows as throw-backs: concealing their origin, of course; having perhaps only a slightly foreign appearance; having affinity with our barbarisms, which their own races had cast off. I’d think of a feeling for this earth, in other worlds, as corresponding to the desire of most of us, now and then, to go to a South Sea Island and be degraded. Throw-backs, translated to this earth, would not, unless intensely atavistic, take to what we regard as vices, but to what their own far-advanced people regard as perhaps unmentionable, or anyway, unprintable, degradations. They would join our churches, and wallow in pews. They’d lose all sense of decency and become college professors. Let a fall start, and the decline is swift. They’d end up as members of Congress.
There is another view, for which I am now gathering material—
New York Times,
Dec. 6, 1930—“Scores die; 300 stricken by poison fog in Belgium; panic grips countryside. Origin complete mystery. War scenes recalled.” It may be that it was war.
Mostly, explanations by the scientists were just about what one would expect, but, in the
New York Telegram,
December 6, Prof. H.H. Sheldon was quoted—“If there is a widespread, lethal fog in the Meuse Valley, the conclusion of science would be that it is being deliberately caused by men or women.”
It may be that inhabitants of other worlds, or other parts of one, organic existence, have declared war upon this earth, and have discharged down here, sometimes under cover of fogs, volumes of poisonous gases. I have other records that may indicate something of this kind, but, reluctantly, I give up this interesting notion, as applied to the occurrence of Dec. 5, 1930, because it associates with another phenomenon, of which I shall tell later.
Only two weeks after the tragedy in Belgium, appeared the fishmonger. The writer of an editorial, in the
New York Herald Tribune,
Dec. 19, 1930, started the conventionalizing and the minimizing and the obscurizing that always cloak events that are inconsistent with a main norm of supposed knowledge. “One may suspect that a sensational newspaper man, counting up the deaths, some dark day, in the smoky steel towns on the Allegheny River, could produce a story not far behind that from Belgium.”
Seventy-seven men and women were struck dead in Belgium. Oh, there’s always some commonplace explanation for these occurrences, if we only use our common sense.
5
Upon the 9th of January, 1907, Mr. McLaughlin, of the town of Magilligan, County Derry, Ireland, hadn’t a red light. Neither had his sister, nor his niece, nor his maidservant. They hadn’t a cabinet. But a show was staged at their house, as if they knew altogether too much about phosphorescent paint, and as if Mr. McLaughlin bought false whiskers. There were phenomena in sunlight, and there was an atmosphere as unmystical as pigs and neighbors. If any spiritualistic medium can do stunts, there is no more need for special conditions than there is for a chemist to turn down lights, start operations with a hymn, and ask whether there’s any chemical present that has affinity with something named Hydrogen.
Mr. McLaughlin had cleaned soot from the chimney. I wonder what relation there may be. It is said that immediately afterward, phenomena began. There were flows of soot from undetectable sources, in rooms, and from room to room, independent of drafts, sometimes moving against drafts. Also there were flows of stones, or bombardments. About thirty panes of glass were broken by stones, in the daytime, some of them in the presence of neighbors. This is the story, as it was told by reporters of the
Derry Journal
and the
Coleraine Constitution,
who had been sent to investigate. Probably there was a girl, aged fourteen or fifteen, in this house, but as to the ages of Mr. McLaughlin’s niece and maidservant, I could not learn particulars.
The conventionally scientific, or fishmongerish, thing to do would be to think of some commonplace explanation of the soot, and forget the stones. There would not be so much science, if people had good memories. The flows of stones can be explained as peggings by neighbors, if the soot be forgotten.
Our data have been bullied by two tyrannies. On one side, the spiritualists have arbitrarily taken over strange occurrences, as manifestations of “the departed.” On the other side, conventional science has pronounced against everything that does not harmonize with its systematizations. The scientist goes investigating, about as, to match ribbons, a woman goes shopping. The spiritualist stuffs the maws of his emotions. One is too dainty, and the other is gross. Perhaps, between these two, we shall someday be considered models of well-bred behavior.
Showers of frogs and worms and periwinkles—and now its showers of nails.
St. Louis Globe-Democrat,
Oct. 16, 1888—dispatch from Brownsville, Texas—that, on the night of the 12th, the lighthouse, at Point Isabel, occupied by Mrs. Schreiber, widow of the keeper, who had departed not long before, had been struck by a rain of nails. The next night, about dark, came another shower of nails. More variety—also down pelted clods of earth and oyster shells. Bombardments continued. People gathered and saw showers, mostly of nails, but could not find out where they were coming from.
