Alexander - The Modern Witchcraft Grimoire: Your Complete Guide to Creating Your Own Book of Shadows

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

Avon, Massachusetts

To the witches of the next generationyou are the torchbearers who illuminate our future

Perhaps youre accustomed to keeping a journal in which the story of your life unfolds. There you confide your hopes and dreams as well as the events that make up the fabric of your existence. In The Modern Witchcraft Grimoire, youll learn how to keep another book. Although its similar in some ways to a journal, it is much more. It is your grimoire (pronounced grim WAR).

If you are Wiccan or follow another magickal path, your grimoire is an essential toolan intimate account of your spiritual journey, the steps you take on the road to self-discovery, and what you learn along the way about the Craft of the Wise. As well, its a resource for you, containing spells and other magickal lore that are aids in finding serenity and happiness.

Between its covers you reveal your souls secrets, as well as your expressions in the outer worldparticularly those of a magickal and spiritual nature. Here you pen information about your practice as a witch, the spells and rituals you perform, and your ongoing exploration of the mysteries that lie beyond the ordinary mundane world. Insights, visions, dreams, meditations, and musings all may grace the pages of your grimoire. Your experience is both personal and universal, for as a witch you know that everything in the cosmos is connected, wisdom is timeless, and truth is enduring.

Perhaps you feel inspired to discuss how you interpret the presence of the Divine Feminine in your life. How does she reveal herself to you and guide you on your spiritual path? Your grimoire is also the place to relate the magickal knowledge youve gained and the revelations youve discovered. As a practitioner of the Craft, you are continually unfolding and growing and transforming. You are continually deepening your relationship with yourself, the Goddess, nature, the universe, and everything around you. Each day opens new doors; each moment the spirit world slips extraordinary messages into your psychic mailbox. And you dont want to forget a single thing, so write it down!

The Modern Witchcraft Grimoire is a guide to designing and using this amazing resource. explains the tradition of keeping a grimoire and why youll want to create your own. I discuss various ways to fashion your book, how you might like to organize it, and what things you may consider including in it. Are you an artist? Perhaps youll enjoy adding illustrations, photographs, and other inspiring imagery to enrich your book. Are you a poet? Compose original incantations to call up the magickal forces in the cosmos and write your poems in your grimoire. Do you have a dramatic bent? Choreograph personal rituals and record what you did, with whom, and what resulted. You can even fabricate your own grimoire from scratch. This is your chance to be creative and to express yourself, without fear of criticism or censorship.

In I suggest ways to work with your grimoire. Celebrate and chart the sacred holidays. Catalog your spells. Discuss your interactions with deities, spirits, and other nonphysical entities. Let the spark within you shine, let the music in you sing. All the details of your quest here on earth and beyond could end up on the pages of your book.

I also share things here that Ive found worth including in my own book: favorite spells and rituals, chants and affirmations, signs and symbols, insights and inspirations. I offer them as suggestions only, to help you get started in this wonderfully creative and richly rewarding endeavor. Take what you like and leave the rest. Your grimoire can contain anything you feel is significant to you as a witch and as a person. It is a record of your awakening and your evolution, what youve received and what youre giving back. It is uniquely yoursno two witches will create a grimoire in the same way.

Above all, I urge you to embrace your own truth. Delve deeply into your heart of hearts. Engage your imagination. Enjoy knowing that you are part of a long-standing, time-honored, and incredibly exciting tradition that connects you with witches past, present, and future. Invite the Goddess to join you in the process. Whatever you do will be amazing! Blessed be.

You have more than enough to do, be, create and have everything you desire! In order to have EVERYTHING you desire, you must shift your beliefs and begin to see yourself in a new and strong way. Its about creating a powerful mindset shift... the first step is connecting with your Inner Goddess.

L ISA M ARIE R OSATI

A grimoire is a witchs personal journal of her or his magickal experiences. Here, you keep track of your spells, rituals, and other things related to your development as a magick worker. Its like a cooks collection of recipes. Some people refer to it as a book of shadows. Old grimoires served as collections of spells and rituals. A book of shadows today might also include its authors musings and insights related to a spell, as well as her dreams, feelings, poems, lore, and other asides.

Your grimoire is a record of your growth and of the changes you and others bring about in your life. Above all, it is a tool you can use in your search for and discovery of the path of the Goddess.

The Egyptians called her Isis. The Sumerians knew her as Inanna, the Babylonians as Ishtar. Long before the advent of Christianity, Islam, and other patriarchal religions, our ancestors stood in awe of the Goddesss power and revered her in all her splendor. For as much as 30,000 years they drew nurture from her spirituality and strength. Now you have chosen to tread a special path in this world, a path rooted in antiquity that respects the Goddess as well as the God. You seek to know her, to learn of her great mysteries and feel her hand guiding you as you journey through life in the manifest world. Call to her and she will welcome you.

In recent years we have seen a great re-emergence of interest in the Divine Feminine. Our modern world, where science and logic and materialistic thinking dominate, has become increasingly unbalanced. Many of us experience a thirst for deeper wisdom, a hunger in our souls, and realize that something essential has been missing from our lives. We seek a stronger connection with nature and the spiritual realm, and long to rediscover our true place in the universe. In our quest for a more fulfilling way of life, many of us have turned within and found the Goddess waiting there for us.

Wicca and Neopaganism, belief systems that honor the Goddess, resonate with us because they speak to issues about which we feel most deeply: respect for the environment, gender equality, and overcoming religious biases and narrow-minded thinking. They also encourage us to respect and develop our own, unique powers so we can take charge of our lives and be everything we choose to be.