Social Victorians/People/Horton

Also Known As

William Thomas Horton (Küntz 193)
W. Thomas Horton
Thomas Horton
Golden Dawn motto: Spes Mea Christus — "Christ is my hope" (Küntz 193)

Demographics

Nationality: British, born in Brussels, Belgium
Religion: besides the esoteric mysticism of the Golden Dawn, Horton practiced Anglicanism at some point in his life and, at the end, he converted to Roman Catholicism.

Family

William Thomas Horton (27 June 1864 – 19 February 1919)
Amy Audrey Locke (c. 1881 – 1916)

was there a child?

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Acquaintances

Annie Horniman
Arthur Symons

Friends

W. B. Yeats
Edward Berridge
Aubrey Beardsley
Roger Ingpen
Walter de la Mare

Organizations

The group thinking about sexual spiritual practices? (Berridge's group)

Timeline

1896 March 3, W. B. Yeats wrote to Horton, saying he "had ony recently moved" to 18 Woburn Buildings and setting the date for Horton's initiation into the Golden Dawn (Harper 80 3-4).

1896 March 21, Horton joined the Golden Dawn (Harper 80 4).

1896 March 28, one week after his initiation into the Golden Dawn, Isis-Urania Temple, Horton wrote to Yeats about himself and about Annie Horniman. Harper sees implications in the letter for later disputes regarding Horniman, Yeats, and the writings of Thomas Lake Harris (Harper 80 6). Harper writes: Horniman "was in fact in charge of instruction to new members. A reference to her in Neophyte Horton's letter ... suggests that Harris's doctrines of love were much discussed in the Order at that time. In the light of Miss Horniman's aversion to sex and Horton's later action in leaving the Golden Dawn, joining The Brotherhood of the New Life, and living Platonically with Miss Locke, a reference to a disagreement between Yeats and Miss Horniman over the controlling astral forces in Horton¹s life is illuminating if not prophetic:

I can't help thinking you right about my star being Venus & not Virgo as suggested by Miss H. I have always been in love with some girl ever since I was a child. Always some girl that I idealised, put on a pinnacle & tried to keep myself pure for her sake. If it was not one girl it was another. I can't help thinking that if I had not married young & also had a very strong spiritual bent, I might have given full sway to the Venus proclivities. But more of this when we meet. I shall be looking forward to my horoscope at your leisure.

Harper's reading of Horniman's "aversion to sex" is loaded and should not be taken at face value. Also, possibly, is his sense of the seriousness of this "disagreement" between Yeats and Horniman. Harper was "able to discover little about Horton's wife or child. Although he refers to her occasionally in the letters to Yeats, Horton says nothing of their life together, and he never mentions their son" (Harper 80 6, n. 25).

1896 April 13, Yeats replied to Horton's 28 March letter, warning him, as Harper puts it, "about belief without proof":

Egyptian faces may very well come to you after your initiation, as the Order is greatly under Egyptian influence; but one can never say whether a specified vision is or is not authentic without submitting it to an actual occult examination. The great matter is to remain positive to all apparitions and to work on in the GD as far as the 5-6 grade before attempting much or any practical occult work such as invocation. You should get A.P.S. [Anima Pura Sit, Pullen-Burry] to send you with your material for examination — The Banishing Lesser Ritual of the Pentegram [sic]; as you are entitled to it and may find it of importance. It is a great help against all obsession. (Harper 80 6)

1896 April 29, in a letter to Yeats, Horton said he had to get out of the Golden Dawn (Harper 80 7).

1896 August 10, about, Edward Berridge had been out of town and was expected back. Horton wanted to see him (Harper 80 16).

Questions and Notes

Horton had a child? (Harper 80 6, n. 25)

Bibliography

Harper, George Mills. W.B. Yeats and W.T. Horton: Record of an Occult Friendship. (London: MacMillan Press, 1980).
Küntz
"William Thomas Horton." Wikipédia https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Horton (accessed July 2020).