Since it’s topical, another youtube video by “Frater Oz” entitled “In defence of the O.T.O.” contains an instance of another beginner’s mistake many Thelemites make that deserves correction.

In the video, “Oz” says:

Thelemites are a diverse group. Some do the work, some do not. Some simply live their lives as they see fit. Some interpret The Book of the Law in widely different ways than others. But that’s their right, and that’s the right that is given to them by The Book of the Law itself and by the Master Therion, and I think it’s very important for us to realize this.

“Oz” is, of course, referring to “the Comment” to The Book of the Law, specifically to the line:

All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself.

Firstly, a minor point which is of ultimately little importance and should not distract, but is nevertheless relevant when we’re talking about someone who’s posting videos of themselves trying to teach people about Thelema. “The Comment” is not part of The Book of the Law. The Book of the Law consists of three chapters and only of three chapters. “The Comment” was written more than 20 years after the purported “reception” of The Book of the Law and while it is usually published along with it, it is not a part of the Book. So the “right” in question is categorically not “given to them by The Book of the Law itself”.

But more important is the assertion that the ability to “interpret The Book of the Law in widely different ways” is a “Thelemic right” granted by “the Comment”. It isn’t. Obviously, in the wider scheme of things, nobody is going to go to jail for interpreting The Book of the Law in whatever cack-handed manner they please, so in that sense it is their “right” to do so, but that is not the sense in which this assertion is being made.

It is a very common and completely false belief that “the Comment” grants Thelemites the right to interpret The Book of the Law in essentially whatever way they please, and a quick look at “the Comment” itself is all that is required to demonstrate beyond any reasonable or even unreasonable doubt that this belief is indeed false.

Firstly, “the Comment” doesn’t say anything whatsoever about “interpreting The Book of the Law”. It talks about “decid[ing]…questions of the Law”, but never at any time talks about “interpreting the Book”. At a stroke, therefore, this notion is palpably false from the outset.

Secondly, even in the case of “decid[ing]…questions of the Law” (and we refer the reader to Will? What will? for further discussion on what “questions of the Law” actually refers to, and to Concerning “the Comment” for a more general discussion on the value and authoritativeness of “the Comment” in general, for that matter), it categorically does not grant Thelemites to right to decide such questions “however they please”. Instead, it quite clearly tells them that they have to decide such questions “by appeal to [Crowley’s] writings”, and only by appeal to those writings. Thus, if you decide a question of the Law in whatever way you please, and Crowley’s writings show that interpretation to be a bad one, then not only does “the Comment” not give you the right to decide it in that way, it expressly forbids you to do so. The fact that such questions have to be decided “each for himself” in no way implies that you have infinite latitude in coming up with demonstrably false answers – it merely states that nobody else can legitimately make that decision for you, and the fact that nobody else can legitimately make that decision for you in no way, shape or form implies that whatever decision you make must necessarily be a correct one. What makes the decision correct or not is not the mere fact that you chose to make that decision, but the degree to which that decision is aligned with Aleister Crowley’s writings, and the degree of latitude that any given individual has for “interpreting” those writings themselves is a long, long way from being infinite. What “the Comment” is really doing is telling you to go and deeply study Aleister Crowley’s writings so that you’ll be in a position to make correct decisions with regards to “questions of the Law”; it’s not giving you license to just make up any old nonsense because it sounds pretty good to you this morning. (By the way, “deeply study Aleister Crowley’s writings” should be read to include the work that others have done interpreting and explaining those writings. Reading what other people see in those writings can only help the individual in understanding them – as is the case for every other field of study – contrary to a certain widely-held belief that anyone who offers their own “interpretation” must necessarily pollute the minds of anyone reading it and thereby preventing them from coming to their own understanding in some kind of vaguely defined “unthelemic” manner.)

One more issue needs to be addressed with regards to this. “The Comment” is signed “The priest of the princes, ANKH-F-N-KHONSU”. It is sometimes argued that it is therefore not Crowley’s writings that “the Comment” refers to, but the writings of Ankh-f-n-khonsu, which – with the possible exception of the Stélé of Revealing – do not appear to exist anywhere. This is false. “The Comment” is signed “ANKH-F-N-KHONSU”, but it was written by Aleister Crowley the man, and Crowley makes this perfectly clear in The Equinox of the Gods (emphasis added):

It is “my scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu” (CCXX, I, 36) who “shall comment” on “this book” “by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit”; that is, Aleister Crowley shall write the Comment from the point of view of the manifested positive Lord of the Aeon, in plain terms of the finite, and not those of the infinite….My own inspiration, not any alien advice or intellectual consideration, is to be the energizing force of this work.”

“The Comment”, then, is clearly and openly the work of Aleister Crowley, and “ANKH-F-N-KHONSU” does not refer to some alternate personality or other being which “inspired” the writing. He reinforces the idea that it is his own writings – the writings of Aleister Crowley – which should be referred to “to decide disputed points” in the same work, by saying (emphasis added):

I lay claim to be the sole authority competent to decide disputed points with regard to the Book of the Law, seeing that its Author, Aiwaz, is none other than mine own Holy Guardian Angel, to Whose Knowledge and Conversation I have attained, so that I have exclusive access to Him. I have duly referred every difficulty to Him directly, and received His answer; my award is therefore absolute without appeal.

the final phrase again reinforcing the idea that the reader does not get to “interpret” anything in whatever way he pleases, but must refer to Aleister Crowley’s writings and take the answer that he finds there, without any possibility of appeal.

