Keeping a Book of Shadows

Rumours abound about the origins of the term Book of Shadows (hereafter referred to as BoS), but whatever your theories, the name certainly seems to invoke gothic images of dusty candlelit cellars, with a huge leather bound book laid open upon the table.  Of course, given the nature of bookmaking of old, this is probably not far wrong for how things used to be, but what of the modern day equivalent?

Well, certainly some still do spend out on the massive leather bound craftsmanship of old for their BoS, but in reality few of us can afford such luxuries nowadays.  Nor are they particularly practical if you hope to travel around with yours.  What you choose to use instead, however, is once again entirely up to you, the individual.

In modern times, a new phrase has sprung up; the DoS, or Disk of Shadows.  With the age of computers, many people are choosing to put their BoS on their computer, which certainly makes for a much easier life when it comes to searching back through your information to find the piece relevant to what you are after.  A word to the wise, on this one... whatever you do, make sure you back it up onto a disk!  Trust me, this comes from the woman who has returned to keeping a paper BoS after loosing a year and a half's worth of work because I never found time and money at the same time to buy enough disks to back up my work!

Sticking with tradition and keeping a paper BoS seems to have become somewhat more archaic to match the busy lifestyles we lead today.  I once asked a friend of mine how he kept his, and his response was that he had a Disk of Shadows, a hard backed BoS, a Ring binder of Shadows, a Notebook of Shadows, a Stack of Loose Scraps of Paper of Shadows... Well, you get the general idea!  This from an adept friend of mine, whom I have great respect for; so don't be intimidated by those who would try to tell you that if you don't use a certain book, ink, format, cover colour, etc, then it isn't a "real" BoS.  No matter what format you use, what makes it a "real" BoS is what you put in it, not what's on the outside.

This being said, I personally derived great pleasure from covering my plain and everyday hardback book to make it something a little more treasured and out of the ordinary.  But that is me as an individual, and you should only do what you feel you wish to.

Equally, some people like to use a magical ink, such as Dragon's Blood, to write any entries in their BoS.  Again, this is really entirely up to you, and I personally wouldn't deem it necessary to do so, other than to further mark it out as something out of the ordinary.  With a BoS, you are recording your knowledge and work, and not actually working magic, and so the use of a magical ink is not as essential as some would like you to think it is.

So what do you put in to the BoS?  Well, once more, this is really entirely up to you.  It's a bit like asking what you ought to be putting in your personal diary (for they are really very much the same in principle); some might just log what appointments they have, and when, whilst others like to record a blow by blow account of their day.  Each are equally valid.

The aim of keeping a BoS is primarily to record that which you don't wish to forget.  For example, you may wish to note down correspondences, herbal information, a spell or ritual you have tried and it's results, a snippet of information which resonated for you in a book... anything which you feel is important to remember.  This serves a dual purpose of both reminding you of important information, and as a reference to look back on over the years to see how you have evolved.

As a final note, I know that many sites like mine actually include excerpts of spells and rituals from the author's own BoS.  So why isn't there any from mine?  Well, in truth, I tend to question the type of person who freely makes their BoS available to the faceless masses without any word on individual technique... not to mention those who neglect to mention which pantheon they are using, and how to amend the wording etc to suit the individual!  Any adept can tell you (or you can just find out for yourself) that the most effective spells and rituals are those that you have created for yourself.  Somebody else's will rarely be anything like so effective, partly because you have not been engaged in the creative process.  And so, I personally don't feel able to participate in disabling another by doing all the work for them.  However I am, as always, only an email away if ever you feel you need advice or assistance in constructing your own work effectively, or would appreciate another person's eyes to check for possible backfiring of a piece of work.