Ella Young, 1930, by Edward Weston. A mystical Irish Fortean.
Ella Young was born the day after Christmas, 1867—making her older than Fort himself—in Ireland. (She's 148 tomorrow.) Raised mostly in Dublin as a protestant, Young belonged to a relatively prosperous middle class family, eventually receiving a degree from Trinity College. She is a fairly well-known figure among scholars of Irish history and literature, but has been bad served by biographers. There are two books on her, Rose Murphy’s 2008 Ella Young: Irish Mystic and Rebel and Dorothea McDowell’s 2015 Ella Young and Her World: Celtic Mythology, The Irish Revival and The Californian Avant-Garde. The first is essentially an expanded magazine article, repetitive and refusing to engage with Young intimately; the other is a massive dissertation that reprints tons of her letters, documents her movements precisely, but, while based on the author’s presumed intuitive connection with Young, is equally antiseptic. It’s also poorly formatted,, making it hard for the reader to know wha words belong to the author, what to the material she is quoting. Still, Young is well-enough known, and her connections to the Fortean Society—and Forteanism—tenuous enough that only a brief overview of her life is necessary.
Ella Young was born the day after Christmas, 1867—making her older than Fort himself—in Ireland. (She's 148 tomorrow.) Raised mostly in Dublin as a protestant, Young belonged to a relatively prosperous middle class family, eventually receiving a degree from Trinity College. She is a fairly well-known figure among scholars of Irish history and literature, but has been bad served by biographers. There are two books on her, Rose Murphy’s 2008 Ella Young: Irish Mystic and Rebel and Dorothea McDowell’s 2015 Ella Young and Her World: Celtic Mythology, The Irish Revival and The Californian Avant-Garde. The first is essentially an expanded magazine article, repetitive and refusing to engage with Young intimately; the other is a massive dissertation that reprints tons of her letters, documents her movements precisely, but, while based on the author’s presumed intuitive connection with Young, is equally antiseptic. It’s also poorly formatted,, making it hard for the reader to know wha words belong to the author, what to the material she is quoting. Still, Young is well-enough known, and her connections to the Fortean Society—and Forteanism—tenuous enough that only a brief overview of her life is necessary.
wAs she came of age, Young involved herself with the Irish independence movement—perhaps running guns—and was on the outskirts of the Irish literary renaissance and Celtic revival movements. She knew William Butler Yeats, Maud Gonne, and AE (George Russell). The latter encouraged her poetic writings, but Young became most known for her collections of folklore. She traversed the western parts of Ireland, collecting stories of fairies and elves and compiling these into books. Her first, 1910’s Celtic Wonder Stories, was illustrated by Gonne. This literary circle also included Eileen J. Garrett, the medium and future Fortean, who was much sixteen years Young’s junior, but it is likely they came across each other.
Young (like Garrett, though earlier) was drawn to the Theosophical Society, particularly in the form of AE’s “Hermetic Society,” an Dublin offspring. And like Garrett, she found that the Irish landscape was populated by fantastic beings. Young full accepted the reality of elves and fairies. She thought that trees possessed a kind of consciousness. As best as I can tell, hers was a naive mysticism—which isn’t meant as a criticism, but a description: it did not depend upon exertions of the intellect or the will, but the willingness to believe that the world was more full than materialist would allow.
Young came to the United States in the 1920s, for what was supposed to be a temporary visit, lecturing. Apparently, she was detained for a time at Ellis Island, officials worried she was unstable because of her belief in fairies. She made her way West, eventually settling in California. Immigration issues forced her to Canada in the early 1930s, and she had trouble crossing the border to America, for fear that she was feeble-minded and would become a burden to the state. It was ridiculous, in its way: Young was unusual; she was thin and looked frail; but she had an iron will and fantastically wrong belief in herself. The denial of passage made the news, and there was a public outcry, leading, eventually, to the relenting of immigration officials and Young’s return to California. She became a lecturer at the University of California Berkeley for a number of years—just missing Lilith Lorraine and her cult being run out of town. By accounts, her lectures were something to behold, Young dressing as a druid. She left at just about the time Robert Duncan started attending the school—his presence eventually giving birth to the Berkeley Renaissance and part of a poetic avant-garde that would embrace Fort.
Young was moving in her own artistic circles (seemingly introduced by the Irish artist John O’Shea). She befriended Ansel Adams, and famously sat for him. She continued writing, transforming her Irish folklore into children’s tales that were well-regarded. She frequented Halcyon, a Theosophical colony near San Luis Obispo (introduced by the fantasists Kenneth Morris). (Here she likely crossed paths with the Fortean Alfred Barley and his wife Annie, who were taking refuge from the Brother Twelve fiasco in the Pacific Northwest.) She became friends with the poet Robinson Jeffers, and his wife, Una, as well as the philosopher Alan Watts (who was on the fringe of the Fortean movement, an acquaintance of N.V. Dagg). She was also photographed by Edward Weston. This was right around the time that Weston was with Charis Wilson, daughter of founding member of the Fortean Society, Harry Leon Wilson, all of them hanging around near Carmel, in the years before Henry Miller would come to the area.
