Thelemic Hermeneutics A Critical Evaluation of the Study of Thelemic Scripture, Part I

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Hermeneutics broadly refers to the study of interpretation, especially of texts, language, and meaning. It is relevant in multiple domains—including philosophy, law, and literary criticism—but is most notably linked to theology, where it forms the basis for interpreting sacred writings. The central goal of hermeneutics is to establish principles and methods for extracting meaning from religious texts, ensuring that interpretations are coherent, consistent, and aligned with their context.¹Thelemites may be more prolific of prooftexting the Book of the Law than Christians are of the Bible!

But we all use some kind of hermeneutic in every aspect of life, all the time; we just don’t give it much concrete thought. We also don’t usually dissect what our cognitive hermeneutic looks like or how we use it on a personal level.

Disclaimer

Let me get something out of the way up front: despite the noise Jim Palmer makes about it, hermeneutics is not a one-and-done semester course in seminary, and suddenly you’re an expert. (Same goes for exegesis, but we’ll talk about that next week.) Nor is it possible for me to “catch you up to speed” on the intricacies of hermeneutics in a single Substack article.]

Frankly, there are far better instructors on hermeneutics out there. But there are no Thelemic (or pagan or occult) theologians of which I am aware creating new hermeneutics for the study of sacred texts that are less than two hundred years old, come from both a ‘revealed-slash-inspired scripture’ tradition and an ‘occult secret society of shared bullshit over a couple dozen decades’ tradition, and through a butch of noise about “a-a-a-authority” when no such conversation is even rational at this stage.²If you look for someone “teaching hermeneutics” or “teaching exegesis,” you’ll only find more bad numerology worksheets (e.g., bastardized qabalah). Even then, many Thelemites just become drooling idiots the moment the A-word is even uttered in mixed company. (That whole “Obey my prophet” line in the Book of the Law must really chap their ass!)

General Hermeneutic Principles

In theological contexts, generally speaking, hermeneutics operates within several key parameters.

Historical context plays a crucial role in understanding the intent of the original authors and the cultural, political, and social backdrop in which the texts were composed. Without historical awareness, modern readers risk imposing anachronistic perspectives onto ancient writings. We see this constantly with writers eisegetically crying “Eureka!” to modern interpretations of ancient texts, both evangelical Christianity and Christian Nationalism foaming at the mouth for our next Armageddon attempt, and all kinds of neo-pagan reconstructionism.

Thelema doesn’t necessarily have this historical context issue yet. Thelemites certainly will in another 200-300 years, though it could still be relevant to those who examine the Book of the Law through the lens of Crowley’s involvement with the Golden Dawn, for instance.

Linguistic analysis involves examining the structure, grammar, and etymology of the text, particularly when dealing with translations from ancient languages such as Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic. Nuances in language can significantly influence interpretation.

While the [so-called] “Holy Books” of Thelema have very few additional languages outside of English involved, we have a metric ton of individuals who will spend an inordinate amount of time masturbating through the most insane qabalistic contortions and yet won’t spend any time at all looking at the straightforward sentence structure, grammar, or even etymology of the words used in the Book of the Law.

My favorite is AL 2.58d–e: “Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves shall serve.” These are not two different sentences. It’s a single sentence with two independent clauses separated by a colon. Grammatically speaking, the second independent clause after a colon explains or illustrates the first clause before the colon. The slaves in this sentence are the Kings in the same sentence. Kinda rocks your boat when the verse goes on to say, “There is none that shall be cast down or lifted up: all is ever as it was” [AL 2.58f–g]. This really annoys the Far-Right contingent of Thelema, who like to think of themselves as the temporarily displaced rulers of the planet.

One of our hermeneutic rules (Rule Four) can be summed up as follows: scripture interprets scripture. And for good reason, as we can see here.

We, as a contemporary audience, are not that far removed from Crowley’s time period as much as we’d like to think we are—at least not for the purposes of grammatical-historical hermeneutic principles. But it can still be enlightening to look at the original context of when the text was inspired and the circumstances surrounding it—this is especially true when looking at texts like the Tunis Comment—and the grammatical structure of the material, which is often overlooked in favor of more superficial “magical” prejudices.

