#book of magic

[nyxshadowhawk]

Diagrams from a thirteenth-century version of the Ars Notoria.

[2024-grimoire-challenge]

January Week 1

Welcome welcome to the 2024 Grimoire Challenge! Time to really get started everyone! This week will have a lot of stuff all jammed in. So buckle up, grab your grimoire and your supplies, and let’s get to work!

Monday

Name your book - this may seem silly and you definitely don’t need to name your book. Not properly at least. Other than “my grimoire” or “book of shadows” or what have you, which is totally fine. But some of us might feel the need to give it a proper title. “The Basil Grimoire” or “Hazel’s Handwritten Workings” something, anything, that ties the book to you and your craft. Make a title page! If you feel so inclined. If not, that’s fine too.

Definitions (New Page) - ritual and spell. Let’s define a few things. Make a page specifically for definitions, that we’ll add to through the challenge. Let’s start with a couple simple definitions. Define spell. And define ritual. Within the confines of magic, witchcraft and your practice. What is a spell? What is a ritual? What are the differences?

Study (herb) - Pick another herb from that list we made, and dig into the details. Make a page for it on its own, or add its info to another page! Whatever works for your craft. The questions to ask for these study prompts are going to continue to remain the same. Where did it come from, where does it grow, how does it grow, what are its mundane and practical uses. What are the myths and legends and stories surrounding the herb? What are its magical properties and why/ how do you think the other information you've learned about it have influenced its magical associations?

Tuesday

Outline/ index (New Page!) - it helped me a great deal to have an index or outline to my grimoire. I started this as a file on my computer as my grimoire grew and changed I could more easily manage it and rearrange it as I saw fit. Then eventually I could make it into a handwritten copy.

Study (gem) - Like our herb prompt, the gem prompts are going to always use the same outline and questions. Where does the gem come from? What is it used for in a practical and mundane sense? What are its physical properties? What are any myths, legends or stories? Where and how does it form? How does all of that relate to its magical correspondences and what does the herb mean to and for you in your craft?

Spellwriting 101 (New Page!) - make a new page dedicated to spellwriting. This is going to be one of those prompts that is focused on you and your craft. How do you write spells? How do you set them up? What components do you use? What is the format? How is it done? What does it require? From materials to timing and circumstances? Write it all out in your lab notebook. Make it a work in progress. Not all spells are going to work out the same or function the same as you perform them, but having a general layout and method helps to focus your practice.

Wednesday

Common tools - What are the common tools in your craft? That is, you don't need to have a list of every single tool ever used in witchcraft, just the tools that you use in yours. Both regularly and less regularly. What are they used for specifically? What purposes do they serve in the magical and practical sense? Are they ceremonial and symbolic or do they serve an actual physical purpose? (i.e. a wand used to direct energy serves many purposes, while an incense burner could literally just be that, an incense burner)

Year outline/ calendar - not everyone celebrates the same days, holidays or even the same holidays the same way. What are the special occasions and days in your calendar? Mark them and when the proper season/ holiday comes around, we can make pages dedicated to those days. This week this will simply be a list of these days, while later we will actually make pages for them individually. Think of it like the Wheel of the Year, Yule to Midsummer and so on. What days are important to you and your practice? Are they actual holidays? Or simply days of power like the full moon? Or is it simply days that are significant for other reasons, like the anniversary of the day you began practicing witchcraft?

Practical - tool usage - practice using your tools. For example if you use a wand. Practice using it to direct energies or whatever it is you utilize it for.

Thursday

Altar design/ work space (New Page!) - make a page dedicated to your altar and its setup. Why are things where they are? The reasoning can be simple as “that’s where it fits” or you can give it a more meaningful reason. Candles in front of or behind something to represent some purpose. Do you have items that represent the elements? Deities? Different sources of power or directionality? Different colors for different meanings? Why is your altar the way it is?

Practical - cleansing space - practice cleansing your space and tools. This is of course a physical and 'energetic' cleansing. Tidy it up, redecorate your space, clean the tools if they have dust or ash or anything on them. Sometimes it is good to have a clean start.

Friday

Personal practices - this is just a thought provoking prompt tied in with the Journal prompt below. What are some of your personal practices that you've brought into your witchcraft? Anything from little habits from your every day life to things brought from religion or family traditions. No matter how hard we try, we carry within us echoes of things not related to our practices into it. And that is totally okay. Recognizing them, acknowledging them, and truly incorporating them can be a huge step toward understanding ourselves, our beliefs and our practices all around.

