William T. Horton Esoteric Tarot

[roppo]

I've been collecting the works of William T. Horton(1864-1919), an almost forgotten illustrator/mystic. His works were under the heavy influence of Beardsley, but without latter's sophisticaled decadence. Once he was initiated into the Order of the Golden Dawn only to find its system disillusioning. Some might call him a faillure. I don't agree.

So I tentatively selected his drawings and put them into the tarot scheme, numbers and titles. And honestly I'm sort of shocked to find they become so really a "tarot".
Well, Horotn was a friend of Pamela Colman Smith and W.B. Yeats. Perhaps he actually might have conceived a tarot plan or two. What do you think?

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/wthtarot.htm

These I call "William T. Horton Esoteric Tarot" and now am writing some explanatory notes.

 

[DraagonStorm]

I agree, those cards look like he did have the major arcana in mind.

 

[Debra]

My goodness, how interesting, Roppo! Thanks for posting these--what a nice idea.

 

[la-luna]

I've never heard of William T. Horton before but seeing his images i felt a real connection to them really tarot archetypical esoteric and at the same time aestehicly pleasing

Great deck you've made out of them

 

[Egypt Urnash]

He was certainly working in a vibe of Mystick Significance there. I think your choice of Fool would be a better World, though...

 

[Teheuti]

These I call "William T. Horton Esoteric Tarot" and now am writing some explanatory notes.

Would you be willing to make a larger, high-resolution set available that we could print as an actual Tarot deck? Or do you plan to publish these yourself?

Thank you for doing this. They are wonderful.

Mary

 

[roppo]

Today I printed out the Horton Esoteric Tarot by the Canon photo-printer. The result was quite satisfactory, so I set up a kind of shrine to Horton with his books and portrait, as you see :

http://grimoire.blog.ocn.ne.jp/doll/files/hortonshrine.jpg

And a thought. More than half of the Horton majors are taken from his "The Way of the Soul" (Willliam Rider and sons, London, no date[1910]). Yes, Rider, and year 1910. That means the work was in the same editing schedule as the RWS and PKT. I suppose it is not so wild to guess that the Horton's drawings had been influenced by the RWS or vice versa. "The Way of the Soul" consists of a series of symbolic drawings and its theme is "to portray the upward struggle of the soul of man through conflict and effort on the material plane to the realization of his higher self"(from Foreword by Sir Ralph Shirley). So it's undoubtly a kind of "Soul's Journey".

And hello, Egypt Urnash. Thanks a lot for your comment and advice. As I wrrote, the Horton Esoteric Tarot is still in the tantative condition. But let me explain why I chose the picture for the Fool. The verse going with the picture is --

"A child among the ways of men
I choose to walk the Earth:
Shadows of evil from me fall
And flowers spring to birth"

That reminds me of the Fool of RWS: only the directions they're walking are reverse. RWS's Fool is the young man leaving Eden to face the adventure. Horton's Fool is the child entering Eden after the adventure. That's my impression. And I remember somewehre Yeats wrote that Eden is situated on the top of the mountain, walled.

 

[roppo]

Would you be willing to make a larger, high-resolution set available that we could print as an actual Tarot deck? Or do you plan to publish these yourself?

Thank you for doing this. They are wonderful.

Mary

Hello Taheuti, I'm very glad you liked Horton Tarot. Not bad, isn't it?

Please wait a while till I make a filal selection. Of course I'll upload large jpegs for the printing purpose. It is my wish Horton and Audrey Locke shall be remembered by many of us as a strange mystical couple leaving warm memories.

 

[Debra]

Wow, Roppo, those look wonderful! Bravo, sir!

 

[la-luna]

And hello, Egypt Urnash. Thanks a lot for your comment and advice. As I wrrote, the Horton Esoteric Tarot is still in the tantative condition. But let me explain why I chose the picture for the Fool. The verse going with the picture is --

"A child among the ways of men
I choose to walk the Earth:
Shadows of evil from me fall
And flowers spring to birth"

That reminds me of the Fool of RWS: only the directions they're walking are reverse. RWS's Fool is the young man leaving Eden to face the adventure. Horton's Fool is the child entering Eden after the adventure. That's my impression. And I remember somewehre Yeats wrote that Eden is situated on the top of the mountain, walled.

Hm an interesting idea would be to print eacht verse going with the original picture at the back of each card. and perhaps a small limited edition sef-printing run would be nice (hint hint )