Unknown forces

Of all the writers ever to win the Nobel Prize, it’s hard to think of any who were as obsessed with fortean subjects as Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991), whose given name was Yitskhok Bashevis. Often stereotyped as a specifically Jewish author, he might as well be called a fortean one.

As a Yiddish-speaking child in Poland, Isaac was taught to accept miracles: “The whole Jewish life in the Exile was one big miracle.” It was his father, a mystical rabbi, who implanted the notion of the supernatural, telling the children that hobgoblins could take over houses and demons could live in cellars. Apparently, he did this to instill in the youngsters the notion that the supernatural world was quite real. In 1910, Rabbi Pinchas Mendel Singer, wary of rural poverty, moved his family to an apartment in Warsaw. The only place to relieve oneself was a courtyard outhouse, filthy and rat infested. Rather than go there, some residents would do their business on the stairs. Walking up this dimly lit staircase filled young Yitskhok, then only six, with terror – he was convinced he was