Brother Twelve: The Incredible Story of Canada's False Prophet and His Doomed Cult of Gold, Sex, and Black Magic

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

There are now three book-length accounts of Edward Arthur Wilson, or
“Brother Twelve,” the cult leader whose community on Vancouver
Island (and adjoining islands) caused such a scandal in the late 1920s
and early 1930s. The first, Canada’s False Prophet (1967), purportedly
by Wilson’s brother, was a sensationalist narrative that should always
have been read as romantic fiction and is now known to have been
concocted by Thomas P. Kelley. The second, The Brother XII: The Devil of
Decourcy Island (1989), by Ron MacIsaac, Don Clark, and Charles Lillard,
attempts to whitewash Wilson but is confusing, poorly organized, and
disappointingly vague in its documentation. John Oliphant’s Brother
Twelve, though not without its problems, is easily the best of the
three.

Oliphant’s is by far the fullest account. The story is well told, and
for the most part it reads convincingly. Unfortunately, however,
Oliphant, like his predecessors, scorns even minimal documentation. He
tells us that his information is derived from “numerous personal
interviews, as well as from documents which are in the exclusive
possession of the author.” There is no serious reason to doubt this,
though he occasionally makes statements for which proof seems
impossible. (How does he know, for example, that Brother Twelve
vandalized the community before his departure? Lillard’s scenario of
subsequent local looting sounds more likely.)

Make no mistake: I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and believe it to be a
genuine contribution to its subject. Yet, given the record of deceit and
hoax that surrounds this story, the possibility of a partly fabricated
narrative exploiting the no man’s land between fact and invention will
remain until all the evidence is open for inspection. For the scholarly
mind, this is a pity; for others, the story remains naggingly, teasingly
mysterious. Whoever you are, you will find it absorbing reading.