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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
175
A
great
difficulty
in
trying
to
understand
vast
constructions
that
show
no
interest
in
us:
The
notion
that
we
must
be
interesting.
I
accept
that,
though
we're
usually
avoided,
probably
for
moral
reasons,
sometimes
this
earth
has
been
visited
by
explorers.
I
think
that
the
notion
that
there
have
been
extra-mundane
visitors
to
China,
within
what
we
call
the
historic
period,
will
be
only
ordinarily
absurd,
when
we
come
to
that
datum.
I
accept
that
some
of
the
other
worlds
are
of
conditions
very
similar
to
our
own.
I
think
of
others
that
are
very
different--so
that
visitors
from
them
could
not
live
here--without
artificial
adaptations.
How
some
of
them
could
breathe
our
attenuated
air,
if
they
came
from
a
gelatinous
atmosphere--
Masks.
The
masks
that
have
been
found
in
ancient
deposits.
Most
of
them
are
of
stone,
and
are
said
to
have
been
ceremonial
regalia
of
savages--
But
the
mask
that
was
found
in
Sullivan
County,
Missouri,
in
1879
(American
Antiquarian,
3-336).
It
is
made
of
iron
and
silver.
11
One
of
the
damnedest
in
our
whole
saturnalia
of
the
accursed--
Because
it
is
hopeless
to
try
to
shake
off
an
excommunication
only
by
saying
that
we're
damned
by
blacker
things
than
ourselves;
and
that
the
damned
are
those
who
admit
they're
of
the
damned.
Inertia
and
hypnosis
are
too
strong
for
us.
We
say
that:
then
we
go
right
on
admitting
we're
of
the
damned.
It
is
only
by
being
more
nearly
real
that
we
can
sweep
away
the
quasi-things
that
oppose
us.
Of
course,
as
a
whole,
we
have
considerable
amorphousness,
but
we
are
thinking
now
of
"individual"
acceptances.
Wideness
is
an
aspect
of
Universalness
or
Realness.
If
our
syntheses
disregard
fewer
data
than
do
opposing
syntheses--which
are
often
not
syntheses
at
all,
but
mere
consideration
of
some
one
circumstance--less
widely
synthetic
things
fade
away
before
us.
Harmony
is
an
aspect
of
the
Universal,
by
which
we
mean
Realness.
If
we
approximate
more
highly
to
harmony
among
the
parts
of
an
expression
and
to
all
available
circumstances
of
an
occurrence,
the
self-contradictors
turn
hazy.
Solidity
is
an
aspect
of
realness.
We
pile
them
up,
and
we
pile
them
up,
or
they
pass
and
pass
and
pass:
things
that
bulk
large
as
they
march
by,
supporting
and
solidifying
one
another--
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