Making a Book Of Shadows: for Beginners
Despite popular movies and television shows, it is important to point out that there is no ‘official’ Book of Shadows. A “Book Of Shadows” or BOS is one of the most popular and widely used altar tool in wicca, pagan, and other practices. It is a notebook of information, your personal notes, a diary of your spiritual or magickal experiences. It’s important for every witch to create a book of records. It is a book to record your dreams, interpretations, aspirations, It’s a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a recipe book and a ritual guide. It usually contains spells, rituals, correspondence charts, information about the rules of magic, invocations, myths and legends of various pantheons, etc. Sometimes information in a BOS is passed along from one Wiccan to another (and in a coven setting, there may be a coven BOS as well as individual members’ books), but you can create your own with a little bit of effort. A BOS is a very personal thing, and should contain the information you find most important for your craft.
When it comes to the contents of your personal BOS, there are a few sections that are nearly universally but you can put what ever you like in your BOS. Remember it is yours with your energy that you put into it.
Laws/ rules of your coven or tradition
The Wheel of the Year and the sabbats:
Crystals / stones and their properties
Herbs, incenses and oils and their properties
Candles magick / color chart
Divination, Tarot, scrying, astrology, or any other form of divination
Depending on your own interests and practice, some of these parts may be bigger than others in your Book. What a Book of Shadows does is keep all of this information together, organized and safe.
Making you own Book Of Shadows:
Many Pagans and Wiccans feel a BOS should be handwritten. The reason for this is the energy directly transfers from the individual onto the page and into the whole book itself and helps you to memorize the contents. But you don’t have to handwrite all of it. Some prefer to keep an electronic BOS as opposed to paper. An electronic BOS is easier to edit and does not harm to trees. So, you can handwrite some and print others, its up to you. Bear in mind that a BOS is considered a sacred tool, which means it is an item of power that should be consecrated with all of your other magical tools. Make sure you write clearly enough that you’ll be able to read your notes during a ritual
Some witches are known to create elaborate Books of Shadows in secret, magical alphabets. If you’re fluent in it and you can read it without having to check notes or a chart that’s fine. But, if you write your BOS in another language, you won’t understand what you are reading, it’ll take more time to try to figure out. All your concentration will be focused on translating the language, rather than on the task at hand. I recommend writing it in your own language, that way you won’t mistake anything, and can focus entirely on the task at hand. While a spell looks beautiful written out in flowing Elvish script, the fact is that it’s just hard to read unless you’re an Elf.
To make your Book of Shadows, you could begin with a blank notebook. Although a blank journal or notebook from the local store will work just as fine for a book of shadows, it is the energy you put into it that is most important. There is no special paper required for a BOS, and again, some Witches have moved entirely to an electronic format. But, if you like to use parchment paper or what ever type of paper you want, that is just fine. The thing about making your own is sense of accomplishment and the energy that can come from making one from scratch is just incredible!
A popular method is to use a three-ring binder so items can be added and rearranged as needed. Printouts and photocopies of articles you find useful to your practice, writings that may be useful in the future, copies of poems, and pictures. If you use this style of BOS, you can use sheet protectors, which are great for preventing candle wax and other ritual drippings from getting on the pages! Whatever you select, your title page should include your name and date. Make it fancy or simple, depending on your preference, but remember that the BOS is a magical object and should be treated accordingly. Many witches simply write, “The Book of Shadows of [your name]” on the front page. Many, who do keep a Book, will write a Dedication into the front and also adorn it with protective or dedicatory symbols. These are also the choice of the Witch. There is no right or wrong way to decorate or dedicate your Book. The Dedication and the symbols all go toward giving the Book its purpose, like any magickal tool.
Believe it or not, magic does have rules. It’s really good idea to keep them at the front of your BOS as a reminder of what is acceptable behavior and what is not. If you’re part of an eclectic tradition that doesn’t have written rules, or if you’re a solitary witch, this is a good place to write down what you think are acceptable rules of magic. If you don’t set some guidelines, how will you know when you’ve crossed over them? This may include a variation on the Wiccan Rede, or some similar concept.
When it comes to spellcasting, correspondence tables are some of your most important tools. Phases of the moon, herbs, stones, crystals, and candle colors, they all have different meanings and purposes. Keeping a chart in your BOS also guarantees that this information will be ready when you need it.
The biggest dilemma with any Book of Shadows is how to keep it organized. You can use tabbed dividers, create an index at the back, or if you’re really super-organized, a table of contents in the front. Have sections in it and a few bounded notebooks at the back of it for information that you can copy from books, for original creations and discovered new items. Have a candle magic section with colors, meanings, and uses for each one. Have an herbal section, rules and laws, moon phases, gods and goddess, spells, research and lots of other sections.
As you study and learn more, you’ll have more information to add to your BOS. This is why the three-ring binder is such a practical idea. Decorate it any way you like, use leaves, twigs, flowers, herbs and pictures to add textures and personal touches to the BOS. You can do what ever you want to make it look the way you want it to, it’s fun and inspirational.
Some witches create a new book at the beginning of each magickal year during Samhain. While others use the same book over a period of time until it’s full and then they start a new volume. At the end of the year, or once the book is filled, some witches save a few pages for a review and reflection of their book of shadows. They make notes of the goals and aspirations they achieved, the reflections of what they learned during the research and practices they have done. After they do a review they then end this section with a blessing of thanks and gratitude to all those forces, seen and unseen that helped them along this journey and with the lessons contained within the volume. It’s up to you which way to do your book, but you should enter a date and if possible a volume reference. This will help keep your books organized over the years
An important note should be taken when choosing a new book of shadows in favor of the old one. If you placed energy into an old book of shadows the best course of action would be to simply store it some where in a safe place and wrap it in a dark cloth. This way, the energies within the book of shadows is contained within the book and will not leak out when it is not being used. Dark cloth will contain the energy within the book of shadows.
Not all Witches keep one Book of Shadows some keep more than one for many reasons. Some will keep a public Book and a private Book if they interact with other Witches and wish to share. Some will keep multiple versions of the BOS to keep all their records in order. They may make one Book for rituals and techniques, another for component attributes, another for crafts, another for spells, and so on. Some keep no book at all, but maintain a large library of books. The bigger the library gets, the more useful an Index book of some kind would be. You might want to create a Book filled solely with book titles, magazine articles, authors, websites, and other references just to make it easier to find them when you need them. I know some who keeps all their print outs and picture of their practice in a file cabinet. Files of candles magick, stones, crystals, and so on, you could say that the file cabinet is their book of shadows.
There are many variations on the BOS, so don’t feel that you must follow some particular format. There is really no wrong way to make a BOS. Regardless, which way you want to make your Book Of Shadows it’s what works best for you. Remember a Book of Shadows is as unique as the person who makes it, have fun and take good care of your Book of Shadows After all, it’s a sacred object and should be treated accordingly!
** personal note– the picture above is of one of my book of shadows. i showed how i did the cover…very easy to do. I have 2, the one above is a 2 inch binder and i also have a 3 inch black binder.
jbbartram-illu
origamiaround
ellievsbear
romaincrisis
areudirty
kianamaiart
