Campbell on Fort-Part Two

Charles Fort's third book, Lo! (1931), was serialized in Astounding Stories in eight parts, from April to November 1934. It seems certain to me that, as a young writer and reader of science fiction stories, John W. Campbell, Jr. (1910-1971) would have encountered it. Just three years after Lo! was in Astounding, Campbell became editor of the magazine. In March 1938, the title went from Astounding Stories to Astounding Science-Fiction and the Golden Age of Science Fiction was off to a start. The hyphen was later dropped.

Weird Tales was still going strong in 1938, despite having lost two of its top authors, Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) and H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). In March 1939, Campbell launched a magazine of fantasy as a companion to Astounding and in competition with Weird Tales. It was called Unknown, and the first issue, from March 1939, contained one of the most overtly Fortean stories that I know of, the novel Sinister Barrier by Eric Frank Russell (1905-1978). In August 1941, Campbell reviewed The Books of Charles Fort in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction. According to Sam Moskowitz, Campbell's review "heartily recommends it as a source book for plots." (1)

Thirteen years after the publication of Sinister Barrier, on October 1, 1952, Campbell wrote to Russell. His letter must have been in response to one by Russell, for Campbell addressed his correspondent:

    I'm trying to introduce the proposition of sciences beyond those currently known and accepted.

    But Eric PLEASE believe me; Charles Fort made a mistake. [. . .] (2)

Campbell then proceeded to explain just why and how Fort was wrong:

He insisted that the scientists understand him when he explained it all to them in Swahili. (p. 68)

Also, Fort began screaming at the scientists, and calling them names. (p. 69) 

Fort refused to take the trouble to translate his observations into coherent language--language of science. (p. 69) 

It counts when you can reach an understanding that is valid, and communicate that understanding to others. [¶ ] Fort couldn't. He did it wrong. He angered the best thinkers, the clearest, straightest-thinking minds who could have helped the most. His writing appealed largely to muzzy-minded people who went in for fortune telling, crystal-ball readings, and the like; they were the bulk of his audience. (p. 70) 

Fort's attitude was just as ineffective as Hubbard's; Hubbard angered the psychiatrists by his belligerence. (p. 70) 

Fort was insisting that someone else do the work of integrating them [presumably his data], and refusing to organize and interpret the data into intelligible stuff himself. [. . .] He was too lazy to do the hard work; he wanted it done for him [. . .]. (p. 70)

And then, after all of that, Campbell conceded:

     His data was valid. It contained important understandings, and important clues. In that, he was right. But why didn't he do some of the hard work of integrating it and finding the pattern, instead of frothing about how everyone else wouldn't do the work? (p. 70)

But maybe that concession was only towards Campbell's own extraordinary claim, which comes right after:

     For your information, Peg and I have done it. We have the basic understanding of what the psionic functions are, and how they work. It took us over two years of damned hard work. The reason why I'm now starting it in the magazine is that I do have some integrated understanding of what we're dealing with. I'm not yet ready to say a damned thing about it, either, because I recognize that Fort was wrong, and why he was wrong, and what the right answer is. Until I can demonstrate the phenomena myself, and communicate the exact nature of the mechanisms involved, with demonstrations of each step, I'm not ready to talk. When I've done that, though, by God the physical scientists will gladly pitch in and help. I know the general concept of teleportation, levitation, and a few other spontaneous psi phenomena--also telekinesis, etc. In addition, I know the general basic laws which can permit precognition, and an absolute barrier of pure force that will block passage of any force now known to physical science. The fundamental clues are to be found in many places; among the places are the sort of data Fort collected--but was too stinking lazy to dig into and integrate himself.

     I am not kidding.

     I am not cracked, either. (pp. 70-71)

I'll say it again: Extraordinary.

There are a few things to take from all of that:

First, I'm not sure that Campbell understood Fort very well. I'm not sure that I do, either, but it seems to me that Fort was a monist. To him, everything was already integrated. No process of integration was required. Also, it seems to me that Fort didn't want to speak the language of science. He dealt with data that were damned and excluded by science. Maybe he thought it was the scientists who had failed to communicate very well. He certainly had plenty of examples of their fumbling over explanations of his data. Put another way, maybe Fort took things on his own terms rather than theirs, for theirs seem to have failed.

Second, when I read what Campbell wrote about "muzzy-minded people who went in for fortune telling, crystal-ball readings, and the like," I thought of the advertisements in Weird Tales and one of its apparent successors, Fate magazine. I wrote about these things the other day. I also thought of a quote from The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (1937):

In addition to this there is the horrible--the really disquieting--prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England. (Chapter 11)

I think the phenomenon is the same, no matter when and where it occurs: Belief systems from the fringes attract believers from the fringes. A corollary: Custom and tradition, specifically traditional religion, can be replaced only by religions (such as socialism and communism) of an equal (and frequently opposing) intensity. Or so people think. In fact, these religions, quasi-religions, and pseudo-religions almost always fail.

Third, Campbell wrote in late 1952, just two and a half years after publishing L. Ron Hubbard's quasi- or pseudo-nonfictional article "Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science" in Astounding Science Fiction, in May 1950. In reading about Campbell and his involvement with Hubbard, I get the idea that, for a time at least, Campbell was possessed by a kind of craziness when it came to Dianetics. Maybe by 1952, he, like the rest of the country, had cooled off and was not so crazy anymore. It's interesting, though, that Campbell would compare Hubbard's belligerence towards psychiatry to Fort's gadfly attitude towards conventional science. It sounds like Campbell had drifted from Hubbard--if he had not actually broken from him--by late 1952.

Fourth, Campbell claimed that after two years and more of "damned hard work," he and his wife, Peg Campbell, had "done it." They had made their world-changing discovery. I guess that means they began their explorations around the time Dianetics was either in the works or already out there in the world. In any case, Campbell sounds almost manic in that final, long quote from above. Put in terms I have used in this blog, it sounds like Campbell had found his gnosis, his special knowledge regarding the true and previously hidden nature of the universe or of some aspect of the universe. It's no wonder he would be so excited. He had found the key to unlock the door that would open onto all-understanding. "I am not kidding," he wrote. "I am not cracked, either." And yet we have nothing from his world-changing discovery. Seventy years have gone by and we have nothing.

Farnsworth Wright never made such claims.

Notes
(1) From "Lo! The Poor Forteans" by Sam Moskowitz in Amazing Stories, June 1965.
(2) From a letter by John W. Campbell, Jr., to Eric Frank Russell, dated October 1, 1952, in The John W. Campbell Letters, Volume 1 (Franklin, TN: AC Projects, 1985), pages 68-74. The quote is from page 68. All of the other quotes from Campbell above are from that same letter, with page numbers in parentheses.

Original text copyright 2022 Terence E. Hanley