I think—I think I know who he was. I hope I’m not stitching together multiple stories, but I don’t think I am: he was a magical, stamp-collecting, philosophizing Fortean from Chicago.
Ernest W. Brady—the W likely standing for William—was born in northern Ireland during the 1880s—varying sources say 1881, 1886, 1887, and 1888. I don’t know anything about his upbringing there—cannot find him in the censuses—but he immigrated to the United States in 1916, a year of some note in northern Ireland’s history. He arrived in Philadelphia—at least according to records created much later on. I cannot find him in the 1920 census. There is a Ernest Brady, born in Ireland around 1886, living in New Jersey in 1920, which could be him, except that Ernest Brady continues in New Jersey through the 1940s, while the one who becomes a Fortean is in Chicago.
Ernest W. Brady—the W likely standing for William—was born in northern Ireland during the 1880s—varying sources say 1881, 1886, 1887, and 1888. I don’t know anything about his upbringing there—cannot find him in the censuses—but he immigrated to the United States in 1916, a year of some note in northern Ireland’s history. He arrived in Philadelphia—at least according to records created much later on. I cannot find him in the 1920 census. There is a Ernest Brady, born in Ireland around 1886, living in New Jersey in 1920, which could be him, except that Ernest Brady continues in New Jersey through the 1940s, while the one who becomes a Fortean is in Chicago.
And, indeed, the 1930 census captures and Ernest W. Brady—from Ireland, born about 1888, immigrated in 1916—living in Chicago. He was married to Eline Brady, almost a decade his senior. The census has it that Ernest was first married at 26 which would put the date between 1907 and 1912; Eline was first married at age 38, or about 1919—all of which suggests that Brady was married once before in Ireland, divorced, and remarried once he came to America. Ernest was in the process of becoming a citizen, as was Eline. She had immigrated from England. (Both her parents had been born in England, as had Ernest’s mother. Only his father was of Irish heritage.) Ernest was working as a bookseller. That accords with “The Step Ladder,” a Chicago magazine published by The Bookfellows, which had him as a member in 1921.
The two were captured in the 1940 census, as well. Apparently, they had moved to Ogden Dunes, Indiana, some time before 1935; that was about forty miles outside of Chicago. Ernest was still in the process of becoming a citizen while his wife, listed here as Emily, seems to have given up on the procedure. The census reveals that she had four years of college, but she did not have employment listed in either the 1930 or 1940 census, which raises all kinds of interesting but unanswered questions about what she was doing with herself, since there was no one else in the household. Ernest, who had only finished high school, listed his occupation as stamp collector. It must have been somewhat remunerative, since they now owned their house, which was valued at $6,000 (about $100,000 in today’s terms).
That Ernest listed himself as a stamp collector helps to identify him, because there was an Ernest W. Brady involved in philatelic pursuits throughout the middle part of the twentieth century who (mostly) made his home in the Chicago area. His interest in stamp collecting started as early as 1934, but also perhaps earlier. We can say that he was interested in 1934 because of a news story that ran in”The Harlem Valley Times” 30 April 1964, in which Brady remembered a man visiting him during the 1930s, who said the ruins of Atlantis had been found in the Caribbean, and commemorative stamps would be issued. Brady bought 20 sets, only to find that it was all a hoax. Likely, Brady was referring to Captain J. L. Mott, a mysterious figure who appeared in the philatelic world around 1934, offering to sell Atlantean stamps; he seems to have disappeared around 1938. It was also around this time that Brady’s name appeared in the magazine “Stamps.”
His most remembered contribution to stamp collecting, though, was a sheet—as it was called when it was copyrighted in 1963: “Soliloquy of a Postage Stamp”:
I am the world's greatest traveler. I've journeyed from pole to pole and all the climes in between . . . by dogsled, camel and horseback, by every land, sea and air conveyance; even by submarine, dirigible and rocket.
I am the world's greatest art and portrait gallery. The heroes and heroines of mythology pose within my borders. I portray the greats and the near-greats of all time; kings and queens, pharaohs and presidents, princes and princesses, poets and patriots, emperors and explorers, athletes, architects, aviators, artists and adventurers, tribal chieftains, inventors, moguls, musicians and martyrs, dramatists and novelists, shahs, sultans, saints and sinners. Even the vanished forms of the phoenix, dragon, centaur and unicorn appear on my face.
I am the world's greatest picture chronicle and miniature encyclopedia. I map communities, countries and continents, and reveal views from every strange remote corner of the earth. I depict mountains and valleys; oceans, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, geysers, harbors, bridges and dams; native canoes, sailing ships and modern ocean liners; monuments and statues; castles, cathedrals, churches, missions, mosques, temples and ruins of temples; and every type of locomotion, from automobiles to zeppelins and steamboats to space ships. I delineate all manner of sports, handicrafts, customs, sacred rites and ceremonies; and nearly every variety of bird, animal, fish, fruit and flower.
I frame the horrors of war, the blessings of peace, the hardships of emigration, the plight of indigence and the blight of famine. I illustrate the adventures of Don Quixote, the fairy tales of childhood and the legends of all civilizations. I reflect the symbols of art and culture, of natural resources and industry, of trade and commerce, of agriculture and architecture, and of all human endeavor(s). I commemorate the expeditions and voyages, and the inventions, discoveries and creations that make life worth living.
Millions of men, women and children are fascinated by me. Through my infinite variety they find boundless pleasure, relaxation and enchantment.