In
Human Nature,
March, 1871, is a story of flows of corn that were passing from a locked crib, in Buchanan, Virginia. But, in this case, it was said that apparitions were seen, and mostly, at least so far as apparitions are concerned, our accounts are not ghost stories.
There have been mysterious showers of money, in public places. I have gravely copied accounts from newspapers, but there must have been something the matter with my gravity, because I put the notes away, without indexing them, and just now can’t find them, among about 60,000. One of the stories was of coins that, for several days, a few years ago, fell intermittently into Trafalgar Square, London. Traffic was so interfered with by scramblers that the police investigated, but could trace nothing to the buildings around the Square. Every now and then there was a jingle of coins, and a scramble, and the annoyance of the police was increased. They investigated.
Maybe there are experimenters who have learned to do such things, teleportatively. I’d see some sport in it, myself, if it wouldn’t cost too much.
There was a piker with pennies, in London, several years ago.
New York Evening World,
Jan. 18, 1928—flows of copper coins and chunks of coal, in a house in Battersea, London, occupied by a family named Robinson. “The Robinsons are educated people, and scout the idea of a supernatural agency. However they are completely baffled, and declare the phenomena take place in closed rooms, thus precluding the possibility of objects being thrown from outside.”
There’s small chance of such phenomena being understood, just at present, because everybody’s a logician. Almost everybody reasons: “There are not supernatural occurrences: therefore these alleged phenomena did not occur.” However through some closed skulls, mostly independently of eyes and ears and noses, which tell mostly only what they should tell, is penetrating the idea that flows of coins and chunks of coal may be as natural as the flows of rivers. Those of us who have taken this degree of our initiation may now go on to a more advanced stage of whatever may be the matter with us.
Aug. 30, 1919—Swanton Novers Rectory, near Melton Constable, Norfolk, England—oil “spurting” from walls and ceilings. It was thought that the house was over an oil well, the liquid percolating and precipitating, but it was not crude oil that was falling: the liquids were paraffin and petrol. Then came showers of water. Oil was falling from one of the appearing-points, at a rate of a quart in ten minutes. Methylated spirits and sandalwood oil were falling. In an account, dated September 2nd, it is said that receptacles had been placed under appearing-points, and that about fifty gallons of oil had been caught. Of thirteen showers, upon September 1st, two were of water.
The circumstance that is of most importance in this story is that such quantities of oils and water appeared here that the Rector, the Rev. Hugh Guy, had been driven out, and had moved his furniture to another house.
London
Times,
September 9—“Norfolk Mystery Solved.” We are told that Mr. Oswald Williams, the “illusionist,” or the stage magician, and his wife, who were investigating, had seen the housemaid, aged fifteen, enter the house, which for several days had been unoccupied, and throw a glass of water, which they had salted, to a ceiling, then crying that another shower had occurred. They had shut off the water supply, in the house, and had placed around glasses and pails of water, salted so that it could be identified.
As Mr. and Mrs. Williams told it, they, in hiding, saw the girl throw the salted water, and rushed out of their hiding place and accused her. Conceivably all for the sake of science, and conceivably with not a thought of publicity values, Mr. Williams told newspaper reporters of his successful stratagem, and put completeness into his triumph, by telling that the girl had confessed. “She admitted that she had done it, and finally she broke down and made a clean breast of it.”
Times,
September 12—girl interviewed by a representative of a Norwich newspaper—denied that she had confessed—denied that she had played tricks of any kind—denied that the Williamses had been in hiding—told that she had gone to the house, with Mr. and Mrs. Williams, and that a wet spot had appeared upon a ceiling, and that she had been wrongfully accused of having thrown water.
“According to the little girl’s statement, she was at no time alone in the kitchen” (London
Daily News,
September 10). “She insists that she was the victim of a trick, and that great pressure was put upon her to admit that she had thrown salted water to the ceiling. ‘I was told,’ she said, ‘that I would be given one minute to say I had done it, or go to prison. I said that I didn’t do it.’ ”
Having an interest in ways in which data are suppressed, I have picked up some information upon how little girls are “pressed.” No details of the “pressure” were published in the London newspapers.
