ModernGnosis.org

Tau is a traditional title given to a person when they are consecrated as a Gnostic Bishop. Sciam is a Latin word meaning “I will know” and Tau Sciam took this ecclesiastical name to remind him that his goal, first and foremost is to gain gnosis, or directly experienced spiritual knowledge.

Tau Sciam was born on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama in December of 1970 to fundamentalist Christian parents. As a teenager, he felt the calling to enter the ministry and began preaching and serving as Children’s church pastor while studying for his ordination. However, the more he studied and learned, the more he felt at odds with his denomination’s interpretation of the scriptures and of righteousness. Shortly before his ordination, Tau Sciam stepped down from the pulpit and began a quest to find his own personal religious beliefs.

This search led him to Thelema and an initiatory body called the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), based upon the structure of freemasonry, which he joined in 1990. He felt he had found his spiritual place at last within Thelema and began occasionally serving as deacon in his new church’s Gnostic Mass. Within a few short years, Tau Sciam would find himself running acting as bodymaster for a local body of the Ordo Templi Orientis and serving to the best of his ability.

In 1996, Tau Sciam was ordained as a minister by an organization that was not affiliated with the OTO and felt that it was a fulfillment of his calling that he had heard as a teenager. However, within months, he moved to New Orleans and, having moved just blocks away from the local OTO body, decided to close his instead of transferring it to the new city.

New Orleans proved to be a great learning experience for him. He spent a couple of years studying Voudou (Voodoo) with the famous Voudou Mambo Sallie Ann Glassman and her then consort, Houngan Shane Norris. He then spent two years studying bhakti yoga with the Gaudiya Vaisnavas (Hare Krishnas). Throughout this period, he tried to stay in at least occasional contact with Sallie Glassman and the person he considered “his” houngan Shane Norris.

In 2007, Tau Sciam noticed a popular online video series had begun mentioning Aleister Crowley and Thelema. He was dismayed to find out the amount of disinformation and complete falsehoods that people believed about Thelema, so he started his own video series in order to explain the concepts of Thelema and promote greater understanding. This series became very successful and cut down on misunderstandings a great deal.

Later in the year, while formulating marriage plans with his new fiancee, Tau Sciam was shocked to find out how much wedding officiants were charging people in order to officiate their weddings. He had always thought that religious services should be kept at a minimal cost so they would be affordable by everyone. So, he decided to begin once again offering his ministerial services and doing so in earnest, to provide services for those that may not otherwise be able to afford them.

Tau Sciam soon contacted Bishop Tau Allen Greenfield, his former initiator for several degrees in the OTO, and began speaking with him about his ministry. Bishop Greenfield offered Tau Sciam a charter for a study circle/temple of a freemasonic body and a local chapter of a Gnostic church. Tau Sciam was elated and thought this would help further his ministry a great deal. He gladly accepted and, in 2008, Tau Sir Hasirim (Bishop Greenfield) offered to consecrate Tau Sciam as a Gnostic Bishop.

March 22nd, 2008, Tau Sciam gathered together with Tau Sir Hasirim, Tau Naamah, and Tau HRMASht on Arabia Mountain in Georgia. It was at this gathering that these three bishops laid hands upon Sciam and made him now and forever a Gnostic Bishop in all Apostolic and Gnostic lineages. He now serves to the best of his ability and attempts to be worthy of that high office which he now holds - a bishop and prince of the Gnosis.

Member of American Association of Wedding Officiants.