Yet . . . I am only a postage stamp!
The “Soliloquy” was reprinted many times, including as a small 1978 book by Black Cat Press. It is this philatelic line that holds together one strand of Brady’s narrative—but I cannot quite connect it to the other strands, which is why I am so uncertain about his identity.
Brady registered for the draft during World War II, giving his birthdate as 1886 and his place of birth as Drogheda, Ireland. He was 55, living in Ogden Dunes, Indiana, and working as a stamp dealer, with an business dress at 111 West Jackson Street, Chicago. At 5’9” and 150 pounds, he was relatively slight. Brady did not have a home telephone.
The draft application was in April of 1942; seven months later, Brady finally succeeded in getting his U.S. Citizenship. It is from the 1942 petition—dated Armistice Day, no less—that we learn his middle name—William—and his port of entry, and the exact date: 17 March, also a date of some interest to Irish-Americans. But no reason is given for the long delay in the process. Also of note, while he gives the same birthday in this petition as he did on his draft paperwork (September 26), his birth year changes, from 1886 to 1881.
Although I could not find Brady in early passenger lists, when he presumably emigrated from Ireland to the United States, I can find him traveling in the 1950s. He sailed to Southampton, England, in November 1951 and gave his profession as “philatel.” (His wife may also have traveled with him, but I found mention of him in a UK incoming passenger list, which described only alien travelers; Emily would have still been an English citizen.) A year later, Ernest and Emily arrived in New York City, having traveled from Southampton. They both listed their address as 141 W. Jackson, Chicago, which suggests that, perhaps Emily was helping Ernest with his business.
Apparently in the early 1970s—if not before—Brady relocated to southern California. He would have been approaching 90 years-old, and the winters, if nothing else, would have been better there. I think this is the same person because there is a death notice of an Ernest W. Brady in Los Angeles from 1976, with the state record listing him as born in another country on 26 April 1886 and the social security index as born 26 September 1887 and having received his social security number in Illinois. That Brady died in Alhambra, 14 January 1976. He’s buried at Live Oak Memorial Park in Monrovia. Tracing back from that, city directories have him living in Whittier, California, in 1973 and 1974. Whiter and Alhambra are only about 13 miles apart. At the time, Brady was living alone, which makes sense given how much older his wife was.
But, there’s more to Brady, too, I think: another aspect that I cannot quite connect to this one: Ernest W. Brady, magician. For there was someone by that name involved with the conjuring arts. He seems to have been active during the 1960s which—if it is the same guy—is when Brady might have retired, being in his 80s by then. His name appears in “The New Phoenix,” a newsletter for magicians, as well as “The Mentalist” magazine. He wrote for “The Linking Ring,” official publication of the Brotherhood of Magicians. In May 1964 he published an article called “Martian Magic Shop” and in April 1966 “Mercury: Messenger of the Gods and Magic.” (I have seen neither.)
He apparently also created a magic trick, one that would make the conjuror look like he had telepathic—or mentalist—powers. The trick was a series of forty poems written specifically to highlight certain words—the 11th, 19th, and 27th words were the same in all the poems—but only for the magician. Everyone else involved in the trick was supposed to think they were merely indulging in a poetry seminar. (That’s quite a set up!) The trick was copyrighted to a PO Box in Chicago. Similarly suggestive, an Ernest W. Brady published a series of puppet plays—the book’s title was “The Punch and Judy Show”—through the Ireland Magic Company, which was an important magic shop in Chicago.
So, is this the same Brady? The magician and the philatelist? It seems really likely. There’s the Chicago connection, of course. And the when “Ernest W. Brady,” Fortean is taken into account, the likelihood increases.
Ernest W. Brady is mentioned four times in Doubt, and I have found no other connection between the name and Charles Fort. Half of the mentions are marginal. In one, Henry Hoernlein takes Brady to task for his essay on metaphysics—a reference that says more about Hoernlein than Brady, and has been discussed in the entry on Hoernlein. That is the last time that Brady is mentioned, 26 October 1949. The penultimate mention comes in April 1949, when Thayer notes that Chicago Forteans were trying to assemble their own chapter of the Society—Chapter Three, in the lingo of the Society, with Thayer’s being Chapter One and the San Francisco Bay Area group being Chapter Two. This was at a time when Thayer was interested in organizing Forteanism, an enthusiasm he soon outgrew. Thayer remarked,
“No general meeting has been held, principally from lack of a hall, but members Castillo, Bump, Brady, Hurd and others are in organizational conferences pretty much all the time. The explosive potential is enormously greater than anything Lillienthal dreams of--what with provivisectionist ‘Ajax’ Carlson, anti-vaccinist Hurd, rocketeer Farnsworth and pro-Kantian Brady all wrestling in the same cyclotron.”
The “pro-Kantean” sobriquet was also a reference to the essay that Brady published in Doubt, the same one that upset Hoernlein. That essay and Brady’s first contributions, those are the most interesting, and help give a singular vision to a person whom I hope is a single person. Let’s start with the first mention, Doubt 17 (March 1947). At this point in his life, the Brady (or Bradys) limned above have been in Chicago for a number of years, first as a bookseller, then a stamp collector, and just become a U.S. citizen but has not yet embarked on travel to Europe. He’s already shown an interest in the outré, if not an outright gullibility, by purchasing stamps issued by Atlantis. There has been no hint, yet, of an interest in magic, but of course the record is very thin.
