Turn Pages of the Paranormal at the Fortean Book Fair

Denver writer and creative Zack Kopp remembers when his parents, Karl and Jane Kopp, both ministered to the First Divine Science Church at 1400 Williams Street. “Both my parents were Ph.D.s and English professors and writers,” Kopp says, “and for a long time, my father would write a play every week instead of giving a sermon. He used the church as a way to express his literary self. It was no less a spiritual commentary of sorts, but not a proper sermon. I always really liked that. I cherish and revere that memory of my dad.”

That sentiment fits right in with Kopp’s new venture, the Fortean Bookfair, which will take place at the very same church, now known as the Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality. Kopp’s Camp Elasticity is partnering with what his website calls an “emerging enterprise called Denver PsychoPoetic” to present the inaugural free event on Saturday, October 21. A number of bookstores are participating, most notably Mutiny Information Cafe, Fahrenheit's Books and Gallagher Books; individual collectors will also be selling collectible tomes on various subjects, from classic literature to metaphysical and paranormal texts.

The term “Fortean” comes from writer and researcher Charles Hoy Fort, who collected what he termed “anomalous phenomena” in what’s arguably his most influential work, 1919’s The Book of the Damned. “The term ‘damned’ refers to being excised from the record of consensus verification,” explains Kopp. “Fort had compiled a list of events that had definitely been proved to have occurred but couldn’t be explained by science. That’s the theme and spirit of this book fair.”

Denver PsychoPoetic is run by Kopp's longtime creative associate, Devin Scheimberg; they previously collaborated on a series of “unscripted spontaneous music and art jams” called Bleeding TVs of Angels. These shows were back when Kopp went by the name Henry Alarmclock, and his artistic persona was all about purposefully gratuitous improv. Kopp describes that time as “weird as the Denver lit scene got in those days, including glow rooms, belly dancing and more unspeakables fondly mis-remembered.”

The Fortean event isn’t just a book sale; it also offers a full-day “haunted open mic.” Kopp says he wants to “keep the idea pretty freeform,” but adds that he “wants to provide people with a mode to share their own supernatural or paranormal experiences, and/or read poetry, play music, do whatever you feel like doing.”

Kopp is aware that it’s uncommon for a book fair to have an open mic, but in true Henry Alarmclock fashion, he says, “Change it up. Why not?”

One of the guests slated for the open mic is A.I. metaphysician Tom Ross, who promises to read “scary selections from his US6 Trilogy,” according to Kopp. “Ross likens the question of A.I. and sentience to the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden.” Chances are also good that Kopp himself will be reading selections from his upcoming book, Uneasy World, all about the passing of his aforementioned mother, Jane, and Kopp’s own experiences using text-to-image generators as oracular divination tools.
The location for the Fortean Bookfair isn’t just appropriate because of Kopp’s parents' ministerial service there. It was built as a gathering spot for those interested in the intersection of faith and science. The Church of Divine Science was birthed in Pueblo in 1887 by three sisters studying spiritual mysticism. By 1907, Denver had become the headquarters for the Divine Science movement, moving into a classroom downtown, quickly expanding to a church on 17th and Clarkson streets, and finally building its own grand structure that still graces the corner of 14th Avenue and Williams Street. In recent years, the church was rebooted as the Althea Center, named for one of the sisters who started the religious movement.

“I’m not a Christian or an atheist or anything like that,” says Kopp. “I claim no creed.” But he does describe himself as a Fortean and an intermediatist, which he defines as “no singular truth — all truths have something to offer.“ It’s a philosophy that Kopp says has a lot in common with metaphysics, which is why he’s helping to bring the Fortean Bookfair into being.

Faith and belief is a peculiar thing, at once very personal and universal, Kopp suggests. He says as much as he respects what his parents did, as grateful as he is for their influence, he can’t say that he follows the same line of belief. “And I don’t know that they did either,” Kopp says. “Everyone’s a free agent. Everyone’s swimming in the same ocean. We’re all just trying to understand reality with the tools that come to us.”

The Fortean Bookfair, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, October 21, Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality, 1400 Williams Street. For more information, see the event website.