S.K. Thoth was born on June 19th, 1954 in Manhattan General Hospital to Elayne Jones, a tympanist with the New York City Opera, and George Kaufman, a doctor. They named him Stephen after Stephen Foster, the songwriter in the early 1900's. Stephen spent his early years in St. Albans, Queens. His parents had two more children, Harriet and Cheryl. He and his sisters attended the United Nations International School where Stephen showed himself to be an average student. Both parents were involved in the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and took Stephen and his sisters on many marches in NYC and Washington. His father was one of the doctors who assisted the marchers who were beaten up by the police.

At eight years old, after one year of piano lessons, he had a dream of someone giving him a violin. He began studying violin with Mara Dvonch, a friend of his mother's and the assistant concertmaster of the American Symphony Orchestra. Although recognized to have talent, he rarely practiced as much as his teacher would have liked, wanting to play baseball and tennis, and cook instead. Even so, he progressed steadily. His parents separated and divorced when he was ten years old. The separation forced he and his sisters to leave the United Nations International School to attend public school. He went to Junior High School 217. During junior high school, he began imagining and creating a mythological world, Festad, as a reaction to feeling alienated from his peers and after reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. He auditioned for and was accepted into La Guardia High School of Music and Art. Upon graduating he received the Memorial Award for over all musicianship.

In 1972, his mother became tympanist for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and moved he and his sisters to San Francisco. There he attended San Francisco State University as a music major where he met Richard Wiseman, a professor of comparative literature and an adept at Jungian psychoanalysis, who later became his adviser and mentor. Three years later, he transfered to San Diego State University as an astronomy major. After becoming disinterested in astronomy, physics and mathematics, he turned his interest and attention to opera, drama, and literature. He studied Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelugen and took classes in languages, philosophy, and playwriting, which led to him continuing to write about his mythological world Festad . . .

As S.K. Thoth, he has been prayforming his solopera, THE HERMA:The Life and Land of Nular-in, daily at the Bethesda Terrace Arcade in New York City’s Central Park for more than ten years. In addition, he has prayformed the solopera in Sweden, Canada, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and in the Bay Area, where he developed his work, for the AfroSolo ‘99 Theater Festival. He has appeared on The View, America’s Got Talent, and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
In 2001, award winning director Sarah Kernochan made a documentary about Thoth’s life and work, which won the 2002 Academy Award for Documentary on a Short Subject. In June 2009, he released a book of short stories entitled Ruby and the Treehouse. In September 2009, Thoth released his eleventh CD with soprano and violinist, Lila’Angelique.
He continues his study of theosophy, the eating and preparation of raw food, the assembling of the Encyclopedia of the Festad, and the writing of a novel about The Herma.