Brady wrote in to “Doubt” about that abominable snowman, which was just beginning to return to public interest, after a decline during the war years—it had been the object of much speculation in the 1920s—and especially with the renewed attempts to climb Mt. Everest. He wrote, “I don’t know what the pulps have published about them but I came across the following in Alta-Himalaya by Nicholas Roerich, a travel diary published in 1929.” Roerich merely described earlier histories of sightings, which seem to have been forgotten during the war. But what makes the note so interesting is a possible connection to other Forteans.
In the fall of 1946, science fiction fan and Fortean Paul Klingbiel matriculated at the University of Chicago, where he finished a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Chicago was also the home of the Institute of General Semantics, which was set up to study the works of Korzybski. Klingbiel attended large lectures on the subject Saturday nights and smaller discussion groups on Thursday nights. General Semantics was voguish at the time, if also considered a bit strange, a way of analyzing language to remove from it all kinds of subconscious bias—a theme that would appear in Brady’s essay for Doubt. As it happened, Klingbiel had happened across the same Roerich piece on the abominable snowman, and report it in the Fortean-themed fanzine “Embers” (speculating that the creature might have influenced H. P. Lovecraft.)
Was Brady reading Fortean fanzines? Did he know Klingbiel? Did they both frequent General Semantics seminars? The evidence is suggestive, but nothing more.
(Brady also mentioned that Roerich’s book gave an account of a mysterious—Fortean?—fire.)
Which brings us to Brady’s essay, in Doubt 21 (June 1948). It is a long essay, and one that I will not completely reprint here. But it is worth ruminating over—if only because it shows how the Fortean Ernest W. Brady thought about Fort (even if he wasn’t the same as the stamp-collecting or conjuring Ernst W. Brady). The essay was titled “Metaphysics Becomes Magic”—and that last word is used in a way which might suggest an interest in magic that would develop in the 1960s to consider such things as the god Mercury as a magician. It began:
“Forteans do not need to be told that Metaphysicophobia is popular. A few of them even indulge in it themselves. Which deplorable fact only demonstrates once again the far reaching power of the Philosophic Priesthood, those sublimated Gangsters of Thought who try to take all opposition and criticism for “a ride,” striving to “bury” these rebellious nuisances in the vaults of Oblivion after first smothering them in a shroud of Silence.
“Our intellectual Dictators know from long practice how easy it is to divert and seduce the inquiring with the idea that Metaphysic is a snare and a delusion and cannot possibly have any practical significance because it deals with matters ‘beyond experience’. Philosophy without Metaphysic they treat with good0humored tolerance for they can bet with certainty that its conclusions will dutifully lead to (to them) desirable confusion, Scepticism and Gadget-Worship.
“(By Gadget-Worship I mean the idolization of some element or facet of Reality as ultimate and significant. Examples are: the Cosmic Elan of Bergson, the Pragmatic Dictum of Dewey, Russell, James and Co., the AS IF of Kierkegaard, the Vitamin Mumbo-Jumbo and Atomania of Science and the Dieties of all Religions.)
“How often have I heard the plaintive cry, “Yes, yes, I’ve read all the books on Philosophy and I still don’t know where I am.” Our Mental Bosses just simply love us to be wandering aimless and gasping like a bunch of flopping herrings deprived of their native ocean. It keeps us servile, menial and fogbound, turns us into frozen cynics or floundering obscurantists. In this condition of mental peonage, we intensify our disillusionment, for example, by an avid perusal of Spencer’s Decline of the West (a tome which is really only the wail of an expiring Gangster) and we turn for dubious comfort and cherishing to the mushy and musty ‘osophies of the ‘deathless East,’ which abject surrender, suffocates whatever remains of our intelligence and will, fixing for ever our status as pawns and puppets.
“It is both cheery and true that Western Thought has declined. In fact the brute is only kept alive by generous hypos. But it is encouraging to know that side by side with this tardy and belated declension, there is a sturdy ascent to be revealed and chronicled, one more march of “the damned who won’t stay damned,” the pilgrimage of a lusty sorcery, the itinerary of a group of heartwarming and mind-expanding and will-liberating ideas. A revolution has taken place right under the up-titled noses of the philistines. Metaphysic--the despised and rejected of men--has not only recovered its lost dignity and value, but has successfully re-asserted its claims in the teeth of opposition from all usurpers and counterfeits. As it grows in acceptance this renaissance means the end of Gangsterism in Thought, the liquidation of Gadget-Worship and the guillotining of all Gimmick questing idolization.”
There is an answer to this disillusionment, though, Brady found, a countervailing trend that began with Kant and has now grown sizable:
“The revolution in Metaphysic was begun by Kant. The sage of Konigsberg was dissatisfied with the method of seeking the solution of the riddle of the universe in ‘objective truths,’ facts’ and ‘mechanical laws. He asserted that the problem can be reduced to the simple question . . . What is Experience? Experience is indisputable and self-demonstrating. It is something we all share and know about. It is NOT a Gimmick like Matter, Force, Ether, Will, God of the Divine Essence of the Mystics.