Another critical aspect is literary form and genre—whether a passage is poetry, prophecy, parable, or historical narrative—since different genres employ distinct rhetorical and symbolic devices.

We cannot apply the same critical analysis to Liber Arcanorvm των Atu του Tahuti Quas Vidit Asar in Amennti sub figurâ CCXXXI Liber Carcerorum των Qliphoth Cum Suis Geniis that we do to Liber AL vel Legis sub figurâ CCXX. The latter includes multiple literary forms and genres—poetry, prophecy, cryptic revelation, narrative work, etc. The former could be seen as straightforward apocalyptic poetry in genre and symbolist literature in form, though I’m sure others could argue for other categories as well.

Furthermore, canonical context is essential in traditions where sacred texts are part of a larger corpus. This necessitates an interpretative approach that harmonizes individual passages with the broader theological framework.

This brings us back to the canonical argument. Thelema doesn’t currently have a formal canon,³See A Thelemic Canon. and any attempt would be seen as incomplete by any number of groups. Either way, looking at merely a text within the larger group of Crowley’s received/inspired texts is the most logical starting point. Any additional received/inspired texts—in my opinion—must be aligned with at least the seven core Thelemic texts.⁴This is part of the reason why I personally believe Liber Arcanorum and Liber Tau certainly may be Class A texts but fail to meet the criteria as “Holy Book” (scriptural) texts. I believe there is a difference.

I’ll cover exegesis in Part II of this series.

What follows is not entirely original to me, but I participated in its creation. I know it’s still floating around the Internet, so I’m leaving it in its original form as well. There was an introduction, but it was just a list of “rules” without additional commentary to them.

However, I am providing my thoughts on each Rule along the way, including additional critique to some of them based on where I would tweak them for more clarity. I think we were trying to take some middle ground on a few of these to keep from offending people and I’ve reached a place in my life where I don’t give a shit about that anymore.

Overall, I still think this was the best approach to Thelemic hermeneutics then or since.⁵I am considering a reformation of the Society for Thelemic Literature, including its long abandoned (and unfinished) Manual of Style. Quite frankly, I think it’s long overdue. I continue to use it for the consistency and elegance of style itself. When you have those that continue along with “Liber AL vel Legis, II:58,” “AL II, 58,” “L, II:58,” “Book of the Law, II:58,” etc, it just becomes ridiculous to see how nonstandard it is across various texts. And if there is one thing that is obnoxious, especially with Thelemic texts, it’s the long titles when just trying to cite a single verse. The Manual of Style takes care of that easily and cleanly.

A General Approach to Thelemic Hermeneutics

Thelemic hermeneutics is the discipline of interpreting the sacred texts of Thelema, particularly the Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis) and the broader corpus of Aleister Crowley’s inspired writings. Given Thelema’s dynamic nature, its hermeneutic approach must balance rigorous intellectual inquiry with experiential engagement.

Unlike other religious traditions that often impose rigid doctrinal readings upon scripture, Thelema encourages an interplay between the revealed text and the individual’s evolving understanding. Thus, Thelemic interpretation remains fluid yet disciplined in its methods to avoid the pitfalls of arbitrary or self-serving distortion.

The foundation of Thelemic exegesis is rooted in a synthesis of academic analysis, theological and philosophical study, and Qabalistic nuance. The Qabalah, both in its classical and various Thelemic adaptations,⁶Though I am partial to the English Qaballa, personally speaking. To each their own in this regard. provides a framework for decoding the hidden structures of meaning within the texts, revealing correspondences and numerical patterns that illuminate deeper layers of wisdom.⁷Personally, I think it’s garbage to start with Qabalah, but I recognize that some find the Qabalistic number crunching satisfying. I am still a proponent of the EQ and, as such, find value in it regardless of my personal opinions of the overall “esoteric approach.” For me, it is far more valuable as a magical/ritual construction tool.

