An ABC of Witchcraft Quotes

“Some religious people need the concept of the devil; it comes in extremely useful.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“Before people set out to reform the world, they need to take a good look at their own defects.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“There are many power-hungry people in the twilight regions of the occult, who seek merely the most direct means to get what they want. Sometimes they put forward the old argument that the end justifies the means, forgetting that the means also conditions the end.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“The diamond of Truth is a jewel with many facets, flashing now one colour and now another; but the jewel does not change.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“Lughnasadh means ‘the commemoration of Lugh’.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“Yet the image of wax or clay is simply a means of concentrating the power of the witch’s thought.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“Records show that the curse which works with the deadliest effect is that which is addressed to the powers of fate and justice, in vengeance for a wrong that human law cannot or will not right.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“The sign of the pentagram or five-pointed star, is potent to control elementals.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“In his frequent journeys abroad, he [John Dee] acted as a secret agent for the Queen [Elizabeth I]; and by a curious coincidence, his codename was ‘007’.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“Aleister Crowley earns a place in this book, not because he was a witch, but because he was not!”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“These spirits of the elements should not be confused with the semi-intelligent entities called artificial elementals. The latter are formed from the elemental essence of the astral plane, by the power of human thought and desire acting upon that essence.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present

“Witches were the descendants of the Wild Women who had sacrificed the Divine King, when his term of office was fulfilled, so that his blood might fertilise [sic] the land.”
― Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present