“From the common ground of agreement Kant took another forward step asking . . . How is experience possible? It was a new approach to the ageless query--who is running the Cosmic Show? For all Experience presupposes an ‘I’ or Subject. Who is this Subject and how does He operate? The answer is, the Subject is identifiable with Mankind or Humanity (the totality of all human beings possible and actual), because analysis demonstrates that Experience is first of all an intuition or feltness and the human being objectifies this feltness (for its own need and satisfaction) by means of ITS OWN Sense Forms of Time and Space. Analysis further reveals that certain Thought Forms or Categories (the Kantian table consists of twelve) working through the Sense Forms of Time and Space, transform the raw material furnished by the Senses into Conscious Experience or Reality. The primal Sensation, the two fundamental Sense Forms of Time and Space, transform the raw material of Time and Space and the Categories are all owned and operated by human beings. Mankind is not only the subject of Reality, but his sensations furnish the matter and His Categories supply the Form, for all Experience, possible and actual.”
Kant, thus, shows a path to viewing the actual world, unencumbered by the biases of the powerful, one that is deferential to experience—which is central to Forteanism, as well, since Fort’s reports are about experiences, whatever they might or might not mean. More recently, Brady thinks, the Kantian project has been furthered by Ouspensky’s “Tertium Organum” and Ernest Belfort Bax’s “The Roots of Reality” (1910):
“Without exaggeration, a history of Metaphysic without Bax is about as significant as a history of economics without Marx, a chronicle of Christianity without Christ, and account of the French Revolution without Marat and Robespierre, a story of the Stage without Bernhardt and Irving, a history of Humor without Mark Twain, a boat without a rudder or a live fish without a tail.
“The gist of Bax is his emphasis upon the paramount importance of the Primary Subject (Man) and his instruments of Creation and Intellection, the Categories. All thinking is Categorization. And the use of his Categories, or Concepts, in thinking or reflection, is only possible because the Categories have been built into the Object by the Original Creative Act. It requires very little consideration to see the truth of the following elementary propositions:
“All thinking is Spatial (using the Sense Form of Space)
“All thinking is Temporal (Using the Sense Form of Time)
“All thinking is Causal (using the Category of Causation)
“And so on through the entire Table of Categories.
“The moss covered argument of the Empiricists, that Time and Space and the Categories are derivative, is an illusion. Kant pointed out long ago that only the a priori Sense and Thought Forms can give universal validity. There will always be Time (sequence) and Space (co-existence). The power capable of changing their nature is the Primary Subject, Creator of Space and Time, Man himself.
“Bax escorts us down to the Rots of Reality with the minimum of bally-hoo and pretense and without digressing into the realm of fantasy. He hammers away at the fact that all solutions of the enigma of Life and the World (unless they adhere to the Kantian position) suffer from the same fatal flaw. They seek solution in some particular element or thing as ultimate and significant, thus promoting Gadget and Gimmick worship with its inevitable disillusionment. This method is fallacious, not only because the particular is unstable, but also for the reason that the particular, divorced from the Subject, has no real life. Only the triple synthetic creative activity is real (Man, his Sensations and Thoughts). They set the pattern, make the pace and fix the goal. Science today is a fit subject for a cosmic strip, not merely because of its servility to Gangsterism, but mainly because it operates in a vacuum, its doctrines divorced from the Primal Subject that gives all things life.”
This Kantian view sets the stage for how to understand Fortean phenomena: as part of a panoply of magical effects invented by a Creator still learning to understand himself. (Hoernlein would take Brady to task particularly for that himself, which Hoernlein saw as old-time religion sneaking in through the backdoor.) Fortean phenomena belonged to the various Categories, but did not otherwise have to make sense to scientific theories or materialist philosophies:
“I suggest that all thinking, including the Fortean, must submit to the discipline of the Categories, for this acceptance carries with it a revelation of Man as Creative and Significant Center of All Things. The amazing, disturbing and exciting phenomena chronicled by Charles Fort in his four books and copious notes, becomes comprehensible when the Cosmos is viewed as a Creation of a prodigally reckless Magician, whose geyser-like powers gush forth in a veritable orgie of production and will continue to do so until the Magician becomes completely self-conscious and deliberately regulates and restricts manufacture in his own interest.
“Recognition of the vital creative part played by the Categories means the end of Man’s menial and pawn status. It marks the early demise of the floundering restlessness, the negative criticism and pessimism, so characteristic of modern thought. This new Magic outlook restores the wonder, amazement and intense dramatic feeling that both Science and Religion have lost. The analysis of of Experience by Magic Metaphysic does not merely reveal a Gimmick that nobody knows, but exposes a process everybody knows. No further analysis is possible--none is needed. The Primal synthesis--Man and the reciprocal relation of the elements of his character (his Sensations categorized by Thought) are revealed as bedrock. All meaning, all significance, all authority is His. All others are counterfeit.
“The conclusion that the Universe is nothing else but Experience of Man the Subject, is also admission that Nature or the Cosmos, in origin, form and schemata, is truly a Magical Creation and automatically casts Man in the role of Hero in the Drama of all Dramas.
“Metaphysic is slowly and surely coming of age. It is a signpost to the formulation of a new Heroic Philosophy with Mankind as Central Creator, Measurer and Dictator of All Phenomena. This new outlook has a wide appeal,, for it combines the best features of Folklore and Mythology (admiration of the heroic, possession of miraculous powers), the deathless part of Religion (sense of awe, propensity to worship and adoration) and the noblest characteristics of Science (perfection in the use of the Categories and their subsidiaries, Logic and Dialectic).
