International Fortean Organization
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The International Fortean Organization (INFO) is a network of Fortean researchers/writers, both amateur and professional, many of whom have developed life-long friendships and professional relationships. John Keel, the notable author and parapsychologist, in both his writings and at his appearances at INFO's FortFest, says "the International Fortean Organization (INFO) carries on Charles Fort's name as successor to the Fortean Society." Keel, Colin Wilson and John Michell are long-time advisors to the organization.
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[edit] History
The organization was formed in the early 1960s by brothers, the writers Ron and Paul Willis, who acquired much of the material of the original Fortean Society which had begun in 1932 in the spirit of Charles Fort but which had grown silent by 1959 with the death of its' founder Tiffany Thayer. The Fortean Society was formed by a friend of Charles Fort, Theodore Dreiser, who had threatened his publisher that he would leave if The Book of the Damned was not put into print. The original society included many of New York's literati including Booth Tarkington, Ben Hecht, Alexander Woolcott and Dorothy Parker. Oliver Wendall Holmes and H.L. Mencken were also early members along with a number of fledgling science-fiction writers such as Eric Frank Russell. The early tradition of gatherings punctuated by equal measures of wit and irreverance continues in INFO today.
The Willis brothers owned a bookstore in the States (Arlington, Virginia) and were also publishers of SF fanzines and magazines of speculative fiction and non-fiction, notably "Anubis". They enjoyed a long-time correspondence and relationship with many Fort-inspired science fiction writers such as Fritz Leiber, Philip K. Dick, Robert Anton Wilson and, especially Robert A. Heinlein, who remained a loyal member and friend to INFO until his death. Paul was an exceptionally avid letter and article writer and had long-running data exchanges with an international group of nascent forteans including Bob Rickard who went on to found "The Times" in 1967, later the "Fortean Times", which was encouraged to expand with the help of corporate sponsorship. Rickard, and others, urged Paul Willis to publish. INFO was incorporated as a non-profit in 1965. The "INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown" was born shortly thereafter in the Spring of 1967.
Membership was set at $12US and Heinlein would dutifully send in a check which was promptly framed and put on the wall. Heinlein would then send in a letter complaining that his check had not been cashed, along with suggestions for articles and improvements and, that too, would be framed and put on the wall. This incident is mentioned more than a few times in the "INFO Journal".
Ron Willis, with help from his brother Paul, and in collaboration with Jacques Bergier, in 1974 brought out the book, Extraterrestrial Intervention, the Evidence, published by Henry Regnary Company in the US and as in France as Le Livre de l'inexplicable by Editions Alvin Michel. The authorship (or editorship) is credited to "Jacques Bergier and the Editors of INFO" and contains many articles reprinted from the "INFO Journal".
The Willis', under the banner of the International Fortean Organization (INFO), had also started a conference called FortFest with speeches given by and largely attended by those working in the field of anomalous phenomena. Early INFO conferences included INFO members David Drake, also a long-time member of the INFO Board of Directors, who went on to have over one hundred science-fiction novels published and the legendary fortean John Keel who frequently presented at FortFest, as often as his intermittent health permitted. Keel was, and still is, an advisor and friend to INFO and would give FortFest a generous plug during his stint as a contributing editor at Fate Magazine and be available for midnight wit and wisdom consultations. Keel also gave INFO collections of his early magazine publishing efforts which inspired many articles in the INFO Journal and which INFO lent to Board member Mark Chorvinsky who was eager to start his own magazine, Strange. Keel started his own short-lived, prestigious, New York Fortean Society and named the long-time (today, 26 years) Chair of FortFest and current President of INFO Phyllis Benjamin as a Founding Member and awarded her his often called "coveted" Falling Frog Award for contributions to continuing the work of Charles Fort in 1988. Other recipients of the Falling Frog Award included notable fortean writers/researchers Doug Skinner and Antonio Huneeus.
The Willis' and an ex-pat American living in Canada who called himself Mr. X (after one of Charles Fort's unpublished novels) were concerned that Fort's works, in the public domain, would be lost to posterity and engaged in a letter campaign and, eventually, went to New York City to Dover Publications, Inc. to urge them to publish the works. Dover complied and the following is from "The Complete Works of Charles Fort", 1974 edition with an introduction by Damon Knight "Founder and President of Science Fiction Writers of America, author "Charles Fort, Prophet of the Unexplained":..This Dover edition;...a replication of the omnibus volume originally published for the Fortean Society by Henry Holt and Company, New York in 1941. The four books by Fort are unabridged and unaltered, but the 1941 Introduction by Tiffany Thayer has been omitted...The present edition has had the encouragement and cooperation of the International Fortean Organization (Info), P.O. Box 367, Arlington, Virginia 22210."