Journal/ introspective/ meditations - Think about the above and write any of it down that you come to terms with. Self understanding is important in and outside of witchcraft.

Thank you all and I hope this week's prompts aren't too overwhelming! Stay tuned next week for the next set of prompts!

-Mod Hazel

[pigeonflavouredcake]

My Grimoire Research Library

this is a list of my major resource I've referenced/am currently referencing in my big grimoire project. For books I'll be linking the Goodreads page, for pdfs, websites and videos i'll link them directly.

There are plenty of generalised practitioner resources that can work for everyone but as I have Irish ancestry and worship Hellenic deities quite a few of my resources are centred around Celtic Ireland, ancient Greece and the Olympic mythos. If you follow other sects of paganism you are more than welcome to reblog with your own list of resources.

Parts of my grimoire discuss topics of new age spiritualism, dangerous conspiracy theories, and bigotry in witchcraft so some resources in this list focus on that.

Books

Apollodorus - The Library of Greek Mythology

Astrea Taylor - Intuitive Witchcraft

Dee Dee Chainey & Willow Winsham - Treasury of Folklore: Woodlands and Forests

John Ferguson - Among The Gods: An Archaeological Exploration of Ancient Greek Religion

Katharine Briggs - The Fairies in Tradition and Literature

Kevin Danaher - The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs

Laura O'Brien - Fairy Faith in Ireland

Lindsey C. Watson - Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome

Nicholas Culpeper - Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Plutarch - The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives

R.B. Parkinson - A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Around the World

Rachel Patterson - Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness

Raleigh Briggs - Make Your Place: Affordable & Sustainable Nesting Skills

Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass

Ronald Hutton - The Witch: A History of Fear in Ancient Times

Rosemary Ellen Guiley - The Encyclopaedia of Witches and Witchcraft

Thomas N. Mitchell - Athens: A History of the World's First Democracy

Walter Stephens - Demon Lovers: Witchcraft S3x and the Crisis of Belief

Yvonne P. Chireau - Black Magic: Religion and The African American Conjuring Tradition

PDFs

Anti Defamation League - Hate on Display: Hate Symbols Database

Brandy Williams - White Light, Black Magic: Racism in Esoteric Thought

Cambridge SU Women’s Campaign - How to Spot TERF Ideology 2.0.

Blogs and Websites

Anti Defamation League

B. Ricardo Brown - Until Darwin: Science and the Origins of Race

Dr. S. Deacon Ritterbush - Dr Beachcomb

Folklore Thursday

Freedom of Mind Resource Centre - Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control

Institute for Strategic Dialogue

Royal Horticultural Society

The Duchas Project -National Folklore Collection

Vivienne Mackie - Vivscelticconnections

YouTube Videos

ContraPoints - Gender Critical

Emma Thorne Videos - Christian Fundie Says Halloween is SATANIC!

Owen Morgan (Telltale) - The Source Of All Conspiracies: A 1902 Document Called "The Protocols"

The Belief it or Not Podcast - Ep. 40 Satanic Panic, Ep 92. Wicca

Wendigoon - The Conspiracy Theory Iceberg

Other videos I haven't referenced but you may still want to check out

Atun-Shei Films - Ancient Aryans: The History of Crackpot N@zi Archaeology

Belief It Or Not - Ep. 90 - Logical Fallacies

Dragon Talisman - Tarot Documentary (A re-upload of the 1997 documentary Strictly Supernatural: Tarot and Astrology)

Lindsay Ellis - Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia

Overly Sarcastic Productions - Miscellaneous Myths Playlist

Owen Morgan (Telltale) - SATANIC PANIC! 90s Video Slanders Satanists | Pagan Invasion Saga | Part 1

ReignBot - How Ouija Boards Became "Evil" | Obscura Archive Ep. 2

Ryan Beard - Demi Lovato Promoted a R4cist Lizard Cult

Super Eyepatch Wolf - The Bizarre World of Fake Psychics, Faith Healers and Mediums

Weird Reads with Emily Louise -The Infamous Hoaxes Iceberg Playlist

Wendigoon - The True Stories of the Warren Hauntings: The Conjuring, Annabelle, Amityville, and Other Encounters

[glamboyl]

Book of Magic by Fantasy Realm

[prettyqueerwitch]

Waning Moon

{NOTE : i did mess up and accidentally put 13-5 days after full moon) instead of (3-5 days after full moon)}

[ Marks an End.