Meanwhile, an awareness of the historical context—particularly Crowley’s linguistic, philosophical, and occult influences—grounds interpretation in a proper scholarly framework, preventing anachronistic or superficial readings of his Commentaries, for instance. Or too much reliance thereon.

It is precisely because of Crowley’s failure to adhere to his own set of alleged rules of exegesis that such a hermeneutic is even thought necessary but justifies the creation of a set of rules that harmonizes Crowley’s intent with the academic rigor set out by experienced theologians of other religions that have come before us.

Yet, Thelemic hermeneutics does not stop at academic rigor; it demands that the interpreter actively embody the teachings, testing them in the crucible of lived experience. For the Word must be made flesh, and no mere intellectual exegesis can substitute for the realization that true understanding arises when the individual becomes the Law rather than merely reading about it.

For Crowley tells us, we are to take the Law of Thelema as “the Universal Key to every problem of Life, and then apply it to one particular case after another. […] Thus he will assimilate the Law, and make it the norm of his conscious being; this by itself will suffice to initiate him, to dissolve his complexes, to unveil himself to himself[.]”⁸Crowley, Aleister. 1996. The Law Is for All: The Authorized Popular Commentary to Liber AL vel Legis sub figura CCXX, the Book of the Law. Edited by Louis Wilkinson and Hymenaeus Beta. New Falcon Publications, 184.

Rule One: Each Scripture [pericope] must be understood within, though not limited to, a grammatical, historical, mythological, prophetic, qabalistic, religious, or social context.

For all my antagonism toward qabalistic meanderings, I recognize they have a place within the larger Thelemic theological landscape. Many times, however, individuals are caught up in and misled by their enthusiasm for some nuance of qabalistic number crunching from a specific system or another. They become obsessed with the correspondences of mystery rather than the straightforward Word of the message.

Looking at the larger context of a verse offers us far more “meat” to chew on than merely trying to grind some invisible meaning out of a coincidence of numbers from an arbitrary set of correspondences—and one that panders to a set of prejudices that others may not take as seriously as you do.

Our goal is to look at all the angles that are available to us. The context will provide most of this. Grammar is always a start. There could be mythic elements as Thelema draws on many different world religions for its allusions.⁹An out-of-print book, A Study of Names, examines all the proper names in the Class A materials. I thought it was a fascinating study of how many different world religions Thelema draws on for its allusions. There are prophetic elements even within the Book of the Law. Viewing various verses and whole texts within their historical context can be valuable.

Prooftexting

But, likewise, often there are those that prooftext verses for their own purposes in order to shut down conversation or intimidate others. Often, we find verses like these used out of context to ridiculous ends:

• … let not one know well the other. [AL 1.50j]

• We are not for the poor and sad … [AL 2.18d]

• Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves shall serve. [AL 2.58d–e]

• … argue not; convert not; talk not overmuch! [AL 3.42h–j]

• … let all chaste women be utterly despised among you! [AL 3.55b]

• As brothers fight ye! [AL 3.59]

You may have heard the phrase, “context is king.” I get asked questions all the time, and my response is inevitably, “depends on the context.”

One of the things this reminds me of is how the Book of the Law goes out of its way to provide us with a Greek word, θέλημα (Thelema), for this central doctrine or mystery of Will. It does not, however, provide us with the Greek word for Love, or ἀγάπη, as Crowley would fill in the blanks later for us based on the numerical equivalence.

Just because one word is in Greek does not necessarily mean that another will or should be in Greek as well. Crowley was big on assumptions and little on critical exposition. If he could bamboozle people with gematria and flashy letters and numbers and correspondences, then he had little need to deep dive into any kind of actual exegesis.

The Greek language has six different words for love. English, the language used for “love”—as in “Love is the law”—has, well, one word: love. This is not a mistake, and as nifty as the numerical identity between Thelema and Agape is here, it is not something to overlook.