“Here is hope for the hopeless, clarity for the befuddled, a Hero for the devout and worshipful, a Drama of epic proportions and staggering miracles for the poet, a Magic Show of Cosmic magnitude for the everlasting entertainment of the initiated, nutriment for the heart hungry for security and armament for the warriors who will fight for the recognition of the truth that ‘all things flow’ from Man and His capacious powers carry within them the possibilities of all things that will ever have been, that are, or that ever will be.”
Could this have been the writing of a stamp collector? Why not? Albert E. Page, he of the Vortex theory of the universe was a postman. There’s certainly the obsession with a magician that may mark this metaphysics as connected to at least one of the Ernest W. Brady’s considered here (with any luck, the right and only one). At any rate, Brady’s work shows again how Fort’s work was not taken by Forteans in isolation, but tied to other philosophies.
That Brady was never again in “Doubt” is not really a surprise. He seems to have gotten his thoughts out of his system and he was on to other things in 1950. It’s also true that a number of Forteans active in the 1940s—among them Hoernlein and Klingbiel—dropped away from the Society in the next decade. If I’ve got this Ernest W. Brady right, then he did, too.
The two were captured in the 1940 census, as well. Apparently, they had moved to Ogden Dunes, Indiana, some time before 1935; that was about forty miles outside of Chicago. Ernest was still in the process of becoming a citizen while his wife, listed here as Emily, seems to have given up on the procedure. The census reveals that she had four years of college, but she did not have employment listed in either the 1930 or 1940 census, which raises all kinds of interesting but unanswered questions about what she was doing with herself, since there was no one else in the household. Ernest, who had only finished high school, listed his occupation as stamp collector. It must have been somewhat remunerative, since they now owned their house, which was valued at $6,000 (about $100,000 in today’s terms).
That Ernest listed himself as a stamp collector helps to identify him, because there was an Ernest W. Brady involved in philatelic pursuits throughout the middle part of the twentieth century who (mostly) made his home in the Chicago area. His interest in stamp collecting started as early as 1934, but also perhaps earlier. We can say that he was interested in 1934 because of a news story that ran in”The Harlem Valley Times” 30 April 1964, in which Brady remembered a man visiting him during the 1930s, who said the ruins of Atlantis had been found in the Caribbean, and commemorative stamps would be issued. Brady bought 20 sets, only to find that it was all a hoax. Likely, Brady was referring to Captain J. L. Mott, a mysterious figure who appeared in the philatelic world around 1934, offering to sell Atlantean stamps; he seems to have disappeared around 1938. It was also around this time that Brady’s name appeared in the magazine “Stamps.”
His most remembered contribution to stamp collecting, though, was a sheet—as it was called when it was copyrighted in 1963: “Soliloquy of a Postage Stamp”:
I am the world's greatest traveler. I've journeyed from pole to pole and all the climes in between . . . by dogsled, camel and horseback, by every land, sea and air conveyance; even by submarine, dirigible and rocket.
I am the world's greatest art and portrait gallery. The heroes and heroines of mythology pose within my borders. I portray the greats and the near-greats of all time; kings and queens, pharaohs and presidents, princes and princesses, poets and patriots, emperors and explorers, athletes, architects, aviators, artists and adventurers, tribal chieftains, inventors, moguls, musicians and martyrs, dramatists and novelists, shahs, sultans, saints and sinners. Even the vanished forms of the phoenix, dragon, centaur and unicorn appear on my face.
I am the world's greatest picture chronicle and miniature encyclopedia. I map communities, countries and continents, and reveal views from every strange remote corner of the earth. I depict mountains and valleys; oceans, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, geysers, harbors, bridges and dams; native canoes, sailing ships and modern ocean liners; monuments and statues; castles, cathedrals, churches, missions, mosques, temples and ruins of temples; and every type of locomotion, from automobiles to zeppelins and steamboats to space ships. I delineate all manner of sports, handicrafts, customs, sacred rites and ceremonies; and nearly every variety of bird, animal, fish, fruit and flower.
I frame the horrors of war, the blessings of peace, the hardships of emigration, the plight of indigence and the blight of famine. I illustrate the adventures of Don Quixote, the fairy tales of childhood and the legends of all civilizations. I reflect the symbols of art and culture, of natural resources and industry, of trade and commerce, of agriculture and architecture, and of all human endeavor(s). I commemorate the expeditions and voyages, and the inventions, discoveries and creations that make life worth living.
Millions of men, women and children are fascinated by me. Through my infinite variety they find boundless pleasure, relaxation and enchantment.
Yet . . . I am only a postage stamp!
The “Soliloquy” was reprinted many times, including as a small 1978 book by Black Cat Press. It is this philatelic line that holds together one strand of Brady’s narrative—but I cannot quite connect it to the other strands, which is why I am so uncertain about his identity.
Brady registered for the draft during World War II, giving his birthdate as 1886 and his place of birth as Drogheda, Ireland. He was 55, living in Ogden Dunes, Indiana, and working as a stamp dealer, with an business dress at 111 West Jackson Street, Chicago. At 5’9” and 150 pounds, he was relatively slight. Brady did not have a home telephone.
The draft application was in April of 1942; seven months later, Brady finally succeeded in getting his U.S. Citizenship. It is from the 1942 petition—dated Armistice Day, no less—that we learn his middle name—William—and his port of entry, and the exact date: 17 March, also a date of some interest to Irish-Americans. But no reason is given for the long delay in the process. Also of note, while he gives the same birthday in this petition as he did on his draft paperwork (September 26), his birth year changes, from 1886 to 1881.
