La pensée de Charles Fort à travers ses œuvres

A côté de la compilation d'anecdotes et de témoignages relatifs à des phénomènes inexpliqués, et en lien direct avec son combat contre “la science moderne”, Charles Fort a développé une vision du monde bien particulière, un discours sur le réel et sur la faiblesse congénitale de l'être humain à en rendre compte. Mais l'auteur n'a pas jugé utile de rassembler ses réflexions en un volume particulier, on en retrouve donc des éléments disséminées parmi ses quatre livres publiés : Book of the Damned, Lo!, New Lands et Wild Talents.

I do not think. I have never had a thought. Therefore something or another. I do not think, but thoughts occur in what is said to be « my » mind-though, instead of being « in » it, they are it – just as inhabitants do not occur in a city, but are the city. There is a governing tendency among these thoughts, just as there is among people in any community, or as there is in the movements of the planets, or in the arrangements of cells constituting a plant, or an animal. So far as goes any awareness of « mine », « I » have no soul, no self, no entity, thought at times of something like a harmonization of « my » elements, « I » approximate to a state of unified being. WT 103

In recent years I have noted much that has impressed upon my mind the thought that religionists have taken over many phenomena, as exclusively their own – have colored and discredited with their emotional explanations – but that someday some of these occurrences will be rescued from theological interpretations and exploitations, and will be the subect-matter of: new enlightenments and new dogmas, new progresses, delusions, freedoms, and tyrannies. I incline to the acceptance of many stories of miracles, but think that these miracles would have occured, if this earth had been inhabited by atheists. WT 126

But I am suspicious of all this wisdom, because it makes for humility and contentment. These thoughts are community-thoughts, and tend to suppress the individual. They are corollaries of mechanistic philosophy, and I represent revolt against mechanistic philosophy, not as applying to a great deal, but as absolute. (…) In our existence of law-lawness, I conceive of two magics: one as representing unknown law, and the other as expressing lawlessness. WT 136

If I give somebody a coin, I hand him good and evil, just as truly as I hand him head and tail. Whoever discovered the uses of coal was a benefactor of all mankind, and most damnably something else. Automobiles, and their seemingly indispensable services – but automobiles and crime and a million exasperations. There are persons who think they see clear advantages in the use of a telephone – then the telephone rings. WT 141