The use of “will” in English could be misleading on all kinds of levels. But the use of θέλημα is quite specific, in fact. It can only have a specific meaning. The Book of the Law does not, for instance, use the word βουλή (boule) or purpose. It is very specific to the exact word of “will” that we’re discussing.

Love can mean any kind of love. In fact, it should mean all forms of love without needing to be specific—or, at the least, it’s contextual in its use throughout the Book of the Law. But θέλημα has to be specific, or we would continue to be lost in the mire of these “find your own way,” “do what you think is best,” “do what feels right,” and other nonsensical suggestions. The love of the Book of the Law is far more than just one type of love, more than just ἀγάπη. It is absolutely the fullness of love in all its aspects without regard for higher or lower, friendship or lover, self or others.¹⁰That said, “love under will” is a specific phrase with meaning. But we’ll tackle that another time.

Changes

Changing the word “Scripture” to “pericope” not only brings it in line with the text of A General Approach to Thelemic Exegesis, but it smooths out the intent of this set of Rules in the first place to encompass a broader range of texts beyond merely scripture. Granted, it was originally designed for the Holy Books, and I feel it would probably be used most predominantly for that purpose. However, keeping it as broadly useful as possible is more utilitarian.

I won’t repeat this explanation each time, but I’ve taken the liberty of changing this in the rest of them as well.

Rule Two: Personal integrity, intellectual honesty, common sense, and quality of rational inspiration are required in order to analyze and discriminate between a principle of truth and a dogma of convenience.

Today, as then, we have a lot of unserious people running around Thelema, throwing ideas around that don’t have any sound basis in its textual foundations. Outright intellectual dishonesty has been rampant since the early 2000s, and it was the reason the Society for Thelemic Literature even considered a set of formal hermeneutic principles in the first place.

This isn’t merely a “Thelema problem.” It’s a problem anytime you have a religion in which there is a text that is revered by a set of people as something central to their identity. And Thelemites just happen to fit that description. It is natural to want to find justification for our prejudices, whether that is to condone our hatred for others—as in condemning those poor, fat people as the ‘wretched & the weak’—or to preach our sense of isolationist elitism—through misapplication of the “few and secret”—bad exegesis throughout nearly every major religion has been around for centuries in service of everything from just poor taste to advocating genocide.

It’s not like we’re alone in this stupidity.

We’re just alone in not having a solid hermenutic base on which to stand, study, and spread the Law of Thelema in a coherent, consistent, and contextually accurate manner.

And it’s not like theologians and scholars in other religions don’t discuss, debate, and criticise the hermenutic principles within their fields all the time. They do! So I have no illusions that these are entirely sufficient for our own hierological endeavors and should probably be tweaked even more.¹¹But I’ll say what I’ve often said over the past couple of decades. If you don’t like these, make up your own. I’ve got no beef with that. But no one else is. Besides, I’d rather collaborate than compete. These are principles that could assist the whole community in finding better ways to approach our scriptural foundations intelligently, academically, philosophically, and theologically. There are no downsides to collaboration.

Changes

I think I was the one who insisted we add “common sense” to this equation. If asked now, I would probably remove it because it feels almost too flippant and imprecise. I was probably being flippant then, truth be told.

Rule Three: The principle underlying each Scripture [pericope] or statement of counsel or instruction must be recognized in order to understand its relevance for those in different times or places, including our contemporary era.

The hermeneutic rule wasn’t intended merely for the “Holy Books,” but Thelema’s entire corpus, past, present, and future. This would include Crowley’s correspondence, epistles, additional writings, and anything else that could be relevant, whether from Crowley or anyone else.

One of the concerns has always been that Crowley—or any author, whether it was C.S. Jones, Soror Meral, Parsons, even DuQuette or Shoemaker—is writing to his contemporaries in the moment, and we do need to understand the principle being explicated in that moment, for sure. But for us who are removed from such times, and even in the case of living authors today, the goal is to extract the underlying principle of the textrather than focus on the idiosyncrasies of the text that are time-bound, whether that is grammatical nuances, allusions, textual references, historical (to us, contemporary to them) events, or even fictional framing.¹²This was one of my major points at the beginning of the Ayn Rand article, the extraction of the underlying points rather than focusing on the author’s bathroom habits or personal prejudices.