Further, on the subject of “interpretation”, he goes on to say that:

Where the text is simple straightforward English, I shall not seek, or allow, and interpretation at variance with it.

which is exactly what we said in The vice of kings: “if your ‘interpretation’ is not solidly grounded in the literal words of the text, then you are not interpreting it at all; you are just making random stuff up.” Crowley himself states that straightforward passages should be understood in a straightforward and literal way. He does, however, go on to give some examples of where a “meaning hidden” may exist and therefore may be sought, but says that:

I shall admit no solution which is not at once simple, striking, consonant with the general plan of the Book ; and not only adequate but necessary

which requires that any such interpretation must be justified with reference to the degree to which it is “necessary” and to which is it “consonant with the general plan of the Book”, and this also removes a great deal of avenues for “interpreting” the Book in any random way that appears to simply please the reader, not the mention the fact that Crowley doesn’t give any avenues to the reader for interpretation, on the contrary stating clearly that only he is in a position to “admit” a “solution”.

For the sake of completeness, we should point out that in Magick Without Tears Crowley says the following with regards to “hidden” or “inner” meaning:

We know (a) the Book means more than it appears to mean, (b) this inner meaning may modify, or even reverse, the outer meaning, (c) what we do understand convinces us that the Author of the Book is indeed what he claims to be; and, therefore, we must accept the Book as the Canon of Truth, seeking patiently for further enlightenment.

which speaks to AL III, 39 which says “for in it is the word secret & not only in the English”. It would be too easy – although still worthy of consideration – to suggest that Crowley was here just looking to quell the possibility of dissent and bolster his imagined position as a religious world leader, and that his attempts to establish Thelema as a “religion” arose from the fact that his earlier attempts to establish it as a “science” failed to attract large numbers of adherents. It is all well and good saying that we must seek “patiently for further enlightenment”, and that – as he says elsewhere in Magick Without Tears – that “You disagree with Aiwass—so do all of us.  The trouble is that He can say: ‘But I’m not arguing; I’m telling you'”, but it is worth remembering that Crowley also said he has “exclusive access” to Aiwass, so we can see that the idea of “Aiwass” saying “I’m telling you” really translates to Crowley saying “I’m telling you.” However, that being said, we must at least try to take him on his word, here. There is an appearance of contradiction, since in The Equinox of the Gods Crowley states that any inner meaning must be “consonant with the general plan of the Book” and that, since a literal interpretation must be taken where the text is straightforward, such a hidden meaning may not contradict that literal interepretation. However, a few years later in Magick Without Tears he appears to change his mind and say that, yes, the “inner meaning may modify, or even reverse, the outer meaning.”

There is ultimately little to be said on this apparent contradiction. Suffice to say that gematric noodlings ought not to convince anybody, so whatever this “inner meaning” might be – and Crowley’s comment in Magick Without Tears, very close to the end of his life, appears to state very clearly that he didn’t know what it might be – we don’t have it yet, and there’s no point wondering about it until we do. If an “inner meaning” were to make itself clear, it obviously must “modify, or even reverse, the outer meaning” of the entire Book. It is no good, for instance, to use this extract from Magick Without Tears to justify the interpretation that AL II, 21 exhorts us to be compassionate on the grounds that there is an “inner meaning” there which modifies the literal meaning, when the numerous other contradictory passages in the Book cannot be “modif[ied], or even reverse[d]” on the back of this purported “inner meaning”. Any claims to have discovered an “inner meaning” must at least be capable of providing a coherent and consistent interpretation of the entire Book, not just those individual passages that the interpreter would like to mean something else. As Crowley says, any such claimed “inner meaning” must be “not only adequate but necessary”.

Everybody is familiar with “the Comment”. Everybody knows it, and many people frequently refer to it. The fact that this ridiculous notion that “everyone has the right to interpret The Book of the Law in whatever way they choose” is so widely held is just more evidence of the inordinate difficulty many Thelemites seem to have in simply reading what’s right in front of their eyes every single day.

In closing, we must tediously be again at pains to point out that the actual question of whether anyone is at liberty to do this, that or the other is not the subject of this entry. This entry does not concern itself with the question of whether Aleister Crowley was or was not correct in claiming to be “the sole authority competent to decide disputed points with regard to the Book of the Law”, for instance. All this entry concerns itself with is what “the Comment” actually says, and what Aleister Crowley actually says. As ever, if you disagree with what “the Comment” says, and if you disagree with what Aleister Crowley says, then by all means go right on ahead and disagree with him, and do what pleases you but don’t falsely claim that your idiosyncractic “interpretations” are supported by Crowley, by “the Comment”, or by The Book of the Law when they demonstrably are not.