Includes Waning Gibbous, Third Quarter, and Waning Crescent.

The Waning Moon is a time of release, letting things go, and removing things from your life.

Some herbs associated with the waningmoon are: lavender, chamomile, clarysage, geranium, rose, ylang-ylang.

Associated with the time before the winter solstice, the second harvest, and Saturdays.

Some deities and spirits associated with the waning moon are: Cerridwen, Hecate, The High Priestess, Persephone, Baba Yaga, Lilith and The Crone.

Some things to do during the Waning Moon are: Weeding, Getting Waxed, Harvesting, Shadow Work, Protection Magick, Elective/ Non- Emergency Surgery (3-5 days after full moon), Getting rid of/ Removing Things or People. ]

first time trying something like this. took most of this info out of my digital grimoire.

Main resources : The Moon Book by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener, Moon Magic by Diane Ahlquist, Moon Magic by Aurora Kane

Thank you, Canva, for the background.

[kuronekkosan]

"Is it the man you want, or the feeling inside you when someone cares?"

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

[thehazeldruid]

Should I run a Grimoire Challenge for 2024?

[whiterosebrian]

A handful of you may recall that I have very slowly assembled a beginning personal grimoire as a sort of foundation for my personal magical practices. Increasingly I have felt the need to replace pages and refine entire major sections. As a matter of fact, among the scanned pages that I've archived among my many drawings over the years, I've now quit keeping track of which exact pages I'm replacing. Here is a whole load of new hand-written and hand-drawn pages that I've made for my grimoire.

[animasmagic]

[riverin-stories]

with twitter the way that it currently is, i’m preemptively looking at dropping more of my art here on a consistent basis. and, well, what better way than to showcase some of my 2022 character art so far!

in order:

Montgomery “Monty” Joseph Darling

Lavenia “Nia” Fair

Channary Chey

Huang

Amani Chey

Olivia Coel

Miyaka Fujiwara

[ohmyilovethisquote]

Why on earth would you want to be normal?

Franny Owens

[loreyofthedamned]

V E R T I G O

[2024-grimoire-challenge]

January Week 3

Energy sources in witchcraft

Whether you believe in and practice energy work or not, what it is that empowers your workings has to come from somewhere. The belief is one thing, but the movement of the spell is another. This week we’ll look at energy and where it comes from. In various different forms.

Monday - Elemental Energies

New pages (the elements) - What are the elements? Fire, earth, air and water? Or are there others? I know some witches who work specifically with one element or with all of them. What are they? What energies do each possess and represent? How can we incorporate these into our craft, if we do. Make a page for all of them or a page for each of them! Spend a little time familiarizing yourself with each element, how to connect to it, focus it, use it, influence it and so on. What legends or myths are there related to these archetypal elements? Are there secondary elemental forces beyond the common four or five?

Study (herb) - Once again! Look into all the details of one of the herbs from your list!

Journal/ introspection - personal relationship with the elements - How do you relate to the elements? What is your elemental sign? What are the signs of all your natal chart and how do you connect to them? How do you connect to each element individually and how do they flow together, into and through one another? Are the differences between them as strict as we think or are they somehow blurred together?

Tuesday - Personal Energy

New Page(s) - Energy within and outside us. What is personal energy? How can we focus and manipulate it? How can we direct it and exercise it? Where do you believe it comes from? What is its actual source? What are some other ideas and beliefs about personal energy inside and outside or witchcraft?

Study (gem) - Pick one of those gems, and study!

Wednesday - Cosmic Energies

New page - Celestial energies, what are they? How do we follow them and connect to them? How do we utilize them in our craft? How do they change and grow? How do we harness and direct them? Study the history of using celestial bodies as sources of energy in witchcraft and spellworking.

Journal/ research - Think about your personal relationship to celestial bodies. How do you feel when you look at the sun and moon? What do they represent to you, personally, without looking up meanings and definitions. What do you feel when you think about them and their relationship to each other, to you, to the earth and to other celestial bodies? What about other planets or objects in space? Think deep. What do all of these things represent to you? Sun, Moon, Earth, Planets, Comets, Meteors, Black holes, etc.