Rule Four: Two Scripture [pericopes] that seem to contradict each other by appearances must wait until a third Scripture[pericope] arrives and resolves their apparent contradiction.

This is the principle that could be neatly summed up as scripture interprets scripture. This may be one place where my word change defeats the purpose, but I’ll leave it.

Generally, this has been a huge issue for theological communities of all sorts, but especially those that insist on the inerrancy¹³The issues of infallibility and inerrancy of scripture are sticky subjects and sometimes are conflated even among theologians.
Infallibility is the commitment to a belief that scripture is completely trustworthy as a guide to life and will not fail to accomplish its purpose.
Inerrancy is the view that scripture is written with full historical and scientific accuracy on all matters it affirms and is completely truthful. There are limited versions of this doctrine that inerrancy is restricted to certain elements of scripture, such as theological rather than scientific aspects, but it depends on whether you’re talking to Anglicans or Evangelical Fundamentalists. But inerrancy is usually the doctrine used to argue with “the Bible is always true in the original manuscripts” weasel phrasing.
I always have this discussion with Thelemites who are “But Hadit is an Eqyptian God.” No, it’s not. “No, really. It’s just a poor translation that Crowley got from someone else. It’s really Heru-Behdeti.” No, it’s not. “But, you’re just …” No. The speaker of the Book of the Law said, “Hadit.” He didn’t say, “Heru-Behdeti.” Those are two different names entirely. And you would think that a messenger of the Gods would know what a God’s name was, right? Otherwise, what a stupid God that didn’t know their own name, and a stupid messenger of the Gods that couldn’t get the names right! Aiwass got it right. It’s Hadit. Not Heru-Behdeti. Not Horus of Behdet. Not anything else. It’s just Hadit. No other scripture on the planet gets their god-names wrong in their original manuscripts. Ours didn’t either. of their scriptures. We don’t exactly, and I think that’s in our favor. In fact, Thelema would be hard-pressed to even make claims of inerrancy of scripture at all, given how much the grubby fingerprints of the Prophet are all over the manuscript, despite Aiwass telling him to keep his grubby fingerprints off the manuscript.

As the foundation of Thelema, by design, one might say, the Book of the Law establishes a challenge to the idea of inerrancy as a norm in religious texts. One cannot hold any modern copy of the Book of the Law and suggest it is inerrant unless they are blind.

However, a lack of inerrancy does not imply a lack of scriptural integrity of the text itself (again, also by design). This does not mean there is no internal consistency, that the text cannot explain or provide guidance for itself.

I hesitate to go out on a limb and suggest the Book of the Law is theologically infallible. Crowley suggested it made announcements in science that I won’t make because it’s not something I’m that scientifically literate enough to support. But I do stand on a statement he made about Thelema revolutionizing “philosophy, religion, ethics [and] the whole nature of Man.”¹⁴Crowley, Aleister, Mary Desti, and Leila Waddell. 1997. Magick: Liber ABA. Edited by Hymenaeus Beta. Weiser Books, 429. And I think that can be supported in a multitude of ways through the Book of the Law. Infallibly, though? Eh. Catch me another day on that question.

Rule Five: Spiritual application must overcome historical accuracy as interpretation may involve multiple layers of meaning and must take into account mystical and qaballistic modes inherent in the text.

I admit I always hated this one. However, I understand that future generations need some wiggle room when grasping the layers that break free from time-bound meaning to become personal significance. This also has to allow for breathing room for the Second Prophet.

You heard me.

It’s in the Book of the Law, and we all just skim right over it and ignore it because the larger community is afraid of a-a-a-authority.

Let’s put this simply: it doesn’t matter if Crowley sat for three days in Cairo in April or entirely fabricated the whole story, we have something transformational in our hands.

