I read through the thread last night, and thought I'd wait until today to find a quote I thought I remembered from Crowley's
Magick in theory and practice... took me a little while, but it's on p193 (1929 edition).
Before doing so, however, let me add that in my view LaVey's works are, as mentioned by others, irrelevant to this discussion. Whetever he has decided to adopt from Crowley or others is for a very specific form of 'satanism' that he has appropriated in his own peculiar fashion, and it would be a pity to consider his version as representative of the various nuances the term has in various contexts.
Also, I am in disagreement with ravenest's statement regarding Steiner ("[...] Rudolf Stiener wrote some very interesting stuff about Lucifer [...] but later runs of their books and their own organisations have censored them [...]" see post 38 above for the full quote). I'm not sure which of the many lecture series by Steiner, or which books and papers, are being referred to, but his usage of the name 'Lucifer', and, for that matter, 'Ahriman', and 'Christ' have been retained and, importantly, republished. The terms are too clear to be altered, and need not be (on the contrary!).
Since this has been mentioned, it may also be worth mentioning that the luciferic and the satanic are viewed as distinct and different forces by not only Steiner, but by those that Crowley would have been in contact with at the time. That they can each be viewed as a different impulse for evil can also be seen in, for example, one form of viewing XV the Devil: in some decks he has two faces, one upon his head (an ahrimanic impulse), the other on his belly (a luciferic one). Each of the 'imps' can also be viewed as having predominant leanings towards one or the other of these two extremes.
But let's return to Crowley's works for a while.
There is (or at least, it called to my mind) something of Goethe's
Faust in Crowley's statement that "With regards to Pacts, they are rarely lawful. There should be no bargain struck. Magick is not a trade, and no hucksters need apply. Master everything, [...]" (
ibid. p. 194).
But let us turn to the page prior (193), and its important footnote:
"The Devil does not exist. It is a false name invented by the Black Brothers to imply a Unity in their ignorant muddle of dispersions. A devil who had unity would be a God [fn 1]
Here Crowley is certainly conjuring the familiar line at the time that a variety of beings are incorrectly applied the singular title of 'devil'.
But let's go straight to part of the footnote [fn 1] (the whole foonote is half a page long):
""The Devil" is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes. This has lead to so much confusion of thought that THE BEAST 666 [ie, Crowley himself] has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ - the solar-phallic-hermetic "Lucifer" is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and "The Devil" SATAN or HADIT of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. [...]"
Now, I'm not sure about others, but it seems to me that here Crowley is,
contra many of his time that wrote on the subject, presenting an identification between Lucifer and Satan, and that, further, he considers the same as his own 'Holy Guardian Angel' - and that further, such is to be invoked with one's whole being.
On that reading, Crowley is very much a satanist, who sees in the Satan a being who delivers humanity from the shackles of ignorance and makes of Man a God.
This can be further evidenced by pointing to his bolded section on the next page, whereby he writes (p 194) that ""Obedience and faith to Him that liveth and triumpheth [...]" is your duty to your Holy Guardian Angel [...]" - in this case, given who he claims as his own HGA, his duty is obedience and faith in satan.
(In that same footnore, by the way, Crowley also notes that satan's emblem is the E. Levi androgenous Baphomet, and that the 'number of His A
TU is XV' - clearly referencing, in this instance, Tarot.)
I fail to see why, if one is very much into Crowley, this would not be taken on board as part of this man's chosen path. Of course, his concept of satan has undoubted distinctions to the same by those who take LaVey's works as important, or those who see in Christ a liberating luminosity that is only obscured by the driving challenges presented by satanism - whether of the crowleyan or other variety.
...one needs to of course choose one's own path, but also would suggest that for some, an insight into Crowley's inclinations is sufficient to ward off further study into his views and system - without needing to read his whole corpus, nor take on board his suggested lines of study.