#BOSDIY

[lunar-court]

What is this?

This is going to be a series of posts, linked together and tagged under #BOSDIY, which go over the basics of how to build your own Grimoire or Book of Shadows! Even if you aren’t sure what you want to do with witchcraft or even if you aren’t a witch, this series will help you learn how to create a comprehensive journal of all the things you’ve learned and want to keep for your personal practice of spirituality and religion.

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Under the cut is information on Witchcraft, Paganism, Wicca, BOS���s, and Grimoires.

What are Witchcraft, Paganism, and Wicca?

They are their own individual practices with small bits that overlap.

Witchcraft: a spiritual practice involving using magic

Paganism: a religious practice involving following a pantheon of deities

Wicca: a religious and spiritual practice centered on a God and Goddess

Let’s break them down further!

Witchcraft

Witchcraft is a spiritual practice involving the use of magic. It is a practice that uses your spirit, that thing that wants to connect to something more, in order to influence your surroundings. This comes in many forms and is done in many ways. The most common is magic. Magic is simply using your own energy to influence the universe around you. You can even use this energy combined with that of different aspects of nature, i.e. the elements, in order to boost your work. This does not require any particular religious belief, however, you can easily combine it into any religious practice you wish.

It is important to keep in mind that in the Witch community, there are some aspects that remain closed. For example, one sect of witchcraft called Hoodoo was created for use only by Black witches. Another is Voodoo. Yet another is smudging, which isn’t a witchcraft practice at all, and was appropriated from Native American cultures. If you are not part of these cultures, then they are not for you to use.

Paganism

Paganism refers to a religious practice involving a pantheon of deities,  based in older mythologies that existed before Christianity. This does not have to combine with witchcraft. It is essential the worship, working with, or devoting to a God or set of Gods within a particular faith. I am personally of the belief that all of our Gods and Goddesses exist in some way or another, and as such I would be considered something like an Eclectic Pagan. I believe in many different faiths. Perhaps you are a Norse Pagan and believe in only the Norse Gods, or you could be Kemetic (Egyptian) or Hellenistic (Greek) or any number of other types of Pagan.

Wicca

As someone who is not a Wiccan, I am not the best person to explain it. Because of this, I am only going to give a simple explanation. Wicca is essentially a combination of Witchcraft and Paganism into a practice worshiping a God and Goddess. They follow the Wheel of the Year, 8 holidays that represent different phases their deities go through. They also have the Three-Fold Law, which states that anything you put out into the world will come back to you Three-Fold. These are just a few aspects of their practice.

What is a Book of Shadows? What is a Grimoire?

To be honest, I use these terms interchangeably. However, they can be surmised as:

Book of Shadows: A Spellbook, sometimes has logs of spells cast, updated frequently

Grimoire: Combination Spellbook/Practice Information, usually a reference material

Essentially, they are two different ways of recording information about your particular practice in Witchcraft or Paganism. One focuses on the spells you record and use. The other, everything else - correspondences for herbs and crystals, or meanings of different names, or holidays for particular deities, or again, spells. I personally combine the general uses of these, and thus use the terms interchangeably.

[lunar-court]

Materials You’ll Need

A Notebook

A Writing Utensil

That’s it. That is, ultimately, all you will need for this. However, I am a stationary nerd, so I’m also going to show you some cheap stuff you can buy to make a pretty Book of Shadows. I personally went to Michael’s for some of these items.

List of all these items:

Artist’s Loft Dotted Paper Journal | $9.99 | Buy here

Artist’s Loft Silver Permanent Marker | $1.49 | Buy here

Sakura Gelly Roll 08 White Pen | $1.99 | Buy the 05 size here

G2 Pilot Metallic Ink Pens | $8.99 | Buy here

Remember, you do not need any of these materials to make a Book of Shadows. To me, they just make it more fun! I also have some supplies I have purchased earlier this year for other purposes, but will be using them in this tutorial. Here is a list of those and their retail prices on Amazon.

Zebra Mildliners 15 ct | $16.77 | Buy here

Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens 4 ct | $14.99 | Buy here

Staedler Pigment Liners 4 ct | $24.12 for 2 pack | Buy here

Step 1: Decide on the Cover

For me, this was the hardest step. I had to decide what I wanted the cover to look like! Originally I drew a sigil with my silver marker, but decided against it. It left an imprint on the cover, but I think it still looks good. I then drew a Waning Crescent Moon on the cover, since the Moon means a lot to me, and because I work with the Norse God of the Moon, Mani. I also drew the moon phases on the spine, and wrote the runes Othala and Kenaz twice. This is because Othala means something similar to Home, and Kenaz is the rune for Loki, one of the Gods I work with. 

Now for your cover, you absolutely do not have to put anything! Or you could put everything! One option I considered was purchasing some label stickers so I could place one on the cover and title it “Book of Shadows,” but did not like any of the choices I had. Below are some decorating ideas!

Draw a sigil

Draw a Pentagram or Pentacle

Write a charm for protection

Title it, plain and simple

Decorate with stickers!

Doodle witchy things

etc etc!

Step 2: Check Out Your Journal’s Features

Above, you can see the index / table of contents as well as the Bullet Journal key, as this was made more for Bullet Journals. There is 1 front and back page for the index, and the front of another page, with the key on the back. Should you not have an index in your Book of Shadows, I highly recommend making one using two front and back pages. You can find some great videos on youtube that go over how to make them for Bullet Journals. Find one that suits you!

Here you can see the page numbers and the average page style! As it is a dotted journal, this will be very useful for both drawing and writing in straight lines. And because it’s already numbered, we don’t have to worry about writing them in.

And the last part is this pocket folder for carrying scraps of papers! There are also 3 test pages for pens, just like there was 3 pages for the index, but I forgot to take photos of them. These are to see how your pens will work before you use them seriously in your journal, to make sure they don’t bleed or smudge.

Step 3: The Reference Section

I decided for my Book of Shadows I wanted to make a Reference Section. This is, essentially, the part of the book that will hold anything I will refer back to frequently while working on my craft and my practice, such as Holidays, Moon Phases, Correspondences, etc. You technically don’t need to do this, but it is incredibly helpful to know which section is which, and what it will contain. Below is a step-by-step photo process of how I created my title page for this section, as well as a reference I added to remember how to split up my pages easily.

And that’s it for setting up! Thank you for joining me in this part, I hope it was useful to you, and I hope that you’ll continue to enjoy this series!

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