Creating a Book of Shadows

A book of shadows is a record of your spiritual development, notes of rituals and rite, a record of spell cast and their results, musings and meditations and much more.

You do not need expensive books when you start out A4 pads and note books will as in your first few years you will come across so much information, Stuff that works for you and stuff that does not work.

My personal recommendation is that you start off with a ring binger and a good note book, Start of keeping your note in the ring binder and move important rituals and spell into your book and keep this as a dedicated personal book of shadows, you will slowly build up your own record of spell and rituals.

My partner reviews his book of shadows every 3 years and copies stuff that he uses regularly in to a new book which he uses as his working book of shadows for myself I am much less organised, I have notes, scraps of paper all over the shop but that works for me you will find your own way of organising your information and there is nothing saying that you can not create a floppy of shadows ( a digital book of shadows).

So what details should you include in your book of shadows personally I would say add as much extra information as possible in your first few years; the moon phase, the time, the magickal hour, your mood, food eaten, the date, the weather, what your wearing in fact anything that could help you learn to improve what you are doing.

You will need to review your notes regularly and make note on the patterns you see forming, these will help you gain a greater understanding on how to increase your own power and magickal skill.

Unlike groups the solitary witch will have greater difficulties using someone else book of shadows being that the solitary witch attune her or himself to their own personal power this also means that tables of correspondences do not always match up with a solitary witch needs. So it is also important that solitary witches build their own personal table of correspondence.

A solitary witches book of shadow will contain many contradiction from publicly available Books of shadows (check out the cyber cauldron free stuff section for free B.O.S and spell books CLICK HERE), this is not to say that ever of these books are wrong in fact public books of shadows work as a great template source for the solitary witch and group books of shadows work well as they help to concentrate group energy to a single purpose.

Being a Witch, Pagan or Wiccan is a very personal path and that means that what ever way you keep a book of shadows is the right way no one has the right to tell you that you are wrong. If someone say their way is the only right way steer clear as the truly enlighten know that there are many paths to the divine and not one of these paths contain fear in any form.