At this point, the whole crucifixion and resurrection story of Christ could be found to be true or false, and it won’t matter at all. Why? Because two thousand years of history, for both better and for worse, have alreadybeen shaped by that narrative. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle for all the historical accuracy in the world. It just doesn’t matter anymore.

Thelema has an origin story. Who gives a shit how accurate it is? Does it matter in the long run if the spiritual and practical principles within the Book of the Law get us where we’re going?

Rule Six: Careful consideration must be given to the production of exegesis so that it does not devolve into a personal verse-by-verse commentary that is presented as a matter of truth.

While I personally think this is unnecessary, you’d be surprised how many don’t grasp this simple principle. Even Crowley didn’t understand this. But this is why we take Crowley’s work with a critical eye. There is a lot of profundity in his Commentaries. But they are not Class A materials. Frankly, there is a lot of just shitty stuff there too. We have to use discernment in sifting through it all.

You may have heard the phrase, “When you know better, you do better.”

I am a huge believer in ‘the more, the merrier’ when it comes to commentaries. I think the more we have, the more likely they’ll get better over time. What we have right now is mostly garbage takes. But at least we havesome, is my thinking, even if they’re terrible. I think we need more. Have you ever walked into a Christian bookstore and seen all the commentaries? There are more commentaries on a single book of the Bible than there are over the entire set of Thelemic “Holy Books.” Walk into a preacher’s office, and he’ll have the selection of commentaries that he likes, but it will still be more than zero, and then he’ll preach his opinions anyway.

The idea that we can’t have commentaries because “we’ll all be overly influenced by others and won’t be able to make up our own minds” is so stupid that I don’t even know how to write a rebuttal to it. But I do think we should be careful in our exegesis to keep it from being merely a set of personal prejudices written down¹⁵See Don Webb’s Overthrowing the Old Gods for an example of this kind of eisegetic work. and actually work to create a solid commentary through proper exposition of the material.

Rule Seven: Though the potential for contradicting themselves exists in the written word, we must allow for the maturing experience of authors and exegetes—even prophets—in that truth is unfolded to them only as fast as they are able to understand it.

How many times have you heard, “But Crowley changed his mind”? Or “Crowley’s ideas changed”? I’m always surprised when people correspond with me and express their own surprise that there are -gasp- contradictions in Crowley’s writings or ideas that change from one book to another.

Granted, occasionally, there are some that don’t make sense, but usually, we find that either the shift is a sense of maturing thoughts or—in many cases—merely a difference of perspective or audience. Crowley was generally quite consistent throughout his lifetime on his most significant topics,¹⁶Read that sentence again really carefully before you come at me saying that I’m claiming he never contradicted himself or never changed his mind on anything. though less so on the ebb and flow of cultural tides or areas in which he had less personal experience or knowledge.

But no matter how consistent someone might be in their work, we must allow for a maturing of views, of thoughts, of experience. I cannot tell you how much material I’ve written in thirty years, but I can tell you how much I would absolutely not put out in public these days that was written thirty years ago. And I hope to mature enough that the new material I’ve written in the past six months will be obsolete in another decade or so—or at least updated with maturity, even at my age.

Rule Eight: Recognize progressive revelation through spiritual maturity, appreciate that all truth is revealed over time and meditation, and understand that any process of exegesis will necessarily be as incomplete as it is personal.

This was one of the most heavily debated rules we had. In one sense, it is an extension of aeonic theory, the idea that if we live in an unfolding progression of spiritual epochs (aeons), then our own lives also unfold through similar progressive states of spiritual maturity. That means that any process of understanding will always be incomplete and personal, no matter how accurate it may be from another’s perspective.

A Thelemic Framework

In the end, there is no such thing as a complete commentary. It will always be unfinished. As such, one might even say there is no such thing as a finished set of hermeneutic principles either. However, as I say with most things, it’s a start. It’s a place for the consideration of principles for solid exegetical work that fits within our living tradition as Thelemites.

Love is the law, love under will.