Things to put in your book of shadows
Of course, only put in your book of shadows/grimoire what you want. If you don't want to put certain subjects in your book then that's fine. It's your book, utilize it how you want. This is just a masterlist of ideas that I've put together. Feel free to add anything else to the list that I may have missed, because there's absolutely no way I included everything.
And for the love of all the gods, if you come across a closed entity or practice, don't try to work with the entity or practice if you're not already part of that group or tradition. You can research it but don't practice it.
+ A blessing and/or protection
+ A table of contents
+ About you:
Your current path
Your personal beliefs
Your spiritual journey
Favorite crystals/herbs/animals
Natal chart
Craft name
How you got into the craft
Astrology signs
Birthday correspondences (birth tarot card, birth stone, etc)
Goals (if you have any)
Anything other relating to your personal practice
+ Safety
Fire safety
What NOT to burn
Plants and oils that can be toxic to your pets
What crystals shouldn't be in water, sunlight, etc
Things that shouldn't be put out in nature (salt, glass, etc)
Potion safety
How to incorporate blood safely
+ Core concepts:
Intention and how it works
Directing energy
Protection
Banishing
Cleansing
Charging
Shielding
Grounding and centering
Visualization
Consencration/Blessing
Warding
Enchanting
Manifestation
+ Correspondence
Personal correspondence
Crystals and rocks
Herbs and spices
Food and drink
Colors
Metals
Number
Tarot card
Elemental (fire, water, air, earth)
Trees and woods
Flowers
Days
Months
Moon phases
Zodiac
Planets
Incense
Teas
Essential oils
Directions (north, south, east, west)
Animals
Local plants, animals, etc
Dream symbology
+ Different practices
Practices that are closed to you (some examples below)
Voodoo and Hoodoo **Closed**
Santeria and Brujeria **Closed**
Shamanism and native american practices **Closed**
Wicca and wiccan paths
Satanism, both theistic and non-theistic paths
+ Different types/practices of magick
Pop culture magick
Technology magick
Chaos magick
Green witchcraft
Lunar magick
Sea witchcraft
Kitchen magick
Ceremonial magick
Hedge witchcraft
Death witchcraft
Grey witchcraft
Eclectic witchcraft
Norse witchcraft
Hellenic witchcraft
Animism
+ Deities
The deity/deities you worship
Different pantheons (the main five are Celtic, Roman, Greek, Egyptian and Norse, all open)
Deities and pantheons that are closed to you
Common offerings
Their epithets
Their mythology
Their family
Deity worship vs deity work
Prayers and how to make your own
Deity communication guide
Devotional acts
Ways to get closer to them
+ Other spiritual entities
Angels
Ancestor work
Spirit guides
The fae
Demons
Familiars
House spirits, animal spirits and plant spirits
Other various folklore entities
Spirit etiquette
Cemetery etiquette
Setting boundaries with the spirits
Communication guide and etiquette
Grounding, banishing, protection and cleansing, aka: "Spirit work safety guide"
How they appear to you
Common offerings
Circle casting
+ Divination
Tarot cards
Oracle cards
Tarot and oracle spreads
Pendulum
Numerology
Scrying
Palmistry/palm reading
Tasseography (Tea leaf reading)
Rune stones
Shufflemancy (Shuffling of a playlist)
Dice divination
Bibliomancy (Randomly picking a phrase from a book)
Carromancy (Melted wax)
Pyromancy (Reading flames)
Psychic abilities
Astrology
Aura reading
Divination via playing cards
Lenormand
Sacred geometry
Angel numbers
+ Other types of magick
Candle magick
Crystal magick
Herbalism/herbal magick
Glamour magick
Hexing
Jinxing
Cursing
Weather magick
Astral work
Shadow work
Energy work
Sigils
Art magick
Knot magick
Crystal grids
Color grids
Music magick
Charms, talismans and amulets
+ Spellwork
What makes a spell work
Basic spell structure
What NOT to do
Disposing of spell ingredients
Revitalizing long term spells
How to cast spells
What to put in spells (See correspondence)
Spell mediums- Jar spells, spoken spells, candle spells, sigils, etc
Spell timing
Setting up a ritual
Taglocks: What they are and how to use them
+ Holidays and Esbats
Yule
Imbolc
Ostara
Beltane
Litha
Lughnasadh/Lammas
Mabon
Samhain
The 12 full moons (Esbats)
How to celebrate
Deity specific holidays
+ Altars and tools
What they are
The different types and their uses (travel altar, working altar, deity altar, ancestor altar, etc)
What you can put on your altar
What you use your altars for
Common tools in witchcraft
How to use the tools
Food and drink
Common herbs in recipes
Sabbat recipes
Moon water: What it is and how to use it
Potion bases
Tea magick
How to get your herbs
Foraging
+ Mental health and self care
Bath magick
Affirmations
Burnout prevention
Aromatherapy
Stress management
Mental health coping mechanisms
+ History of witchcraft
+ Dream records
+ How to differentiate between the magickal and the mundane
+ Calendar of celestial events (Esbats, retrogrades, etc)
+ How to dry herbs and flowers
+ What chakras actually are and how they work within Hinduism
+ History and traditional uses of reiki
+ The witches' alphabet
+ The runic alphabet
+ Common witchcraft terms
+ Common symbols in witchcraft
+ Your own witch tips
+ Good witchcraft books and authors to avoid
+ Any online resources you utilize often
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Ghost/Soap/female reader
18+ mdni - dark content
Running from Simon at the bar because he’s the scary man who wants to pick his teeth with your finger bones… only to find an angel waiting in the wings.