Although I could not find Brady in early passenger lists, when he presumably emigrated from Ireland to the United States, I can find him traveling in the 1950s. He sailed to Southampton, England, in November 1951 and gave his profession as “philatel.” (His wife may also have traveled with him, but I found mention of him in a UK incoming passenger list, which described only alien travelers; Emily would have still been an English citizen.) A year later, Ernest and Emily arrived in New York City, having traveled from Southampton. They both listed their address as 141 W. Jackson, Chicago, which suggests that, perhaps Emily was helping Ernest with his business.
Apparently in the early 1970s—if not before—Brady relocated to southern California. He would have been approaching 90 years-old, and the winters, if nothing else, would have been better there. I think this is the same person because there is a death notice of an Ernest W. Brady in Los Angeles from 1976, with the state record listing him as born in another country on 26 April 1886 and the social security index as born 26 September 1887 and having received his social security number in Illinois. That Brady died in Alhambra, 14 January 1976. He’s buried at Live Oak Memorial Park in Monrovia. Tracing back from that, city directories have him living in Whittier, California, in 1973 and 1974. Whiter and Alhambra are only about 13 miles apart. At the time, Brady was living alone, which makes sense given how much older his wife was.
But, there’s more to Brady, too, I think: another aspect that I cannot quite connect to this one: Ernest W. Brady, magician. For there was someone by that name involved with the conjuring arts. He seems to have been active during the 1960s which—if it is the same guy—is when Brady might have retired, being in his 80s by then. His name appears in “The New Phoenix,” a newsletter for magicians, as well as “The Mentalist” magazine. He wrote for “The Linking Ring,” official publication of the Brotherhood of Magicians. In May 1964 he published an article called “Martian Magic Shop” and in April 1966 “Mercury: Messenger of the Gods and Magic.” (I have seen neither.)
He apparently also created a magic trick, one that would make the conjuror look like he had telepathic—or mentalist—powers. The trick was a series of forty poems written specifically to highlight certain words—the 11th, 19th, and 27th words were the same in all the poems—but only for the magician. Everyone else involved in the trick was supposed to think they were merely indulging in a poetry seminar. (That’s quite a set up!) The trick was copyrighted to a PO Box in Chicago. Similarly suggestive, an Ernest W. Brady published a series of puppet plays—the book’s title was “The Punch and Judy Show”—through the Ireland Magic Company, which was an important magic shop in Chicago.
So, is this the same Brady? The magician and the philatelist? It seems really likely. There’s the Chicago connection, of course. And the when “Ernest W. Brady,” Fortean is taken into account, the likelihood increases.
Ernest W. Brady is mentioned four times in Doubt, and I have found no other connection between the name and Charles Fort. Half of the mentions are marginal. In one, Henry Hoernlein takes Brady to task for his essay on metaphysics—a reference that says more about Hoernlein than Brady, and has been discussed in the entry on Hoernlein. That is the last time that Brady is mentioned, 26 October 1949. The penultimate mention comes in April 1949, when Thayer notes that Chicago Forteans were trying to assemble their own chapter of the Society—Chapter Three, in the lingo of the Society, with Thayer’s being Chapter One and the San Francisco Bay Area group being Chapter Two. This was at a time when Thayer was interested in organizing Forteanism, an enthusiasm he soon outgrew. Thayer remarked,
“No general meeting has been held, principally from lack of a hall, but members Castillo, Bump, Brady, Hurd and others are in organizational conferences pretty much all the time. The explosive potential is enormously greater than anything Lillienthal dreams of--what with provivisectionist ‘Ajax’ Carlson, anti-vaccinist Hurd, rocketeer Farnsworth and pro-Kantian Brady all wrestling in the same cyclotron.”
The “pro-Kantean” sobriquet was also a reference to the essay that Brady published in Doubt, the same one that upset Hoernlein. That essay and Brady’s first contributions, those are the most interesting, and help give a singular vision to a person whom I hope is a single person. Let’s start with the first mention, Doubt 17 (March 1947). At this point in his life, the Brady (or Bradys) limned above have been in Chicago for a number of years, first as a bookseller, then a stamp collector, and just become a U.S. citizen but has not yet embarked on travel to Europe. He’s already shown an interest in the outré, if not an outright gullibility, by purchasing stamps issued by Atlantis. There has been no hint, yet, of an interest in magic, but of course the record is very thin.
Brady wrote in to “Doubt” about that abominable snowman, which was just beginning to return to public interest, after a decline during the war years—it had been the object of much speculation in the 1920s—and especially with the renewed attempts to climb Mt. Everest. He wrote, “I don’t know what the pulps have published about them but I came across the following in Alta-Himalaya by Nicholas Roerich, a travel diary published in 1929.” Roerich merely described earlier histories of sightings, which seem to have been forgotten during the war. But what makes the note so interesting is a possible connection to other Forteans.
In the fall of 1946, science fiction fan and Fortean Paul Klingbiel matriculated at the University of Chicago, where he finished a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Chicago was also the home of the Institute of General Semantics, which was set up to study the works of Korzybski. Klingbiel attended large lectures on the subject Saturday nights and smaller discussion groups on Thursday nights. General Semantics was voguish at the time, if also considered a bit strange, a way of analyzing language to remove from it all kinds of subconscious bias—a theme that would appear in Brady’s essay for Doubt. As it happened, Klingbiel had happened across the same Roerich piece on the abominable snowman, and report it in the Fortean-themed fanzine “Embers” (speculating that the creature might have influenced H. P. Lovecraft.)
