"Steal This Book of Shadows" ver 2.0
by Azzerac
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"What is a Book of Shadows, Really?"
Page 2

hat is a Book of Shadows?

    Everyone seems to think  (now that TV has told them "so it must be true") that a BOS is just a spell book. Wrong! The real use was Part-Spell book, Part-Diary, Part-Scientific Journal of 'Experiment-Progress' notes, part-recipe book, and more. It's a Composite of everything one did, and most of all, What Worked! That's what I'm doing here. Not only will you get it 'boiled down' (as I've been doing this a long time, and can't recall all of the notes from journals, long-lost ), but you'll also be getting what I'm doing now. Keep an Eye on the Blog, and you'll be getting an 'up-to-date' of 'What a Wizard Does & Is-Doing"

    If you believe Gerald Gardner, it was what every witch had, even in the days before the peasantry were Literate!

(Can I get a "Yeah, Right."?)

    It's been recently revealed to me that the title originated with a book about divination (Fortune Telling) with the shadows cast by people & objects. I put more stock in this new information, but many still revere the man who invented Wicca.

    We'll play along:

    That being said, traditionally, they all started with the long list of warnings & advice. It was a protracted list concerning "If This Book should Fall Into The Enemy's Hands,..." sort of thing. If the Inquisition ever found your BOS, you were as good as dead. The concern was "How much of your coven was going down with you"? Everyone in the group had one. They and They Alone, were to write in their book, and everyone was to copy freely from each-other within the group. If your book was found, it wouldn't lead back to the group. If you were the last one left standing in a forest of gallows, the traditions were not lost.

    It also referred to the rest of the group in code-names, and only code-names!! This is one of the ways that sprouted-forth the Witches Name, Name of Power, and such. Since those days, it's become a new-identity from which to start anew. It's also a hold-over to the "Adulting" ceremonies that almost every culture has or had: a pagan "bar mitzvah", if you will. Your "Milk-Name" was abandoned at the ripe, old age of Thirteen, and you became an Adult, choosing your own Adult Name. Names such as "Fionn mac Chumhail" or "Cúchulainn, The Cur of Chulainn" (HEY! It's Gaelic! Spelling is "An Interpretive Art-Form" in it's own right!  "If it has Fifteen Silent-Q's and a Hyphen, it's Gaelic!")

    Where was I?

Oh Yeah: "The BOS"!

    (One thing you'll learn is that when you are a Witch or Wizard, it's a license in it's own right to be distractible, prone to tangents, and just-plain-weird ( "Wyrd", as the elders wrote it. ))

    So, that's what it was!

    Now to what it is!

hat IS a book of Shadows, today?

        Well, if you haunt the Trinket Stores, it's about $20. It comes with lots of blank pages, and probably a shiny, silver-inlay symbol, or just the words "Book of Shadows" (Really subtle, people) but that isn't really what you're asking, is it?

    It's YOURS!

    You define what it is, with every note you take, every experiment you try, every stone you test, every spell you cast. It'll have your own short-hand*,  unique organization, marked-out pages, miss-reproduced sigils, pressed flowers, crumbs of food, spilt mixtures, hastily scrawled paragraphs written in bad lighting (Occasionally, it may contain entries that are simply a Series of Exclamation-Points, that "you're sure you'll know what it means later". Good Luck!), and a book mark. (Very important, that bookmark, ...or two, or fifteen!)

    It may take the form of a Text Program in your Palm Pilot. It could be a hand bound book, or a collection of paper napkins with a staple through them. There have been painfully accurate reproductions, and Snap-Shots run off on printer-paper! There are published copies of the Crowley "Goetia", where they reproduced his margin notes. John Dee kept his journal in the margins of other texts, and they have recently been composited!  There have been tomes written on Flash-Paper (Like the bookie's notes for illegal gambling, in the early 1900s), so the whole thing could be destroyed in a split second!

    The important thing to remember is that it's yours and yours alone.

    The likelihood of your BOS being reprinted in the 'Great Libraries of the World' is slim, so don't let it weigh you down. Posterity always gets it wrong anyways, so to hell with making it easy for them! ~L~ You are the one who has to be able to read it, write quickly in it, and "remember where you put that". Calligraphy or crayon, pencil or sharpie, express yourself in your books!

    This author's biggest hurdle is writing on that first page! All that potential staring back at you from those clean, crisp pages.

    That's Bibliophiles for you.

    That's why I write here. It's easier to add, edit, mark-out, shred, start-over, loose, find, forget-about, start over again, and (Thanks to my advertisers) keep the website's name circulating!

    So, in summation: Just about anything can be a Book of Shadows, and I give points for originality! You should, too! Got a stack of plywood & a wood-burning kit? How about sheet-steel engraving? (OOOOH! I think I'll try THAT one, myself!!!) Scrolls of paper from the local art stores are good! You are unique! Your book should be, just like your name! "'Normal' is something that happens to Other People!"

*- Cunningham's shorthand was harvested from his books, and now is re-sold as a rune-set in several of the less-reputable occult venues.

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