photography by Ma’iingan

How To Make a Book of Shadows (Grimoire) For the Beginning Witch

by Isabella @TheWandCarver

Looking around the interwebs, I have found a lot of good and useful bits of advice.  Some are a bit advanced, however, for those of you just beginning your practise/path.  As a matter of fact, I find them too advanced for myself and I’ve been a Witch all of my life.  We need not discuss how many years that has been 🙂

By “too advanced”, I do not mean to say that you nor myself would be capable of using these ideas, just that – if I’m honest – I find unnecessary.  However, as I do want everyone to have every idea and possibility to add to their Book of Shadows (BOS) as they feel they should, then later on in this series, we’ll have a look at everything, necessary or not.

My first piece of advice to the Witch on his or her new path is “less is more”.  I’m not saying you need do nothing and it will all magick its way upon you, simply that, don’t try to do or have everything at once.  There is nothing worse than buying shedloads of “tools”, herbs, oils, and the like, then finding that you really didn’t need all of those things.  There are plenty of websites as well as Etsy and Ebay with sellers happy to sell you huge “Witch-y kits”, repleat with altar patens, altar clothes, wands, bolines, athames, candles, herbs, etc. for loads of money.  Just add water and you’re an instant Witch.  No.  The way to begin is the way you mean to carry on.  Start with the basics, don’t worry that you don’t have “everything” that some other Witches may have, and you will find, along the way, what you truly “need”.

The basics – what are they?  I believe a journal or a simple notebook is plenty good enough for the new Witch.  I bought a very nice leather-bound BOS some years ago, and to be honest, it only has a very few pages with entries.  The reason is, is that I only want what I feel is 100% effective in my BOS.  No spell, no oil blend, no information of any kind is written into my BOS until I have proved it to be effective myself.  You could have the most gorgeous BOS on the market, but if it is filled with a lot of useless spells and recipes, what is the point?

This is why I recommend a simple journal or notebook.  Oh, you can tart it up, if you like…use acrylic paints to paint sigils, etc on the outside cover, or stickers.  But here is where you can write whatever you wish to your heart’s content – take notes from the books you read that mean something to you, write up recipes of your own for oil blends or herbal blends, draw pictures of the herbs that you’re studying, clip photos and paste in…whatever you like.  In fact, you can fill lots of notebooks over a course of years with all you’ve learned BEFORE you choose what you have found to be effective.  Then, when you have found what truly works for you, make or purchase the BOS of your dreams and write in it all that you’ve learned.  You won’t have to rely on memory…you’ll have notebooks full of memories!  This final BOS (and in some cases, Witches will have more than one of these) is the one that is your legacy, the one you’ll hand down to your children or a new Witch whom you have been teaching over a period of time.

Next time, I’ll tell you more about what is in my own BOS, just to give you a starting point – it is NOT the only way to do a BOS, yours will be the way you want it to be.  Thanks for reading and if you find this helpful in anyway, please like and share!  Blessed Be )O(

Note from author – I am cleaning up old blogs and ran across this one. I promised a series but left it, I’m afraid. Perhaps soon I shall do Part 2. Thank you for your patience x