There’s a very good two-parter video on Youtube from Jeff Shanks’ An Age Undreamed Of channel about Ray Palmer’s instigation of the “UFO Phenomena”, including a mention of the resolution undertaken by Fans at the 1947 Worldcon, denouncing the direction that Amazing Stories had been taken by Palmer. Yes, it was the most financially successful of the SF pulps at the time, but no, it wasn’t science fiction (anymore).
The videos are here:
The Philadelphia Resolution (From the January 1948 issue of Amazing Stories):
“RESOLUTION CONCERNING THE LEMURIAN POLICY OF AMAZING STORIES
As readers of fantasy fiction we necessarily have a high degree of tolerance for the seemingly improbable, and believe possible many things which the average citizen would consider too wildly improbable to notice. We know very well how often the progress of events gives the lie to a judgment of “highly unlikely” based on a conservatism of imagination rather than a fair appraisal of the data.
At the same time, as devotees of science-fiction, we believe that the methods of science are the means of discovering what is true. The scientific method includes all avenues to knowledge, and indicates the relative weight which is to be attached to different types of evidence, as well as the permissible inferences from evidence, according to the best judgments of the human mind. Anyone who accepts bad evidence in preference to good, because he is more attracted by what the bad evidence seems to show him, is to that extent a fool.
The present policy of Amazing Stories magazine would make fools of all science-fiction readers. The Shaver mythos and related absurdities are conceived in an anti-scientific spirit, and can only be entertained by a suspension of scientific skepticism. Such published material represents a serious threat to the mental health of many people, which is of concern to us all. Nevertheless it is attractive to a large audience, including many impressionable youths who may by it be prevented from learning to think straight. It encourages superstition in readers of all ages. To be a Shaverite expert requires far less of painful education and training than to be a scientific expert. And the picture of the world which emerges through the methods encouraged by Amazing Stories has the advantage which ever attaches to superstition, because the superstitious world-view seems right to man in a state of nature, and the scientific worldview does not. Constant vigilance is necessary to conserve as much as has been gained of Scientific knowledge. In Richard Shaver’s mythology the forces of good and evil (hypostatizations of what men do and do not desire) are dramatically arrayed against each other as contending armies, the teros and the deros, and the outcome of their struggle is the most serious issue in the world. The manifestations to humans of the powers of these contenders come in a form identical with the usual delusions of the mentally deranged. The signs are most likely to come to thwarted little men; excuses are provided for all their failures, and the individual involved is elevated into a terribly important role in the affairs of Earth.
It is handicap enough to mankind that scientific knowledge is incomplete. The use of fallacious theories in personal and social life means acting as if the world were other than it is. Insofar as errors affect the result, action taken in reliance on such fallacies necessarily leads to failures and disappointments, and an overlooking of real threats to the welfare of one and all. The errors introduced by superstitious beliefs are even more dangerous than those introduced by the incompleteness of scientific knowledge, because superstition is more closely connected with pursuit of happiness.
We would not be heard to assert that beliefs now accepted by scientists are necessarily true, nor that laymen have no right to call the experts into question. What we do hold is that a layman, in the field of chemistry, physics, history, et cetera, unless he is willing to go into the evidence and logic used to reach conclusions from it, must accept as premises any doctrine which may fairly be said to represent the substantially unanimous opinion of specialists on the subject.
We are not impressed by the argument that the financial success of the Shaver stories proves there is something to their mythology. We doubt that anyone would deny there are a hundred thousand, and many more, crackpots in the United States and Canada. The majority opinion of a lunatic fringe is no guide to truth.
From the outset of the Shaver business there has been and is now an attempt to coerce, cajole, or bribe the organized fantasites into assuming a share in the management of the Lemurian movement, spreading its poison and intensifying the harm to those? already affected. We have rejected, and mean now to reject conclusively, all such overtures. We do not want to enlarge our numbers by accretions of insanity. We consider the so called “Shaver Mystery” fit only to oppose and to satirize. We detest its tendencies, we want no part of it. On the contrary, we would be advocates of science’s description of man and the world as the best working hypothesis.
We will be happy to meet the advocates of streamlined superstition in the forum or in the courts. As long as they do not supply an occasion for such testing, we shall continue to use against the ideology the instruments by which it is advanced, a free press and free speech. We will seize opportunities to publicize our denunciation of this perversion of fantasy fiction, and will seek to discredit not only the Shaver mythos, and its method but also the motives of those who advance it for money and the rationality of those to advance it from conviction.
Resolved ;
That organized science-fiction fandom as represented by those delegates assembled at the Philcon on this first day of September, 1947, at the PennSheraton Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recognizes the following popular magazines as presently publishing science-fiction and fantasy of considerable merit and occasionally of enduring value, and as pursuing ethical and editorial policies of honesty and repute:”
The list of publications was not included, but it is reported that it did NOT include Amazing Stories.
Shaver responded:
Well, readers of Amazing Stories, here’s the official stand of “fandom” our honorable opponents of the Shaver Mystery. We present it as they wrote and voted on it in their convention. We don’t know the results of the voting, but we’ll wager Amazing Stories wasn’t on the list!
As to the statements in it: we consider the following statements to be untrue:
We are trying to make fools of all science fiction readers . . . we are mentally deranged . , . we are thwarted little men . . . the financial success of the Shaver Mystery proves there is something to the mythology . . . it is a mythology . . . is now an attempt to coerce, cajole, or bribe the organized fantasites into assuming a share in the management of the Lemurian movement . . . that these fans are sane and we are not.
We also deny that these fans known as fandom have any right to represent science-fiction, especially the magazines which lead the field. Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.
We further object to this group trying to coerce, cajole, or bribe Amazing Stories readers, authors and editors into assuming a share in the idiocies of such fanciful and wild imaginings of science as they endorse, which are not only unentertaining, but contrary to known facts.
Lastly, we insist on our right to a free press and our own opinions. And we consider an organized effort to deny this right to us an imposition on our rights as outlined in the Bill Of Rights. Imagine offering to take us to court for the express purpose of outlining our right to believe in the Shaver Mystery I
Further, we offer to take a mental test, resting our case on the results, provided the members of fandom take a similar test. If that is what they call proof I The Shaver Mystery is untrue because we are insane! What logic. We are sane, we can prove, and we believe that therefore fandom has, by their document in Philadelphia, endorsed the Shaver Mystery. — Ed.
Notes: I have not watched any of the other An Age Undreamed Of videos – which seem to mostly cover pseudo-scientific interests (Atlantis, Lizard People, Conan and Collectibles), but I thought his coverage of Shaver and the beginnings of the UFO craze (now the UAP craze) to be pretty thorough, well-researched and grounded.
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
