Чарльз Форт: Ғылыми аномалиялар зерттеушісінің өмірі мен мұрасы

American writer (1874–1932)
the American writer, and source of the term "Fortean"

Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print. His work continues to inspire admirers, who refer to themselves as "Forteans", and has influenced some aspects of science fiction. Fort's collections of scientific anomalies, including The Book of the Damned (1919), influenced numerous science fiction writers with their skepticism and as sources of ideas. "Fortean" phenomena are events which seem to challenge the boundaries of accepted scientific knowledge, and the Fortean Times (founded as The News in 1973 and renamed in 1976) investigates such phenomena.

Suffering from poor health and failing eyesight, Fort was pleasantly surprised to find himself the subject of a cult following. Talk arose of the formation of a formal organization to study the type of odd events related by his books. Jerome Clark writes, "Fort himself, who did nothing to encourage any of this, found the idea hilarious. Yet he faithfully corresponded with his readers, some of whom had taken to investigating reports of anomalous phenomena and sending their findings to Fort". Fort distrusted doctors and did not seek medical help for his worsening health. Rather, he emphasized completing Wild Talents. After he collapsed on May 3, 1932, Fort was rushed to Royal Hospital. Later that same day, Fort's publisher visited him to show him the advance copies of Wild Talents. Fort died only hours afterward, probably of leukemia. He was interred in the Fort family plot in Albany, New York. The notes were kept on cards and scraps of paper in shoeboxes, in Fort's cramped handwriting. Material created by Charles Fort has also survived as part of the papers of Theodore Dreiser, held at the University of Pennsylvania. From this research, Fort wrote four books: The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents (1932); one book was written between New Lands and Lo! but it was abandoned and absorbed into Lo!.

Religious scholars such as Jeffrey J. Kripal and Joseph P. Laycock view Fort as a pioneering theorist who helped define "paranormal" as a discursive category and provided insight into its importance in human experience. Consistently critical of how science studied abnormal phenomena in his day, Fort remains a point of reference for those who engage in such studies today.

More than a few modern authors of fiction and nonfiction who have written about the influence of Fort are sincere devotees of Fort. One of the most notable is British philosopher John Michell, who wrote the introduction to the edition of Lo!, published by John Brown in 1996. Michell says: "Fort, of course, made no attempt at defining a world view, but the evidence he uncovered gave him an 'acceptance' of reality as something far more magical and subtly organized than is considered proper today." Stephen King also uses the works of Fort to illuminate his main characters, notably It and Firestarter. In Firestarter, the parents of a pyrokinetically gifted child are advised to read Fort's Wild Talents rather than the works of baby doctor Benjamin Spock. Loren Coleman is a well known cryptozoologist, author of The Unidentified (1975) dedicated to Fort, and Mysterious America, which Fortean Times termed a Fortean classic. Coleman terms himself the first Vietnam era conscientious objector to base his pacificist ideas on Fortean thoughts. Jerome Clark has described himself as a "skeptical Fortean". Mike Dash is another Fortean, bringing his historian's training to bear on all manner of odd reports, while being careful to avoid uncritically accepting any orthodoxy, be it that of fringe devotees or mainstream science. Science fiction writers of note including Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, and Robert Anton Wilson were also fans of the work of Fort. Alfred Bester's teleportation themed novel, The Stars My Destination, pays homage to the coiner of the term by naming the first teleporter "Charles Fort Jaunte". Fort's work, of compilation and commentary on anomalous phenomena has been carried on by William R. Corliss, whose self published books and notes bring Fort's collections up to date. In chapter 3 of William Gaddis’s 1955 novel The Recognitions, protagonist Wyatt Gwyon twice quotes from Fort’s The Book of the Damned “By the damned, I mean the excluded”; “By prostitution, I mean usefulness”—and paraphrases him from the same book: “Charles Fort says maybe we’re fished for, by supercelestial beings.” Ivan T. Sanderson, Scottish naturalist and writer, was a devotee of Fort's work, and referenced it heavily in several of his own books on unexplained phenomena, notably Things (1967), and More Things (1969). Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier's The Morning of the Magicians was also heavily influenced by Fort's work and mentions it often. Author Donald Jeffries referenced Charles Fort repeatedly in his 2007 novel The Unreals. Joe Milutis writes a short chapter in his book Failure, a Writer's Life on Charles Fort, characterising Fort's prose as "well nigh unreadable, yet strangely exhilarating". Noted UK paranormalist, Fortean, and ordained priest Lionel Fanthorpe presented the Fortean TV series on Channel 4, between 1997 and 1998. Paul Thomas Anderson's popular movie Magnolia (1999) has an underlying theme of unexplained events, taken from the 1920s and '30s works of Charles Fort. Fortean author Loren Coleman has written a chapter about this motion picture, entitled "The Teleporting Animals and Magnolia", in one of his recent books. The film has many hidden Fortean themes, notably "falling frogs". In one scene, one of Fort's books is visible on a table in a library and an end credit thanks him by name. In the 2011 film The Whisperer in Darkness, Fort is portrayed by Andrew Leman. American crime and science fiction author Fredric Brown included an excerpt from Fort's book Wild Talents as an epigraph to his novel Compliments of a Fiend. In that quote, Fort speculated about the disappearance of two people named Ambrose and wondered "was someone collecting Ambroses?" Brown's novel concerns the disappearance of a character named Ambrose, and the kidnapper calls himself the "Ambrose collector" as an obvious homage to Fort. In Blue Balliett's bestselling children's novel, Chasing Vermeer, Fort is given several mentions throughout the book, such as Fort's Lo! being found and thoroughly read by one of the book's protagonists, and being an inspiration to the main characters.