Was Brady reading Fortean fanzines? Did he know Klingbiel? Did they both frequent General Semantics seminars? The evidence is suggestive, but nothing more.
(Brady also mentioned that Roerich’s book gave an account of a mysterious—Fortean?—fire.)
Which brings us to Brady’s essay, in Doubt 21 (June 1948). It is a long essay, and one that I will not completely reprint here. But it is worth ruminating over—if only because it shows how the Fortean Ernest W. Brady thought about Fort (even if he wasn’t the same as the stamp-collecting or conjuring Ernst W. Brady). The essay was titled “Metaphysics Becomes Magic”—and that last word is used in a way which might suggest an interest in magic that would develop in the 1960s to consider such things as the god Mercury as a magician. It began:
“Forteans do not need to be told that Metaphysicophobia is popular. A few of them even indulge in it themselves. Which deplorable fact only demonstrates once again the far reaching power of the Philosophic Priesthood, those sublimated Gangsters of Thought who try to take all opposition and criticism for “a ride,” striving to “bury” these rebellious nuisances in the vaults of Oblivion after first smothering them in a shroud of Silence.
“Our intellectual Dictators know from long practice how easy it is to divert and seduce the inquiring with the idea that Metaphysic is a snare and a delusion and cannot possibly have any practical significance because it deals with matters ‘beyond experience’. Philosophy without Metaphysic they treat with good0humored tolerance for they can bet with certainty that its conclusions will dutifully lead to (to them) desirable confusion, Scepticism and Gadget-Worship.
“(By Gadget-Worship I mean the idolization of some element or facet of Reality as ultimate and significant. Examples are: the Cosmic Elan of Bergson, the Pragmatic Dictum of Dewey, Russell, James and Co., the AS IF of Kierkegaard, the Vitamin Mumbo-Jumbo and Atomania of Science and the Dieties of all Religions.)
“How often have I heard the plaintive cry, “Yes, yes, I’ve read all the books on Philosophy and I still don’t know where I am.” Our Mental Bosses just simply love us to be wandering aimless and gasping like a bunch of flopping herrings deprived of their native ocean. It keeps us servile, menial and fogbound, turns us into frozen cynics or floundering obscurantists. In this condition of mental peonage, we intensify our disillusionment, for example, by an avid perusal of Spencer’s Decline of the West (a tome which is really only the wail of an expiring Gangster) and we turn for dubious comfort and cherishing to the mushy and musty ‘osophies of the ‘deathless East,’ which abject surrender, suffocates whatever remains of our intelligence and will, fixing for ever our status as pawns and puppets.
“It is both cheery and true that Western Thought has declined. In fact the brute is only kept alive by generous hypos. But it is encouraging to know that side by side with this tardy and belated declension, there is a sturdy ascent to be revealed and chronicled, one more march of “the damned who won’t stay damned,” the pilgrimage of a lusty sorcery, the itinerary of a group of heartwarming and mind-expanding and will-liberating ideas. A revolution has taken place right under the up-titled noses of the philistines. Metaphysic--the despised and rejected of men--has not only recovered its lost dignity and value, but has successfully re-asserted its claims in the teeth of opposition from all usurpers and counterfeits. As it grows in acceptance this renaissance means the end of Gangsterism in Thought, the liquidation of Gadget-Worship and the guillotining of all Gimmick questing idolization.”
There is an answer to this disillusionment, though, Brady found, a countervailing trend that began with Kant and has now grown sizable:
“The revolution in Metaphysic was begun by Kant. The sage of Konigsberg was dissatisfied with the method of seeking the solution of the riddle of the universe in ‘objective truths,’ facts’ and ‘mechanical laws. He asserted that the problem can be reduced to the simple question . . . What is Experience? Experience is indisputable and self-demonstrating. It is something we all share and know about. It is NOT a Gimmick like Matter, Force, Ether, Will, God of the Divine Essence of the Mystics.
“From the common ground of agreement Kant took another forward step asking . . . How is experience possible? It was a new approach to the ageless query--who is running the Cosmic Show? For all Experience presupposes an ‘I’ or Subject. Who is this Subject and how does He operate? The answer is, the Subject is identifiable with Mankind or Humanity (the totality of all human beings possible and actual), because analysis demonstrates that Experience is first of all an intuition or feltness and the human being objectifies this feltness (for its own need and satisfaction) by means of ITS OWN Sense Forms of Time and Space. Analysis further reveals that certain Thought Forms or Categories (the Kantian table consists of twelve) working through the Sense Forms of Time and Space, transform the raw material furnished by the Senses into Conscious Experience or Reality. The primal Sensation, the two fundamental Sense Forms of Time and Space, transform the raw material of Time and Space and the Categories are all owned and operated by human beings. Mankind is not only the subject of Reality, but his sensations furnish the matter and His Categories supply the Form, for all Experience, possible and actual.”
Kant, thus, shows a path to viewing the actual world, unencumbered by the biases of the powerful, one that is deferential to experience—which is central to Forteanism, as well, since Fort’s reports are about experiences, whatever they might or might not mean. More recently, Brady thinks, the Kantian project has been furthered by Ouspensky’s “Tertium Organum” and Ernest Belfort Bax’s “The Roots of Reality” (1910):
“Without exaggeration, a history of Metaphysic without Bax is about as significant as a history of economics without Marx, a chronicle of Christianity without Christ, and account of the French Revolution without Marat and Robespierre, a story of the Stage without Bernhardt and Irving, a history of Humor without Mark Twain, a boat without a rudder or a live fish without a tail.