She traveled with some of these friends to New Mexico, and visited its artist colony in Taos. She met Georgia O’Keefe and Mary Austin (with whom she did not get along). In New Mexico, she also met Miriam Hapgood DeWitt. Miriam was the the sister of Fortean Charles Hapgood: he would write about the earth’s shifting crust and reach out to spiritually contact Fortean Fred Hammett. In the 1940s, this same artist colony would call out to Forteans Robert Spencer Carr and Fredric Brown.
Her Theosophical beliefs drew her, also, to Shasta, which had become the center of metaphysical speculation in California. According to some, Shasta was the last remnants of Lemuria, and wise Lemurians still haunted the mountain. It was here, the the 1930s, that Guy Ballard met Saint Germain, the event that inspired him to found the “I Am” movement. She was looking for the Lemurians. It is not clear how she understood these beings: her friend Una Jeffers saw them as part of the collective unconscious, but Young seemed not to psychologize the beings. Young created a festival to be held at the mountain’s foot, called “The Fellowship of Shasta.”
She herself saw an unusual light in the sky in December 1946, before they were all classed as UFOs. This was near Morro Bay, nowhere near Shasta. It was at least the third time she had seen such aerial phenomena, the first in 1927, the second in October. Through Professor Charles J. Ryan, of the Theosophical University, her report was passed on to N. Meade Layne, who published it in “The Round Robin,” linking it to the etherial vehicles he thought had been reported over San Diego:
"Yesterday, Dec. 30, I was with a friend on the high ground that curves southward from Morro Bay. We were looking at the sky to the south where the sun had gone down - golden, with a bank of cloud mist, also golden, on the horizon. The time was 25 min. of six. Suddenly a dark object appeared in the sky; it came forward and grew more distinct. It was very black on the golden sky, and was coming forward head~on - an air machine of some sort. It had a bat-like appearance owing to the curve of its wings. There may have been motion at the extreme tip of each wing but I could not be sure. It appeared to stand still for several minutes and the form was most distinct. Suddenly it either lowered itself toward the horizon, or the bank of cloud mist made an upward movement (perhaps both movements occurred), for the machine passed behind the cloud and did not again appear. Immediately afterward a great flush of colour spread on the sea.”
The report echoed through Fortean vaults. In 1954, Harold T. Wilkins—a contributor to Round Robin—included it in his book “Flying Saucers on the Attack.” Much later, John Keel—something of a protege to Layne—mentioned Young’s report in “The Motorman Prophecies.”
Young ended her stint at Berkeley in the mid-1930s and moved to Oceano—near San Luis Obispo. She dedicated herself to protecting the redwoods as well as the protection of the dunes in the area—becoming associated with the Dunites, a group of mystics and nudists, artists and writers who saw them as a sacred space. In 1945 she published an autobiography. After this point, she started to divest herself of earthly possessions, donating papers and books to universities and libraries, what money she had to her favored causes. In the 1950s, she suffered the many indignities of cancer.
Ella Young was found dead in her home on 23 July 1956. She was 88. Her body was cremated, and the ashes scattered among redwoods.
As I’ve structured it here, Ella Young’s biography shows many opportunities for her to have run into Fort; indeed, it seems overdetermined that she would have heard of him, if not in Oceana then in Taos. What is surprising is not that she ended up in the Fortean Society—what startles is that she contributed.
Young’s name first appears in Doubt 18, from July 1947—and it is undoubtedly her. There would be four more issues that mention an MFS by the name of Young. Likely, these are her, too, but there is the possibility it is someone else. Usually, though, when there were several members with the same last name who contributed, Thayer would annotate at least one of them with a first initial.
At any rate, she was mentioned twice by her full name—Ella Young—in issue 18. The first had to do with material she sent in about a different cosmology. (Thayer noted he had received three challenges to the Copernican system in the same mail.) Hers referred to the work of P. Emilio Ameco-Roxas, an Italian-born Argentinian. Thayer did not describe the system. The second note mention of her name was attached to a longer column on mysterious explosions, without Thayer specifying which clipping she had sent in. There was a third reference in that issue, too—this one just to “Young.” It came at the end of a column on mysterious animals—what would now be called cryptozoology—along with a number of other member’s names. It’s not possible to exactly identify what material Young provided to Thayer, but likely it dealt with either a mermaid—reported in the Oakland Tribune—the Loch Ness Monster, or a lake monster in the state of Washington.