Thursday - Natural Energies

New pages (Natural Energy) - Think about the natural forces that exist in the world around us. Solar, wind, geothermic, electricity, storms, weather and so on. What are the natural forces at work in the world and how can we incorporate them into witchcraft? What does each represent to you personally? Again, before you look too deep into each one individually, think about them in relation to yourself. How do you feel about them? How do they relate to you? To each other? Once you've garnered your personal ideas and correspondences, then dig in deeper and look them up.

Friday - Divine Energies

New pages (Divine Energy) - Not all witches work with deities or incorporate religion into their craft, but some do. How does energy from deities work? How do deities influence witchcraft for those who utilize their beliefs into their craft? If you do, what deities do you work with and what powers/ spheres of influence do those deities connect to in your craft? Make a page for each deity you work with, if you do, and learn about them. History, legends, myths and associations. But of course look inward first, what do you associate with those deities? What powers do they possess? What symbols are associated with them?

Practical - Do some energy work! Whatever sources of energy you work with for your witchcraft, practice working with it. Work with the elements, work with the celestial energies, or the divine, or the natural sources of energy within you or in the world around you. Meditate and connect to the elements. Find their physical embodiments in the world and interact with them (SAFELY). Practice moving your own energy or whatever energy you're working with. Most important, be safe and have fun!

There was a lot this week too! So I hope you're all hanging on and enjoying the challenge so far! It's gonna get bigger and more challenging as we go! Be prepared to have lots of notes to fill in your grimoire with later!

-Mod Hazel

[pigeonflavouredcake]

How to reference in your grimoire

If you intend on sharing your grimoire with the public or you're a fan of a more academic style of writing then you're gonna want to reference your sources to avoid any kind of plagiarism.

You may have already learned how to reference at your college/uni, in which case follow that method, but if you haven't let me show you what i've been doing in my grimoire.

The referencing style I was taught in my degree is a form of APA 7th edition. This style is best for essays and small research papers and since my grimoire is essentially a bunch of mini contextual essays stuck together I thought it was appropriate.

Here's the format:

Author Surname, Author Initials. (Date of publication/release). Title of source: sub-heading/title of chapter. Publishing company/website. Place of publication/website link. [Format]

So for example, the book I'm currently reading is Buried by Professor Alice Roberts. If I were to reference this book in this format it would look something like this:

Roberts, A. (2023). Buried, An Alternative History of The First Millennium in Britain: Water and Wine. Simon and Schuster. London. [Book]

(Its up to you whether you decide to put the chapter before the book title, it doesn't make a difference, but I prefer doing it this way.)

This reference will need to follow an in-text citation. You can do that by adding a little number in parentheses next to your quote or paraphrase that corresponds to the number on your list of references OR you can make a mini reference following this method:

(Author Surname, Author Initials. (Date of publication). Page number if required)

So following this method an in-text citation would look like this:

(Roberts, A. (2023). p1)

Tips

If you are citing a source with multiple authors, organised them alphabetically by surname, your in text citation only needs to include the first one.

If you're referencing an online upload of an old source like Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg, include the original authors name first, uploaders name/ID second and mark which is which in parenthesis, then the date of original publication if you can find it, followed by the date it was uploaded to the site.

If you are referencing a film/TV episode, use the name of the director and include (Dir) next to their name.

If you can't find a date of publication/upload then write DNA instead.

Always put your references at the back of your grimoire. If your grimoire contains multiple chapters, group them by each chapter and then organise either alphabetically or chronologically. If your in-text citation uses numbers, organise your reference list chronologically. If you're using a mini reference, organise your reference list alphabetically.

This last bit is especially important for practitioners who intend to publish their work. Please please please do not skip referencing! I've read so many traditionally published witchcraft books who's authors don't do this or do it half-assed and I can't stand it.

Readers deserve to know where your information is coming from so they can be the judge on whether or not it's appropriate for them to practice themselves. Not doing so creates a cycle of ignorance among readers and new practitioners that encourages the spread of cultural appropriation, poor media literacy and poor historical and scientific understanding. Always cite your sources.

[yuumei-art]

Lost in the Pages

Between Two Tomes

[prettyqueerwitch]

New Book of Magic

(aka my grimoire/book of shadows)

☆ ☆☆☆ ☆

☆ ☆☆☆ ☆

I got this from Wild Spellcraft. She has one more grimoire for sale at the moment and sells a variety of other stuff such as candles, jars, tea sets, prints, incense, printables, and a tarot book.

I can't wait to fill this up!! Maybe once I start filling it up, I'll make a post about making your own grimoire/book of shadows with examples ♡

Have a beautiful day guys!