Preacher, Theosophist, profligate pamphleteer, commune leader, librarian, mystery man—and kind of a Fortean.
It’s the last, of course, that’s the subject here: Fortean. But it’s the penultimate that made this difficult: mystery man.
As it happens, I got to this name just at the right time. A few months ago, journalist Charmaine Ortega Getz sorted out a lot of the confusion--here and here--surrounding this Fortean’s origins. I am still not sure where the confusion started—and I am not going to take the time to identify it—but he’s been identified by the wrong name, and the wrong birthdate, for several years, as well as having some accomplishments attached to him that have no documentary support. And, even with Getz’s quite good research done and out there, more remains to be said: indeed, he deserves a rigorous study; there seem to be documents that would make such a study possible. But it is beyond the scope of my research to really dig into this material, particularly the transition he seems dot go through in the 1930s.
At any rate . . .
It’s the last, of course, that’s the subject here: Fortean. But it’s the penultimate that made this difficult: mystery man.
As it happens, I got to this name just at the right time. A few months ago, journalist Charmaine Ortega Getz sorted out a lot of the confusion--here and here--surrounding this Fortean’s origins. I am still not sure where the confusion started—and I am not going to take the time to identify it—but he’s been identified by the wrong name, and the wrong birthdate, for several years, as well as having some accomplishments attached to him that have no documentary support. And, even with Getz’s quite good research done and out there, more remains to be said: indeed, he deserves a rigorous study; there seem to be documents that would make such a study possible. But it is beyond the scope of my research to really dig into this material, particularly the transition he seems dot go through in the 1930s.
At any rate . . .