A Book of Shadows is something that many Wiccans chose to keep. It is like a diary of some sorts, for things that you have made, done, read, etc. in regards to honoring the God and Goddess. It has no specific format, because it is personalized to your tastes and what you see fit. Decorating it to personalize it more is great, too!

A Book of Shadows can include:

... and of course, many other things that you can think of that you want to put into your Book of Shadows. The best thing, though, is to make sure that you only put things related to Wicca, Witchcraft, and your experiences in those fields, and keep a seperate diary for all other things relating to your life. :)

Many people like to start out their Book of Shadows with a poem, story, or whatever, about what they plan to do in their Wiccan (or Pagan) road, praising the God and Goddess, asking blessings from the God or Goddess, or just what Wicca means to them. Some like to start out their book with The Charge of the God or The Charge of the Goddess, and quite a few also insert The Wiccan Rede.

Here's a small outline of what a BOS can contain:

  1. Book Blessing (invocation asking for the God/dess to bless/protect)
  2. Statement of tradition (name of practice, brief explanation of sect/tradition, deities.)
  3. Rules/goals (as above)
  4. General beliefs (reincarnation, threefold law, etc)
  5. Altar layout, tools used and what for, ritual dress, etc.
  6. Rituals
    • Circle casting procedure
    • Sabbats/Moons
    • Prayers, invocations, songs
    • Etc. (handfastings, initiations, tool consecrations, etc)
  7. Spellworking Rituals - color/element/stone correspondences "spells" recipes, incenses, ritual foods, etc.
One big thing is missing. It'd be preferrable to keep diaries, dream and magic journals, meditation, etc. in a separate book. Why? Because I see the BOS as a relatively "permanent" book. When you start your BOS, you might want to make sure that you get a book that you love, will last a very long time, isn't easily trashed or mistaken for something else, and if needed, has a lock so you can keep it secret from little siblings who think it has juicy rumors going about school. One thing to keep in mind is if your a person who loves to be organized and wants to be able to keep things in sections, that the book you get can have pages inserted into it, like a small 3-ring binder. Of course, if you REALLY love the computer, and just have to put your BOS onto it, make sure that you make a couple additional disk copies every now-and-then, save a backup to the Internet somewhere, and even print and save copies of everything you type, just in case your computer decides to crash one day (grrr). Personally, even though I am a HUGE computer freak, I think it would be best to stick with tradition and write it all by hand, because then it becomes more personalized and sacred to you. Sometimes, though, if you want to be neat and tidy, a good idea would be to write out on a seperate sheet of paper what you are going to put in your BOS, like a poem, and then carefully write it into your BOS so it's doesn't get a million eraser marks. But hey, I'm an organizational tidy freak, so if you can stand everything not being so perfect, then heck, more the power to you. *lol*

*Page by Edana*

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