Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00775)

Some further information on Vyvyan Deacon and possible OTO links with 
Leadbeater.  

Deacon's daughter, Vivienne Browning, wrote in 'Skoob's Occult 
Review', Aug 1990 that 

"As Frater Memnon for the Christian Mystics of the Rose Cross for 
whom he [Deacon] was the sole custodian in Australasia, he wrote a 
controversial treatise on LOVE. [her capitals] The C.M.R.C.'s 
pamphlets and tracts show clearly that his C.M.R.C. was a cover for 
the OTO and found favour among the youngsters in Christchurch and 
Wellington." 

An odd claim, and the C.M.R.C. name sounds rather like something A E 
Waite would have dreamed up.

Dr Tillet in 'The Elder Brother' of course notes Deacon's diaries and 
correspondence referring to meetings with Leadbeater.  However this 
rather stands or falls on the assumption that Deacon was a 
representative of the OTO.  Dr Tillett claims 

"Deacon had been operating a branch of the Ordo Templis Orientis in 
Australia from some time prior to 1913 . . ."

This assertion - ie, that a sixteen or seventeen year old boy was 
running an OTO in Australia - was strongly criticised by Keith 
Richmond in his recent biography of Frank Bennett. 

Personally I have no doubt Deacon was both precocious and 
enterprising; nonetheless the notion of such a young person running a 
magickal group in the often puritanical Australia of the early 20th 
century seems somewhat wide of the mark to me. I would want to see 
some evidence, and this appears to be lacking.  

However, Richmond's reasoning on this is somewhat askance as it 
assesses the chances of Deacon being an OTO member as unlikely 
*solely* on the basis that Crowley would not have tolerated Deacon's 
involvements with other groups.  

That does not really address the later clarification by Vivienne 
Browning (who Richmond refers to as 'Elaine Bailey') that  Deacon's 
OTO contacts were "independent of Bennett and preceded Crowley 
becoming Outer Head."  

Richmond goes on to say the only evidence linking Deacon, and 
presumably Leadbeater, with a pre-Crowleyan OTO was have that 
suggested via Wedgewood and Yarker.  A link Richmond regards 
as 'tenuous at best'. 

Again, it would be good to have some evidence for purposes of 
clarification.  

I am apt to regard Vivienne Browning as a less than credible source 
on some of this.  On page 284-5 of 'The Elder Brother' she is quoted 
as asserting her father 'was trained by Bishop Leadbeater in 
Theosophical and Rosicrucian practices', but she then goes on to note 
that Leadbeater's books many years later 'reveal many of the subjects 
well known to the poet Robert Browning and my father as family 
tradition.'  One might ask -Who was training who ? 

Further, in her own biography of her father 'Uncommon Medium' she 
seems unable to account for his activities between leaving England in 
1908 and his early period in Melbourne from 1912 onwards. 

Regards

Ben Scanlon