Tamion Camp is a local body of Ordo Templi Orientis serving the South Wales region of the UK under charter from the United Kingdom Grand Lodge.
We run regular events including group rituals, classes, initiations, and the celebration of Liber XV The Gnostic Mass. All O.T.O members are welcome to attend our meetings, also many events are open to non-members, so do please inquire if you are interested.
For information about attending Tamion Camp events and initiation into the O.T.O. please email us.
Origins of the name ‘Tamion’
In about 700 AD, an anonymous cleric of the Byzantine Empire in a place called Ravenna in what was to become Northern Italy wrote a list of place names covering the world from India to Ireland. We today have three manuscripts that sought to replicate this original list, and they are now called the Ravenna Cosmography.
Unfortunately current copies were not copied from the original, they are 3rd or 4th generation, and there is some evidence that, at one point, they may even have been dictated. This means that the current versions are, unfortunately, rife with errors, misspellings and omissions.
However it is, as far as I am aware, the earliest document to mention the river on which Cardiff sits. The river is now called the Taff. Back in the 1100’s it was also called the Tam, Taf and Tauus. The Ravenna Cosmography calls it Tamion. Other lists and maps of Roman Britain that refer to the river call it Tamson, Taimon and Tamius. We know that Cardiff started as a Roman Fort at the mouth of the river, and there is an argument that the name Tamion may well have refered to the camp as well as the river.
When we formed the OTO camp in 2008 we sought for the right name. We felt that it needed to refer to the area, but we wanted it also to speak of the history of the people here. Tamion was the earliest name we could find for the place that is Wales’ capital; it refers also to the river on which the city grew, and at its root it speaks of a simple military camp.
The Tam part of the name is from the Latin meaning to flow, and is found in many river names. The founders of Tamion were spent many wonderful weekends with their brethren at a camp in Reading called Tamesa, the Roman name for the Thames. It was the closure of Tamesa that gave the impetus for the forming of Tamion, and the similarity of the names is no co-incidence. From death comes life, and the seed of Tamion grew from the ashes of Tamesa.
