America’s Occult Militia

from the pages of FATE magazine

**FATE Magazine will be celebrating 75 years in print come 2023. Please support this institution by purchasing the print edition of the current issue in which this article appears. Pelley on pulp paper is a beautiful thing. https://www.fatemag.com/product-page/issue-738-presale**

Franklin Roosevelt is one of the most famous figures in American history. However, during his four-term tenure as “president for life” he faced many detractors. Among them were the domestic fascist Silver Legion of America, better known as the Silver Shirts (SS), led by goat-bearded mystic William Dudley Pelley. Members shared a fanatical interest in the occult and spirit channeling in addition to their fringe political views. Men were active in military-drilled Legion Posts while female “Silver Skirts” organized spiritualist Chapels.

Photographs of the group are rare, as they operated their own publishing house and did not court mainstream publicity, which was most often negative. This image was part of the private collection of a lady supporter who owned the group’s Silver Lodge property in Redmond, WA. Washington was home to their most active chapters during the 1936 election year. Pelley ran for president on the Christian Party ticket, only on the ballot in Washington state, and garnered 1,600 votes.

Small groups of Silver Shirts like this one would march into the violent dock worker strike riots in Seattle, for example, and come out with not a scratch. Their uniform was charged with occult symbolism and may have invoked what Pelley described as the “Armor of Christ.” Christian soldiers returning from World War I, who made up a good share of the Legion’s ranks, sometimes reported being surrounded by a pale blue glow while in combat. Bullets would pass all around them, some said through them, without doing harm.

Does this rare formation photo of Pelley’s Silver Legion depict this other-worldly protection?