A Book of Shadows can take on many forms, ranging from inexpensive spiral notebooks to handmade books with rather large price tags. If you are looking for the latter, search some on-line magickal supply shops. You are sure to find some beautiful works of art worthy of any Witch's attention and use. But be forewarned...I've seen them priced as high as $300. (Paper included, of course!)

When I first began to build my own book, it was started in a spiral notebook. This was difficult, because it was hard to keep information in some semblance of order. It's hard enough not knowing where to begin the study process, let alone finally finding useful information and trying to fit it together like a puzzle, flipping back and forth between pages.

I then moved on to purchasing two hard-bound blank journals, one for my magickal recordkeeping which I called the Book of Shadows, the other for my research which I called my Book of Light. While the titles were appropriate to me, this also proved to be difficult because juggling between these two large hard-bound books was a heavy task, and again made it difficult to keep information organized for easy reference. These books were just an expensive version of the spiral notebook.

Some individuals keep their Book of Shadows on a computer, which I also attempted. The hard reality of this bad idea occurred to me the day my computer crashed and I couldn't access my book. Saved to disk or not, if it wasn't printed out, it was useless.

After much headache, I finally settled on the age old method of a three-ring binder, kicking myself for all the time I wasted by not using this method to begin with. Not only does this provide me with an inexhaustable amount of paper on which to write, but it offers me way to keep all my information organized by adding those handy little things called "dividers", when and where I need them.

Like many sentimental Witches, I'm sure, I also have to admit to the romantic notion of one day having a leather-bound version of my Book of Shadows. My hope is to create an artistic family heirloom and magickal reference tool for future generations. For this I have taken up learning the art of calligraphy, and currently hand-write my most prized information on genuine parchment paper. One day I will hand-bind these magickal papers together to create the ultimate version of my Book of Shadows.

While I highly recommend the three-ring notebook method to get started, no matter what form your Book of Shadows takes, you will soon find it to be one of your most prized magickal possessions, finding yourself turning to it on a regular basis.

Now that you have hopefully settled on the form your magickal book will take, it is time to begin using it. You may be asking yourself what types of things will go into your Book of Shadows. This will depend on what topics you wish to study and will be greatly dictated on when, where, and how you find your research information. The areas of interest in the Craft are far from limited, and you will find that you will change course many times during your studies. For now, I will give you some personal suggestions for labeling your dividers.

~ Personal Journal ~ Magickal Dictionary ~ Favorite Quotes ~
~ History of Witchcraft ~ Ethics of the Craft ~
~ Pathworking ~ Pantheons ~ Traditions ~
~ The Wheel of the Year ~ Esbats ~ The Elements ~
~ Tools of the Craft ~ Rituals ~ Spellwork ~
~ Types of Magick ~ Types of Divination ~
~ Herb Magick & Lore ~ Magickal Correspondences ~

As I stated, these are only suggestions which are basic and defined in a broad sense. You will, no doubt, eventually come up with more defined areas of study to specialize in, but this list should give you a good starting point for research topics. If you are searching for a more detailed study list to chose from, The Witch's Study~Buddy contains an outline of some of these suggested areas of study in more depth.