“The gist of Bax is his emphasis upon the paramount importance of the Primary Subject (Man) and his instruments of Creation and Intellection, the Categories. All thinking is Categorization. And the use of his Categories, or Concepts, in thinking or reflection, is only possible because the Categories have been built into the Object by the Original Creative Act. It requires very little consideration to see the truth of the following elementary propositions:
“All thinking is Spatial (using the Sense Form of Space)
“All thinking is Temporal (Using the Sense Form of Time)
“All thinking is Causal (using the Category of Causation)
“And so on through the entire Table of Categories.
“The moss covered argument of the Empiricists, that Time and Space and the Categories are derivative, is an illusion. Kant pointed out long ago that only the a priori Sense and Thought Forms can give universal validity. There will always be Time (sequence) and Space (co-existence). The power capable of changing their nature is the Primary Subject, Creator of Space and Time, Man himself.
“Bax escorts us down to the Rots of Reality with the minimum of bally-hoo and pretense and without digressing into the realm of fantasy. He hammers away at the fact that all solutions of the enigma of Life and the World (unless they adhere to the Kantian position) suffer from the same fatal flaw. They seek solution in some particular element or thing as ultimate and significant, thus promoting Gadget and Gimmick worship with its inevitable disillusionment. This method is fallacious, not only because the particular is unstable, but also for the reason that the particular, divorced from the Subject, has no real life. Only the triple synthetic creative activity is real (Man, his Sensations and Thoughts). They set the pattern, make the pace and fix the goal. Science today is a fit subject for a cosmic strip, not merely because of its servility to Gangsterism, but mainly because it operates in a vacuum, its doctrines divorced from the Primal Subject that gives all things life.”
This Kantian view sets the stage for how to understand Fortean phenomena: as part of a panoply of magical effects invented by a Creator still learning to understand himself. (Hoernlein would take Brady to task particularly for that himself, which Hoernlein saw as old-time religion sneaking in through the backdoor.) Fortean phenomena belonged to the various Categories, but did not otherwise have to make sense to scientific theories or materialist philosophies:
“I suggest that all thinking, including the Fortean, must submit to the discipline of the Categories, for this acceptance carries with it a revelation of Man as Creative and Significant Center of All Things. The amazing, disturbing and exciting phenomena chronicled by Charles Fort in his four books and copious notes, becomes comprehensible when the Cosmos is viewed as a Creation of a prodigally reckless Magician, whose geyser-like powers gush forth in a veritable orgie of production and will continue to do so until the Magician becomes completely self-conscious and deliberately regulates and restricts manufacture in his own interest.
“Recognition of the vital creative part played by the Categories means the end of Man’s menial and pawn status. It marks the early demise of the floundering restlessness, the negative criticism and pessimism, so characteristic of modern thought. This new Magic outlook restores the wonder, amazement and intense dramatic feeling that both Science and Religion have lost. The analysis of of Experience by Magic Metaphysic does not merely reveal a Gimmick that nobody knows, but exposes a process everybody knows. No further analysis is possible--none is needed. The Primal synthesis--Man and the reciprocal relation of the elements of his character (his Sensations categorized by Thought) are revealed as bedrock. All meaning, all significance, all authority is His. All others are counterfeit.
“The conclusion that the Universe is nothing else but Experience of Man the Subject, is also admission that Nature or the Cosmos, in origin, form and schemata, is truly a Magical Creation and automatically casts Man in the role of Hero in the Drama of all Dramas.
“Metaphysic is slowly and surely coming of age. It is a signpost to the formulation of a new Heroic Philosophy with Mankind as Central Creator, Measurer and Dictator of All Phenomena. This new outlook has a wide appeal,, for it combines the best features of Folklore and Mythology (admiration of the heroic, possession of miraculous powers), the deathless part of Religion (sense of awe, propensity to worship and adoration) and the noblest characteristics of Science (perfection in the use of the Categories and their subsidiaries, Logic and Dialectic).
“Here is hope for the hopeless, clarity for the befuddled, a Hero for the devout and worshipful, a Drama of epic proportions and staggering miracles for the poet, a Magic Show of Cosmic magnitude for the everlasting entertainment of the initiated, nutriment for the heart hungry for security and armament for the warriors who will fight for the recognition of the truth that ‘all things flow’ from Man and His capacious powers carry within them the possibilities of all things that will ever have been, that are, or that ever will be.”
Could this have been the writing of a stamp collector? Why not? Albert E. Page, he of the Vortex theory of the universe was a postman. There’s certainly the obsession with a magician that may mark this metaphysics as connected to at least one of the Ernest W. Brady’s considered here (with any luck, the right and only one). At any rate, Brady’s work shows again how Fort’s work was not taken by Forteans in isolation, but tied to other philosophies.
That Brady was never again in “Doubt” is not really a surprise. He seems to have gotten his thoughts out of his system and he was on to other things in 1950. It’s also true that a number of Forteans active in the 1940s—among them Hoernlein and Klingbiel—dropped away from the Society in the next decade. If I’ve got this Ernest W. Brady right, then he did, too.
