From: Ceri 
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Murphy's Law For Witches


No spell is as easy as it looks.

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.

Every spell performed to solve a problem will breed new problems.

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong; and anything that cannot
possibly go wrong will also go wrong.

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!

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.

Once a Ritual is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it
worse.

90% of anything is crap.
   a) When dealing with the occult, make that 95%.
   b) When dealing with religion, make that 98%.

Everyone has a favorite ritual or spell that will not work.

As soon as you mention something...
   if it's good, it goes away.
   if it's bad it happens.

If a spell requires 'n' materials, then immediately before beginning,
you will discover that you only possess 'n-1' materials.

In any formula, it will be discovered that the required amounts have
been forgotten.

No books are lost by lending except those you particularly want to keep.

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.

When your familiar has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.

A toothache always starts the afternoon of an important Ritual. Usually
after your dentist closes; unless he overdoes the Novocain.

If a ritual is useful, enjoyable and works, it will have to be changed.

If you drop your Athame during a rite, you will discover that you are no
longer able to move your right foot.

In any outdoor Sabbat, performed skyclad, the Circle will be drawn
around a patch of poison ivy.

In Any Sabbat performed robed, the person behind you will step upon your
hem, thus leaving you skyclad during a dance.

In any Coven, each member tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Expansion of the Coven means complexity, and complexity decays.

The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between
different Covens is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.

Any teaching that can be misunderstood has already been misunderstood.
Often by your own teacher.

The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we
can imagine.

When the going gets tough, everyone leaves the Coven.

In order for something or someone to become clean, something else must
become dirty.

You can all become dirty without anything else becoming clean.

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.

Don't let the Elders know that you are better than they are, otherwise
you will never become an Elder.

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.

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.

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.

The more complicated and grandiose the ritual, the greater the chance
that it will fail.

The more carefully you plan a ritual, the more you will resist admitting
that it failed.

The best and most effective rituals occur when you are home with the
flu.

You always hear about the need for a ritual or spell after that need
ends.

One hour before your first skyclad Sabbat, you will develop a large and
unsightly pimple upon your left breast.


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