“You color-coded the Book of Shadows?"
We grew up on tales of witches and their books. Whether it was The Book of Shadows from Charmed, The Book form Practical Magic, or the Grimmerie from Wicked, a handwritten book of potions and spells has always been as important in the narrative to the witches, as their own magical power. In Modern Paganism, this is also true. Being a XXI century Pagan is having a huge library and an even bigger Youtube History, and all these fountains of information inevitably contradict themselves, that is why is our job as pagans is to pick and choose which part of the lore, spells and prayers we know in our hearts that aligns with our beliefs, and we add them to our books. This sea of information we must navigate and fish out of is due to modern paganism not being based on a centralized institution, but instead many individuals swim or sink at their own pace in the sea of information and they fish what they need out of it, to put into their own books, and add to the sea a lot more of their own discoveries. It is a fluid practice, not set in stone. Many pagans follow a establish tradition or join a coven in specific with their own rituals and rules, and even they will tell their members, that they need to write their own prayer book, or maybe copy form a Coven book, and add their personal touch to them. We al start with a notebook or journal, that eventually becomes in their personal book, and we discover quickly that the Book of Shadows from Charmed is based in true pagan practice.
This is true specially modern day heathens, because our religion is based most on reconstruction of a long lost practice, and deconstructions of biases in the existing lore written centuries later by Christian monks, without mentioning the fifty years of newo-nazis who hijacked this religion, so not every source is believable and many parts are missing, so there is a lot of made-up information out there. As such, we heathens owe to ourselves and to each other to keep our own book, like our personal bible, up to date with out own believes and practices. Like the Book Of Shadows in Charmed, think of this book as a precious heirloom that will pass on to future heathens, and which will help to keep our religions alive, while they also edit it and adapt it to their needs because a mythology and religion book should never be static, but growing and changing alongside the people using it.
Writing your own book is a beautiful and one of the most fulfilling part of our religion, because we are not memorizing a bible, which is a passive act of devotion. We are actively solidifying our own beliefs, rituals, prayers, lore, mythology, recipes, imagery and botany, using the power of the pen, paper and pencil to turn thoughts into actions. While doing this devotion with our own hands, we are putting a lot of our energy and personality in our practice, imbuing the book with our personhood, making the words into our words, even if we are copying from and online article. Same reason why everyone writes their kitchen recipes at hand, making them their own. This is the same, but on a bigger scale.
A handwritten book will provide a better energy to your rituals than reading from a printout or another book. You will feel your prayers connect better and your Blots are more powerful, and this will bring you closer to your Gods and Ancestors than any other ritual. Even wehen you are reading from a book you inherited from someone else, their love and devotion will help you in your religious journey, and then you can, or rather, you must, personalize it and make it your own, edit the words if you need so. This will make the book’s amplifying power even stronger, because it will contain the love and devotion of all the people who contributed to it. And you will notice it.
When the divine inspiration strikes, you feel it as your pencil goes across the page, and you feel jsut like the ancestors writing Eddas. You feel the Gods with you, loving you, guiding you, lending you their power. Give your book a name, draw a title page, make illustrations, add stickers, paste flowers to the pages, make collages, put fabrics, do whatever yo want with it. There are no limits to how simple or elaborate your book should be. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do it for you. If you feel the gods are happy with your work, you know you have done as good job. Make sure to get a big book that you can’t fill it up just yet, because that is precisely one of the key aspects of this book: Blank pages. There is a lot more to discover than what you currently know, and so when you discover something new, or compare notepads with a fellow practitioner, then you will feel you need to add it to your book, so be prepared. Take this book with you to all your blots, and compare notes with fellow heathens. Sometimes you will discover many great ways to do something when many people put their hates into it and compare notes.
In my own practice, my current book has been with me for over as year. I penciled everything I knew and my spells and prayers got erased and changed and updated and rewritten more times that I can count, so that is why I did them in pencil, but it is time to ink some of them. IF you see my Instagram, you will see me trying to sharpie them into their final forms, but I’m also leaving a lot of space for new things I haven’t learned yet. I currently never check a book written by someone else when I nee to make a blot, I consult my own book, and that has greatly made my relation to my book and my gods infinitely better, because I feelI am not reading someone else’s words, but my own, even though some of them originated in Youtube, because I made them my own, when I wrote them and rewrote them in my book. And I feel even more connected with my Gods than people who can recite the Bible word for word but have never felt a response from their God, because they are reading other people’s translations and going through the motions, but they are not really connecting with the material, whereas I as a Heathen am scientist of faith, an archaeologist assembling pieces of a lost world, comparing and completing what is lost, and in those cases I get to decide what to do, and I follow up with the results, and Gods take notice of that kind of passion ad reward me for it. And they will reward you too. And that is why every pagan loves their book, because they know it works.