Your Book of Shadows
©2000 Arcana New Age Centre.    All rights reserved

Everyone even remotely interested in leading a magical, spiritual life should keep their own personal Book of Sahdows. This book, a "log" of spells, rituals and practices, is important in that it provides a concrete record of your magical life for perusal at any time.

There are different opinions as to what should be included in a Book of Shadows. Some say it should consist merely of clearly written, tried-and-true rituals and spells, void of personal feelings about them. Personal feelings, some say, have no place in a Book of Shadows since usually the Book of Shadows is passed along from generation to generation, and should remain, like a recipe book, free from cluttering notation. I disagree. Like a recipe book, a Book of Shadows needs personality. If you like a certain recipe but feel it needs more cinnamon, wouldn't you make a note of this in your recipe book for future reference? Similarly, if you feel a certain ritual lacks a specific invocation or magical element, would you not ntoe this in your Book of Shadows? And wouldn't you like your book's 'beneficiary' to know how a specific spell worked for you...or didn't? A Book of Shadows is a life's work in progress. Like an artists who constantly refines his work and experiments with his technique, you can refer to your entries, study your progress and refine your magical techniques at any time. Captured within its pages, your Book of Shadows documents your magical growth.

What should you include in your Book of Shadows? What should it look like? Because we are all unique and very different individuals, everyone's Book of Shadows will be as unique as they are. Aside from the dates of your entries, moon phases, feelings about and outcomes of your rituals and spells, nothing else is an absolute necessity for inclusion. If you are artistically inclined, why not draw/paint/illustrate your book at whim? If you are poetically inclined, verse may permeate its pages. As to what, physically, it should look like? Why, that's up to you. If you are inclined to 'write things in stone', never changing or revising and living by the 'don't ruin a good thing' adage, you might choose a hardcover notebook with a pretty, magically inspired cover illustration. If, like me, you constantly revise, refine and sometimes redo, a 3-ring binder or looseleaf notebook might be the best choice.

Whatever you choose, your Book of Shadows is more than just a notebook. It is a lasting record of the progress of your magical life.

- by Blythe Elspeth -