2) If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a spell can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop.
3) Every spell performed to solve a problem will breed new problems.
4) Mother Nature is sometimes a bitch.
5) Anything that can go wrong will go wrong; and anything that cannot possibly go wrong will also go wrong.
6) The Craft as understood by Witches, will be judged otherwise by non-witches. a) If you explain a situation so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, the news media will. b) If, during an interview, you explain 99 good things about the Craft and tell one bad joke, guess what will make the headlines!
7) No matter what the result of a spell, there will always be someone eager to: a) misinterpret it, b) fake it, and c) believe that it happened as a result of his own work.
8) Once a Ritual is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.
9) In case of doubt, attack another Witch.
10) The Coven is a mule, not a car...if pressed too hard, it will kick and turn on its High Priest.
11) 90% of anything is crap. a) When dealing with the occult, make that 95%. b) When dealing with religion, make that 98%.
12) Everyone has a favorite ritual or spell that will not work.
13) As soon as you mention something... if it's good, it goes away. if it's bad it happens.
14) If a spell requires 'n' materials, then immediately before beginning, you will discover that you only possess 'n-1' materials.
15) In any formula, it will be discovered that the required amounts have been forgotten.
16) No books are lost by lending except those you particularly want to keep.
17) If you miss an issue of a newsletter, it will be the issue that concludes the article or ritual that you are most anxious to read.
18) No matter what goes wrong, it is always the High Priest's fault.
19) When your familiar has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
20) A toothache always starts the afternoon of an important Ritual. Usually after your dentist closes; unless he overdoes the Novocain.
21) If a ritual is useful, enjoyable and works, it will have to be changed.
22) If you drop your Athame during a rite, you will discover that you are no longer able to move your right foot.
23) In any outdoor Sabbat, performed skyclad, the Circle will be drawn around a patch of poison ivy.
24) In Any Sabbat performed robed, the person behind you will step upon your hem, thus leaving you skyclad during a dance.
25) When all else fails, consult your Book of Shadows.
26) If the facts do not support your pet theory, they must be changed or ignored.
27) In any Coven, each member tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
2 The organization of any Coven is very much like a septic tank, the really big chunks always rise to the top.
29) Expansion of the Coven means complexity, and complexity decays.
30) The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between different Covens is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.
31) Any teaching that can be misunderstood has already been misunderstood. Often by your own teacher.
32) 20% of the Coveners account for 80% of the work.
33) Witches and Covens will act rationally only when all other possibilities have been exhausted.
34) A witch in power always takes himself too seriously.
35) It's better to have a horrible ending than to have horrors without end.
36) A Witch will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
37) The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we can imagine.
3 When the going gets tough, everyone leaves the Coven.
39) In order for something or someone to become clean, something else must become dirty.
40) You can all become dirty without anything else becoming clean.
41) The other coven works better. a) If you change Covens, the one that you just left will begin to advance faster than the one that you are now in.
42) The closer that you are to the basis of a news article, the more obvious are the errors in the news coverage of the situation. a) Newspapers rarely admit their own mistakes. b) If they do, it will be at the bottom of page 49. c) Witches in the public eye, therefore, need a warped sense of humor.
43) The best way to inspire fresh thoughts is to seal the letter and mail the article.
44) For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
45) Some Witches work by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.
46) Don't let the Elders know that you are better than they are, otherwise you will never become an Elder.
47) The High Priestess who attempts to inspire the Coven with her knowledge of intricate details has lost sight of the final objective. a) The High Priest who ignores those same details in an effort to reach the objective will end up someplace else.
48) For every vision of the Goddess, there is an equal or opposite vision that negates your own vision.
49) The Covener that you trained at great expense is the first person to leave the Coven; and usually he does so just when you need him the most.
50) If you are early to a Sabbat, it will be cancelled. a) If you are on time, it will be late. b) If you are late, it will have started early.
51) The cream rises to the top of a Coven; so does the scum.
52) The more complicated and grandiose the ritual, the greater the chance that it will fail.
53) The more carefully you plan a ritual, the more you will resist admitting that it failed.
54) When explaining a facet of magick or religion, an easily understood and workable falsehood is more useful than a complicated and incomprehensible truth.
55) Anyone who makes a significant contribution to the Craft, and stays in the Craft long enough, will become an obstruction to its progress in direct proportion to the importance of the original contribution.
56) Everybody lies; but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
57) If you teach a lazy witch the proper and safe way to draw a Circle, he will state that it isn't necessary to do it that way and toss out 90% of the ritual. a) When this lazy witch gets into trouble due to his ignoring the facts, he will imagine that his failures are caused by another's curse.
58) The best and most effective rituals occur when you are home with the flu.
59) You always hear about the need for a ritual or spell after that need ends.
60) One hour before your first skyclad Sabbat, you will develop a large and unsightly pimple upon your left breast.
61) In any Coven your sense of humor will be inversely proportional to your position.
62) Any difference between two Witches can be resolved by one witch (usually the one that is wrong) attacking the validity or tradition of the other.
63) A Witch who invents his own tradition will always claim descent from a Medieval Witch who no one ever heard of. a) Eventually that Witch will claim to be a member of your own Tradition, only for a longer time than you, thus they have the 'right' to access ALL of your Craft materials. b) That same Witch will eventually ask you to Elevate them to the Third Degree even though they have no idea of what your Tradition is nor will they have any desire to train in it and earn the Elevation.
