Talk:Charles Fort

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Restoration suggested

I am briefly delaying my intention to leave my current location, to suggest that this quote removed as "unreliable source of attribution, person found non-notable" might deserve to be restored as a notable one:

• The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property.
  • A surviving quotation relating to the zoo hypothesis, from the manuscript for the unpublished novel X (1915), quoted in The Odin Brotherhood‎ (2004) by Mark Mirabello, p. 126

Despite some recent activity at Wikipedia which has resultied in a previous article on this somewhat notable History professor Mark Mirabello being deemed "unnotable" or not notable enough for an article, I am far less inclined to question or reject the attribution in a published work, without clear evidence of either fraud or other forms of error — and if that were proven, or strongly evident, I would be inclined to restore it to a "Disputed" or "Misattribution" section. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 15:04, 14 February 2013 (UTC) + tweaks

I looked up The Odin Brotherhood‎ in order to ascertain by what means, occult or otherwise, Mr. Mirabello was able to quote from an unpublisned manuscript that was destroyed by its author decades ago. I could not view page 126 of the cited 2004 edition at GoogleBooks, but archive.org has the entire 2003 Fifth Edition (First Mandrake of Oxford edition), which appears to be substantially the same. Here is the complete passage from page 126:

The Earth is a farm,' wrote Charles Fort.
'We are someone else's property.'
[unbalanced quote marks in source]

There is no citation to the X manuscript. The passage appears at the end of the book, on a page captioned "Also by Mark Mirabello: The Cannibal Within", which is, it might be noted, a work of fiction.

My opinion stands, that this is an unreliable source of attribution. Of course, unreliable or even erroneous attributions by notable sources are sometimes famous in themselves. This isn't. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:47, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I can accept your research as indicating it probably should not be included at the current time, but am open to others presenting any further information, if they are so inclined. I am just briefly checking in from my home, and will soon be off again, and I am not likely to pursue the matter any further myself. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 17:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

It is a paraphrase at best. BorkBorkGoesTheCode (talk) 06:46, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Unsourced

• Now there are so many scientists who believe in dowsing, that the suspicion comes to me that it may be only a myth after all.

• My own notion is that it is very unsportsmanlike to ever mention fraud. Accept anything. Then explain it your way.

• In hosts of minds, today, are impressions that the word 'eerie' means nothing except convenience to makers of crossword puzzles. There are gulfs of the unaccountable, but they are bridged by terminology.

Except for foreign punctuation and context, the quotes are genuine. The first quote is from chapter 29 page 1049 of Wild Talents. "Now there are so many scientists who believe in dowsing that the suspicion comes to me that it may be only a myth, after all." site cite: http://www.sacred-texts.com/fort/wild/wild29.htm

The second quote is from chapter 11 page 157 of The Book of the Damned. "My own notion is that it is very unsportsmanlike ever to mention fraud. Accept anything. Then explain it your way." http://www.sacred-texts.com/fort/damn/damn11.htm

The third quote was originally split between pages 855 and 856 of Wild Talents, chapter three. Page 855: "In hosts of minds, today, are impressions that the word "eerie" means nothing except convenience to makers of crossword puzzles." Page 856: "There are gulfs of the unaccountable, but they are bridged by terminology." http://www.sacred-texts.com/fort/wild/wild03.htm BorkBorkGoesTheCode (talk) 06:07, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Chapter confusion

Since different reprint editions of Charles Fort's books have different chapter organization schemes, I propose moving all references to specific chapters, sections, etc. into citation links. BorkBorkGoesTheCode (talk) 10:46, 5 August 2017 (UTC)