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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
211
Poltergeists
do
not
assimilate
with
our
own
present
quasi-system,
which
is
an
attempt
to
correlate
denied
or
disregarded
data
as
phenomena
of
extra-telluric
forces,
expressed
in
physical
terms.
Therefore
I
regard
poltergeists
as
evil
or
false
or
discordant
or
absurd--names
that
we
give
to
various
degrees
or
aspects
of
the
unassimilable,
or
that
which
resists
attempts
to
organize,
harmonize,
systematize,
or,
in
short,
to
positivize--names
that
we
give
to
our
recognitions
of
the
negative
state.
I
don't
care
to
deny
poltergeists,
because
I
suspect
that
later,
when
we're
more
enlightened,
or
when
we
widen
the
range
of
our
credulities,
or
take
on
more
of
that
increase
of
ignorance
that
is
called
knowledge,
poltergeists
may
become
assimilable.
Then
they'll
be
as
reasonable
as
trees.
By
reasonableness
I
mean
that
which
assimilates
with
a
dominant
force,
or
system,
or
a
major
body
of
thought--which
is,
itself,
of
course,
hypnosis
and
delusion--developing,
however,
in
our
acceptance,
to
higher
and
higher
approximations
to
realness.
The
poltergeists
are
now
evil
or
absurd
to
me,
proportionately
to
their
present
unassimilableness,
compounded,
however,
with
the
factor
of
their
possible
future
assimilableness.
We
lug
in
the
poltergeists,
because
some
of
our
own
data,
or
alleged
data,
merge
away
indistinguishably
with
data,
or
alleged
data,
of
them:
Instances
of
stones
that
have
been
thrown,
or
that
have
fallen,
upon
a
small
area,
from
an
unseen
and
undetectable
source.
London
Times,
April
27,
1872:
"From
4
o'clock,
Thursday
afternoon,
until
half
past
eleven,
Thursday
night,
the
houses,
56
and
58
Reverdy
Road,
Bermondsey,
were
assailed
with
stones
and
other
missiles
coming
from
an
unseen
quarter.
Two
children
were
injured,
every
window
broken,
and
several
articles
of
furniture
were
destroyed.
Although
there
was
a
strong
body
of
policemen
scattered
in
the
neighborhood,
they
could
not
trace
the
direction
whence
the
stones
were
thrown."
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