Your second martini is stronger than the first.
You’re not sure how it’s even possible, considering the contents of a martini is mostly just alcohol, but it stings a little sharper on your first swallow, and you eye the skewer of olives skeptically.
Oh well.
More bang for your buck, you suppose. Better to get the job done faster, and cheaper, than the alternative.
The bar is bustling, and you watch it all from the corner you’re tucked into. Coeds from across the city pack like tinned fish against one another, yelling and breathing in each other’s faces, loud laughter and boisterous conversations bouncing off the walls. Cigarette smoke cloys, orange-red ends flickering in the low light of the evening, blazing bright before they’re snuffed out and replaced.
Your phone buzzes with a text, ten minutes late, and surprise is few and far between when you read that your activities for tonight have now evaporated, plans cancelled with a simple six-word sentence.
Sorry, I can’t make it now.
Asshole.
The vodka is stiff on your lips. Your tongue seeks the rim of your glass, flicking at a leftover drop of olive and alcohol, vermouth herbaceous in the back of your mouth.
“Seat taken?” A gruff, rough dipped voice calls over your shoulder, gesturing to one of the only bar stools left in the building, and you answer without looking up.
“All yours.”
“Thanks love.” The pet name straightens your spine, and you sneak a glance, eyeing the bulk settling at your side. “Usin’ that?” He points at the ashtray, thick finger alone in the air, and you shake your head.
He meets your eyes head on as you turn to look at him, curiosity burning a hole in your brain, and good sense has your stomach tightening into a pit.
A five-alarm fire rages, gusts of wind and pockets of brush fueling it’s spread, encouraging it to burn far and wide inside you until it consumes everything in its path.
Danger, it shrieks. Run.
The man’s face is scarred. His nose is crooked. His eyes are dark. He’s a hell baptized image of Ares, a gladiator, a solider. A monster of men.
And he stares at you like he knows you.
It’s unnerving enough to set you adrift, free falling through the possibilities.
It’s danger, but so much more. So much worse. He transcends lethality, strength and bloodlust shining in his expression, a dark beacon lighting the way home. Pine and cigarette smoke, drifting in the stale air.
Just finish your drink and tab out. Leave.
“Out by yourself tonight?” You blink at the croon in his voice, serrated tip of a knife dripping with honey, and answer automatically.
“No.” It’s a lie of course, but you were raised with good self-preservation instincts. You’ve been a girl alone in a bar before, on a train, in an Uber. You know how to tilt the table, load the dice. Pretend you’re with someone, or on the phone, or have someone waiting for you. Lie and pretend. Make it believable.
The flick of a lighter draws your attention, and he extends a fresh smoke towards you. An olive branch. A trick.
“Want one?” You twist your face into the most disgusted mask manageable, and he chuckles. “Suit yourself. I’m Simon, by the way.” Lie. You give him something tugged from thin air, something you’re not going to remember in ten minutes time.
The bartender comes by, and you’re both grateful for the reprieve, and a chance to close out. Until-
“An’ another one of those.” He points at the glass, your eyes going round, cold sweat breaking out across the back of your neck.
“Oh. No, that’s-“
“C’mon. One won’t kill ya.” You should tell him it would, it might. Should get loud. More insistent.
All the rebuttal evaporates when his shoulder shoves against yours, effectively pinning you between the bar top and the wall, heavy thigh bleeding heat against your exposed leg. Your too short dress is now a colossal mistake, and you curse your date for bailing, and yourself for believing he’d even show up in the first place.