The Arlington post office box was moved to P.O. Box N, College Park, MD 20740 to reflect the location of the INFO offices and the INFO Library in College Park. Paul Willis had relocated to College Park following the 1975 death from a brain tumor of Ron Willis. An office had to be found for INFO's 10,000+ books and large collection of clippings, files, and magazines such as the complete issues of "Doubt" dating back to the original Fortean Society along with letters from Theodore Dreiser, Tiffany Thayer and Ben Hecht. The original notes of Charles Fort had been donated to the New York Public Library where it remains today.
INFO rented space from John Carlson who went on to become a president of INFO and to found the Archaeoastronomy Department of the University of Maryland. Paul Willis named the building NO! in protest of a new-age bookstore called YES! who had rejected an INFO-visiting Bob Rickard who had petitioned YES! to carry the works of Charles Fort, The Fortean Times and the INFO Journal. INFO remained based in College Park for over twenty years until a fire necessitated a move in 2003.
[edit] Moving On
INFO Life Member, Dame Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, the founder and director of the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) suggested the move to Baltimore, the home of the Ouija Board and the resting place of Edgar Allan Poe, and to make the new conference center at AVAM the home for the organizations' FortFest, the world's first and oldest conference dedicated to anomalous phenomena and the spirit of Charles Fort. Hoffberger considers the FortFest, scheduled for the weekend of March 29, 2008, to be part of the museum's regular programming.
The new mailing address of INFO is P.O. Box 50088, Baltimore, MD 21211.
The International Fortean Organization (INFO) has a long history of disseminating information which includes the 35-year publishing history of the "INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown" and the FortFest, the world's first, often called most prestigious, conference on anomalous phenomena dedicated to the spirit of Charles Fort. A "living magazine" of tapes and cds/dvds/mp3s has been created from ground-breaking Fort-influenced authors such as Colin Wilson, John Michell, Graham Hancock, John Anthony West, William Corliss, John Keel, Joscelyn Godwin and many others on the forefront of phenomena research, who have given presentations at their conferences such as FortFest, FortNite and FortScape and is available from the organization. FortFest has hosted many highly respected, well known, fortean speakers such as Graham Hancock, John Anthony West, Raymond Moody, Ingo Swann, Richard Hoagland, Michael Schneider, Michael Grossman, Larry Arnold, William Sullivan, Michael Fleishman, Sal Trento, Michael Cremo, Budd Hopkins, Peter Tompkins, Colin Wilson, John Keel,John Michell, Larry Arnold, Phyllis Galde, Rosemary Guiley, Paul Laffoley, Gerald Hawkins, Alvin Holm, Patrick Harpur,Joscelyn Godwin, Phyllis Benjamin, Doug Skinner, and William Corliss and the audience is still composed of many of the leading lights in contemporary forteana. The organization also holds informal workshops, soirees, expeditions and get-togethers.
The International Fortean Organization (INFO) holds a solid niche in the annals of forteana.
[edit] Sources
- Skinner, Douglas (June 2005), Tiffany Thayer, Fortean Times.
- Alfvegren, Skylaire (2006), Charles Fort: Dogma Be Damned II, LarryFlynt.com.
- Walsh, Dave (1999), Blather, issue 3no.7.
- Benjamin, Phyllis (September 2005), A Tribute to Mark Chorvinsky, Fate.
- Drake, David (2000) Newletter #1 [1]
- Elfis, Austin ParaTimes
- Scifipedia entry "230 INFO...X-Files".
- Wilson, Colin, Alien Dawn, pp. 5, 44, 206 ( FortFest, Colin Wilson and Phyllis Benjamin meet Gerald Hawkins' doppleganger)
- Keel, John, (Spring 1975), The Flying Saucer Subculture, Journal of Popular Culture, "...International Fortean Organization (INFO) carries on his name as successor to the Fortean Society."
- Lumir G. Janku, (1976), "The Modern Past, Batteries and Electric Devices: The Corso Effect" http://www.altarcheologie.hI/strange
- Biography of Michael Swords, Ph.D., www.ufoevidence.org/researcher/detail17.html
- The INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown
- FortNite Tapes 2006, comments by Hoffberger, Arnold, Benjamin
- Notes and Letters from Robert Heinlein from the collection of the
International Fortean Organization
- Cambridge Conference Corespondence, Tunguska,
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc040501.html
- FOAFTale News, Newsletter of International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, no.37, (June 1995), Forteans Disown Book