The other four issues are a hodge-podge. A clipping attributed to Young in Doubt 20 (March 1948) referred to a cloud of hydrogen sulfide killing birds along the coast of Peru; its origin puzzled scientists. Doubt 25 (Summer 1949) had an MFS Young—along with others—sending in an article about a statue that wept when it was kissed. An MFS Young in Doubt 27 (Winter 1949) sent in a publicity report from the Catholic press about an anonymous Priest exorcising an anonymous demon from an anonymous boy. (Young was one of several to contribute the story.) A final contribution from an MFS named Young appeared in Doubt 29 (July 1950), and it, too, belonged to a class of clippings coming from a number of members. This news report dealt with a possible explosion on Mars—it was identified by a Japanese astronomer, and evoked some nationalistic dismissals that Thayer had fun mocking. (It’s not clear the point that the contributors wanted to make.)
All of these could have been Ella Young, as they occurred before she died—and whomever this Young was—he or she never appeared in Doubt again, suggesting it was Ella.
Indeed, the last mention of her came in Doubt 53 (February 1957) and was part of a necrologue titled “The Reaper Reaps.” The portion in question read, “Out in Oceana, Calif., MFS Ella Young died at the advanced age of 88. She was a well known Irish poet, author of several books of Irish mythology, and was named to the chair of Celtic mythology at the U of California in 1931.”
Young (like Garrett, though earlier) was drawn to the Theosophical Society, particularly in the form of AE’s “Hermetic Society,” an Dublin offspring. And like Garrett, she found that the Irish landscape was populated by fantastic beings. Young full accepted the reality of elves and fairies. She thought that trees possessed a kind of consciousness. As best as I can tell, hers was a naive mysticism—which isn’t meant as a criticism, but a description: it did not depend upon exertions of the intellect or the will, but the willingness to believe that the world was more full than materialist would allow.
Young came to the United States in the 1920s, for what was supposed to be a temporary visit, lecturing. Apparently, she was detained for a time at Ellis Island, officials worried she was unstable because of her belief in fairies. She made her way West, eventually settling in California. Immigration issues forced her to Canada in the early 1930s, and she had trouble crossing the border to America, for fear that she was feeble-minded and would become a burden to the state. It was ridiculous, in its way: Young was unusual; she was thin and looked frail; but she had an iron will and fantastically wrong belief in herself. The denial of passage made the news, and there was a public outcry, leading, eventually, to the relenting of immigration officials and Young’s return to California. She became a lecturer at the University of California Berkeley for a number of years—just missing Lilith Lorraine and her cult being run out of town. By accounts, her lectures were something to behold, Young dressing as a druid. She left at just about the time Robert Duncan started attending the school—his presence eventually giving birth to the Berkeley Renaissance and part of a poetic avant-garde that would embrace Fort.
Young was moving in her own artistic circles (seemingly introduced by the Irish artist John O’Shea). She befriended Ansel Adams, and famously sat for him. She continued writing, transforming her Irish folklore into children’s tales that were well-regarded. She frequented Halcyon, a Theosophical colony near San Luis Obispo (introduced by the fantasists Kenneth Morris). (Here she likely crossed paths with the Fortean Alfred Barley and his wife Annie, who were taking refuge from the Brother Twelve fiasco in the Pacific Northwest.) She became friends with the poet Robinson Jeffers, and his wife, Una, as well as the philosopher Alan Watts (who was on the fringe of the Fortean movement, an acquaintance of N.V. Dagg). She was also photographed by Edward Weston. This was right around the time that Weston was with Charis Wilson, daughter of founding member of the Fortean Society, Harry Leon Wilson, all of them hanging around near Carmel, in the years before Henry Miller would come to the area.
She traveled with some of these friends to New Mexico, and visited its artist colony in Taos. She met Georgia O’Keefe and Mary Austin (with whom she did not get along). In New Mexico, she also met Miriam Hapgood DeWitt. Miriam was the the sister of Fortean Charles Hapgood: he would write about the earth’s shifting crust and reach out to spiritually contact Fortean Fred Hammett. In the 1940s, this same artist colony would call out to Forteans Robert Spencer Carr and Fredric Brown.
Her Theosophical beliefs drew her, also, to Shasta, which had become the center of metaphysical speculation in California. According to some, Shasta was the last remnants of Lemuria, and wise Lemurians still haunted the mountain. It was here, the the 1930s, that Guy Ballard met Saint Germain, the event that inspired him to found the “I Am” movement. She was looking for the Lemurians. It is not clear how she understood these beings: her friend Una Jeffers saw them as part of the collective unconscious, but Young seemed not to psychologize the beings. Young created a festival to be held at the mountain’s foot, called “The Fellowship of Shasta.”