The man, Simon, makes a show of looking around, head on a swivel, roving over the crowd before turning back you with a glint. He knows. He knows you’re not here with anyone. “So, who’d you get all pretty for tonight then?” Smoke rolls from his lips, and the lump in the back of your throat is so thick, it tries to choke you.
“My- my date.”
“Where are they?”
“Not here.” You grit each word, glaring. It only earns you another smile, eyes crinkling in the corner, a shark sniffing blood in the water.
“Poor thing. An’ your dress is so nice, too. Little short, but… that’s alright. You didn’t know.” He takes a swig of his drink, neat bourbon, room temperature gasoline, and your mouth dries up.
Didn’t know what?
The subtle alarm bells ringing in the back of your head become nuclear sirens.
The martini sweats on the bar top, leaving a wet ring around the base of the glass. Your stomach sours. “Thank you, for the drink, but-“
“Drink it.” You haven’t looked away from it, you think, know it hasn’t been tampered with… yet the idea of doing something this stranger, this man asks, terrifies you.
“I uh…”
“Don’t wanna be rude, do ya pet?” Fuck. You survey the room, looking for anyone who has noticed you, who has observed this interaction, who has realized what’s happening in this little dark corner.
No one pays you a lick of attention. If they do, they spot the hulking mass of a man at your elbow and avert their eyes immediately. A few glance back in disbelief, like they recognize him somehow, or know him, before pointedly looking away.
You’re all but invisible.
Everything flows around you like water. You’re a rock beneath the surface, affecting a swell, an eddyline, and yet, no one knows. No one can see.
You swallow half the drink in one gulp, hope and prayer on the wind.
He’ll leave you alone, once you bore him. Once he realizes he won’t get anything out of you, he’ll move onto someone else. Someone more interesting.
“How is it?” His leg presses harder on yours, a quadricep like cement halting you effectually, securing your immobility against him with a simple movement.
He’ll pick you clean, and then pick his teeth with your bones.
“Fine.”
“Jus’ fine, eh?” His jaw flexes, and a split second of confusing emotion controls you, forcing new words from your mouth in a desperate attempt to appease.
“It’s… good. It’s good.” Ice layers across the top of it, and you take another sip for the show, half smile painted on loosely.
You have to get out of here. You have to go now.
“If you’ll excuse me…” you flex, trying to stand, but he shakes his head.
“Where you off to?” Your neck snaps back, indignant, and then you raise your voice over the din, too loud to be considered casual, fingers gripping the edge of your seat until your knuckles hurt.
“I have to use the bathroom.” Eyes half lidded, he traces you from head to toe before nodding, turning back to his drink almost as if he’s uninterested, grim line of his mouth twisting into a smile and settling around the end of his cigarette.
Once you’re in the hall, you take a left to the emergency exit, not a right, spilling out the back and into star studded night, gasping for air so cold it shocks your lungs.
“Whoa, hey there.” An accent croons, and you turn in a panic, palms out. “Easy, easy bonnie. What’s got ye all upset?” Your entire body flags with relief, a rip cord pulled against your sense and judgement. The man, the Scottish man, seems friendly, seems kind, wide blue eyes alarmed and worried, brows creased gently as he helps keep you upright.
“S-sorry. Sorry, I just… I just had… the weirdest-“ It doesn’t make sense, to try to explain, and nothing sounds right coming off your tongue, so you flail, and he tries to comfort you.
“Shhh, ye’re alright now. Just breathe.” His palm is firm against your side, and you shake your head, trying to put words to the madness brewing at your back inside the bar.
“There was a man, and he-“ The streetlamps flare, burning as bright as the sun, and you blink, grasping for your bearings. “He…”
“He what, bonnie?” His voice is distorted, and the arm at your side now creeps around your back. “What’s wrong?” Your adrenaline surges, leaving your head throbbing, and nausea claws it way up the back of your throat.
“N-nothing, I…” You’re fuzzy. Everything out of balance, and you gasp for air.
The door behind you creaks open and slams closed, jolting you in the grip of the Scotsman.
“It’s alright.” He coos. You’re weak limbed, malleable in his hold, and he turns your face into his neck, rubbing your back, his chest vibrating with every syllable. “Just close your eyes.” He smells good, woodsmoke and juniper, pine and cigarettes, something familiar enough to prickle, far away awareness digging at the soft sinew in the front of your brain.
Pine and cigarettes. Pine… and cigarettes.
It’s the last thing your rational mind pieces together before you’re lost to the darkness.
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