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Annotated Bibliography: The Book Of Shadows

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One common conflation I have been seeing a lot of in the community lately is the conflation of the Grimoire with books such as Magical Journals and the Book of Shadows. Most people don’t seem to know that there is a vast difference between these types of books, and I want to illustrate those differences in this article.

The Book of Shadows is specifically a Wiccan and Neo-Wiccan concept. The name itself is a misnomer which references Wicca and Neo-Wicca’s penchant for revisionist history on the mythical subject of the Burning Times, and alludes to a period when Witches supposedly had to keep their practices a secret or risk being burnt at the stake. There is ample evidence, however, that Gardner potentially coined the term himself as he did …show more content…

Over time the system proved unstable and practitioners adopted the practice of creating their own or copying from the Coven’s copy, especially as books teaching “Wicca” (Outer Court information, the practices based on which we often call Neo-Wicca now) to people grew in popularity.

Magical Journals are usually included in today’s idea of the Book of Shadows, but they are actually meant to act separately. Not unlike standard journals, Magical Journals are books in which to record ones’ experiences- specifically with the realm of Witchcraft. This includes what spells one has cast, the results, feelings, divination that was done, and other information and experiences pertaining to one’s studies and usage of …show more content…

One person I had a discussion with earlier this week stated that the conflation was simply a linguistic change in definition; the evolution of the meaning of “Book of Shadow” and “Grimoire” respectively. I disagree wholly, however. There are many ways in which Linguistic change occurs, I’ll admit. The Book of Shadows, after all, changed from originally being a Grimoire into being a vast compendium of knowledge on various topics pertaining to Wiccan (or Neowiccan) faith and Witchcraft due to a lot of factors- one of which was Gerald Gardner himself. However, the same hasn’t actually happened for Grimoire

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