She herself saw an unusual light in the sky in December 1946, before they were all classed as UFOs. This was near Morro Bay, nowhere near Shasta. It was at least the third time she had seen such aerial phenomena, the first in 1927, the second in October. Through Professor Charles J. Ryan, of the Theosophical University, her report was passed on to N. Meade Layne, who published it in “The Round Robin,” linking it to the etherial vehicles he thought had been reported over San Diego:
"Yesterday, Dec. 30, I was with a friend on the high ground that curves southward from Morro Bay. We were looking at the sky to the south where the sun had gone down - golden, with a bank of cloud mist, also golden, on the horizon. The time was 25 min. of six. Suddenly a dark object appeared in the sky; it came forward and grew more distinct. It was very black on the golden sky, and was coming forward head~on - an air machine of some sort. It had a bat-like appearance owing to the curve of its wings. There may have been motion at the extreme tip of each wing but I could not be sure. It appeared to stand still for several minutes and the form was most distinct. Suddenly it either lowered itself toward the horizon, or the bank of cloud mist made an upward movement (perhaps both movements occurred), for the machine passed behind the cloud and did not again appear. Immediately afterward a great flush of colour spread on the sea.”
The report echoed through Fortean vaults. In 1954, Harold T. Wilkins—a contributor to Round Robin—included it in his book “Flying Saucers on the Attack.” Much later, John Keel—something of a protege to Layne—mentioned Young’s report in “The Motorman Prophecies.”
Young ended her stint at Berkeley in the mid-1930s and moved to Oceano—near San Luis Obispo. She dedicated herself to protecting the redwoods as well as the protection of the dunes in the area—becoming associated with the Dunites, a group of mystics and nudists, artists and writers who saw them as a sacred space. In 1945 she published an autobiography. After this point, she started to divest herself of earthly possessions, donating papers and books to universities and libraries, what money she had to her favored causes. In the 1950s, she suffered the many indignities of cancer.
Ella Young was found dead in her home on 23 July 1956. She was 88. Her body was cremated, and the ashes scattered among redwoods.
As I’ve structured it here, Ella Young’s biography shows many opportunities for her to have run into Fort; indeed, it seems overdetermined that she would have heard of him, if not in Oceana then in Taos. What is surprising is not that she ended up in the Fortean Society—what startles is that she contributed.
Young’s name first appears in Doubt 18, from July 1947—and it is undoubtedly her. There would be four more issues that mention an MFS by the name of Young. Likely, these are her, too, but there is the possibility it is someone else. Usually, though, when there were several members with the same last name who contributed, Thayer would annotate at least one of them with a first initial.
At any rate, she was mentioned twice by her full name—Ella Young—in issue 18. The first had to do with material she sent in about a different cosmology. (Thayer noted he had received three challenges to the Copernican system in the same mail.) Hers referred to the work of P. Emilio Ameco-Roxas, an Italian-born Argentinian. Thayer did not describe the system. The second note mention of her name was attached to a longer column on mysterious explosions, without Thayer specifying which clipping she had sent in. There was a third reference in that issue, too—this one just to “Young.” It came at the end of a column on mysterious animals—what would now be called cryptozoology—along with a number of other member’s names. It’s not possible to exactly identify what material Young provided to Thayer, but likely it dealt with either a mermaid—reported in the Oakland Tribune—the Loch Ness Monster, or a lake monster in the state of Washington.
The other four issues are a hodge-podge. A clipping attributed to Young in Doubt 20 (March 1948) referred to a cloud of hydrogen sulfide killing birds along the coast of Peru; its origin puzzled scientists. Doubt 25 (Summer 1949) had an MFS Young—along with others—sending in an article about a statue that wept when it was kissed. An MFS Young in Doubt 27 (Winter 1949) sent in a publicity report from the Catholic press about an anonymous Priest exorcising an anonymous demon from an anonymous boy. (Young was one of several to contribute the story.) A final contribution from an MFS named Young appeared in Doubt 29 (July 1950), and it, too, belonged to a class of clippings coming from a number of members. This news report dealt with a possible explosion on Mars—it was identified by a Japanese astronomer, and evoked some nationalistic dismissals that Thayer had fun mocking. (It’s not clear the point that the contributors wanted to make.)
All of these could have been Ella Young, as they occurred before she died—and whomever this Young was—he or she never appeared in Doubt again, suggesting it was Ella.
Indeed, the last mention of her came in Doubt 53 (February 1957) and was part of a necrologue titled “The Reaper Reaps.” The portion in question read, “Out in Oceana, Calif., MFS Ella Young died at the advanced age of 88. She was a well known Irish poet, author of several books of Irish mythology, and was named to the chair of Celtic mythology at the U of California in 1931.”