Norfolk News,
November 8—that, in the Holt Petty Sessions had come up the case of the girl, Mabel Louisa Philippo—spelled
Phillips,
in the other accounts—complainant against Mrs. Oswald Williams, who was charged with having assaulted her. The girl said that Mrs. Williams had time after time struck her in the face, and had called attention to her face, reddened by blows, as evidence of her guilt. Mrs. Philippo testified that, when she arrived at the rectory, her daughter’s first words were that she had been beaten. The Rev. Hugh Guy testified, but he did not testify that he was in the house at the time. According to details picked up from other accounts, he was not in the house at the time.
It is said that legal procedure in Great Britain is superior to whatever goes under that name in the United States. I can’t accept that legal procedure anywhere is superior to anything. Mr. Guy, who had not been present, testified that he had not seen the girl struck, and I found no record of any objection by the girl’s attorney to such testimony. The case was dismissed.
And then a document closed investigation. It was a letter from Mr. Guy, published in the
Times,
September 13. Mr. Guy wrote that he had tasted the water, upon the ceiling, and had tasted salt in it: so he gave his opinion that the girl had thrown the water. Most likely there is considerable salt, reminders of long successions of hams and bacons, on every kitchen ceiling.
According to Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the girl had confessed. But see Mr. Guy’s letter to the
Times—
that the girl had not confessed.
So, because of Mr. Guy’s letter, the Williamses cannot be depended upon. But we’re going to find that Mr. Guy cannot be depended upon. To be sure, I am going to end up with something about photographs, but photographs cannot be depended upon. I can’t see that out of our own reasoning, we can get anywhere, if there isn’t anything phenomenal that can be depended upon. It is my expression that, if we are entering upon an era of a revised view of many formerly despised and ridiculed data, there will be a simultaneous variation of many minds, more favorably to them, and that what is called reasoning in those minds will be only supplementary to a general mental tropism.
The investigation was stopped by Mr. Guy. The inquiry-shearer, or the mystery-bobber, was this statement, in his letter—“It would have taken only a small quantity to create the mess.”
The meaning of this statement is that, whereas gallons, or barrels, of oils, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, could not be attributed to a mischievous girl, “only a small quantity” could be.
Flows of frogs—flows of worms—flows of lies—read this:
London
Daily Express,
August 30—The rector, in response to a request from the
Daily Express,
for the latest news, reported as follows:
“To the Editor of the
Daily Express:
“Expert engineer arriving Monday. Drippings ascribed to exudations, on August 8, of petrol, methylated spirits, and paraffin. House evacuated; vapor dangerous; every room affected; downpour rather than dripping—Guy.’ ”
In the
Daily Express,
September 2, is published Mr. Guy’s statement that he had been compelled to move his furniture from the house.
According to other accounts, the quantities were great. In the London
Daily News
were published reports by an architect, a geologist, and a chemist, telling of observations upon profuse flows. In the Norwich newspapers, the accounts are similar. For instance, the foreman of an oil company, having been asked to give an opinion, had visited the house, and had caught in a tub, two gallons of oil, which had dripped, in four hours, from one of the appearing-points. Just how, as a matter of tricks, a girl could have been concerned in these occurrences is not picturable to me. The house was crowded, while the oil expert, for instance, was investigating. But it does seem that unconsciously she was concerned. The first of the showers occurred in her room. Ceilings were bored and ripped off, but nothing by which to explain was found. Then another stage magician, Mr. N. Maskelyne, went to Swanton Novers, with the idea of exposing trickery. Possibly this competition made the Williamses hasty. But Mr. Maskelyne could find nothing by which to explain the mystery. According to him
(Daily Mail,
September 10) “barrels of it” had appeared, during the time of his observations.
Just how effective, as an inquiry stopper, was the story of the girl and the “small quantity,” is shown by the way the Society for Psychical Research was influenced by it. See the
Journal S.P.R.,
October, 1919. Mr. Guy’s letter to the
Times
is taken as final. No knowledge of conflicting statements by him is shown. The Society did not investigate. “A small quantity” can be explained, as it should be explained, but “barrels of it” must be forgotten. Case dismissed.
If the Rev. Hugh Guy described at one time a “downpour,” which had driven out him and his tables, chairs, beds, rugs, all those things that I think of seriously, because I have recently done some moving, myself, and then told of “a small quantity,” why have I not an explanation of this contradiction?
I wrote to Mr. Guy, asking him to explain, having the letter registered for the sake of a record. I have received no answer.
In the London
Daily Mail,
Sept. 3, 1919, are reproduced two photographs of oil dripping from different ceilings. Large drops of oil are clearly visible.
