A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

that would provide a wide variety of services to those who wavered in the “struggle for
existence.” With his call for an end to poverty, his condemnation of the ostentatiously wealthy
and his secular vision of “Comrade Christ,” the young Pelley brought to mind the social gospel
so often espoused by spiritualist circles. The call for a non-denominational Christianity and a
scientific examination of matters of faith further recalled the sustained attack on orthodoxy
carried out by Spiritualism in the preceding century and suggested a dynamic of disintegration—
heterodoxy. His rhetoric would remain consistently heterodox, summoning forth a world in
which “old worlds disintegrate, old fetishes wobble; out of the womb of Time and Change is
born the fresh majesty of wisdom ennobled.” 147
Yet his calls for mutual aid and a constant
recourse to mother love both enacted a more centripetal dynamic. Over the course of his life, he
would occupy both poles of the tension that so beset the political life of his age—communism
versus fascism—often simultaneously. Like most avatars of modern communication between the
human and the Other, Pelley’s vision was in many ways defined by sustained internal
contradictions.
As he continued to think through his philosophy over the course of his adult life, Pelley
showed evidence of the confusions and prejudices that beset his age. While crowing about “Why
I Am Glad I Married A Suffragist” for American Magazine and generally championing the
independence of women, Pelley maintained standards straight out of the Victorian cult of true
womanhood. As Leo Ribuffo points out in his study of Pelley, this alleged feminist approved of
his wife’s “public activities only as long as she remained a true woman who cooked suppers,
nurtured children, and acknowledged his status as ‘boss’.” 148
Much of Pelley’s written output
147 William Dudley Pelley, Soulcraft 78 th Discourse: Redemption: How the Early States of Man worked for Spirit’s
Concept of Society (Noblesville IN: Soulcraft Chapels Press). Undated material recovered from Noblesville, Indiana
Public Library’s vertical file archive on William Dudley Pelley in July of 2005.
148 Ribuffo, 37.
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