What's Inside a Grimoire?
Grimoire Girls Part Two
In our last Grimoire Girls post we looked at what a grimoire actually is, what types of grimoires exist, and what they are made from. Now it’s time to turn from the cover of the grimoire, into the actual pages and the contents within. What actually goes into a grimoire?
As I said before, your grimoire is as individual and as unique as you are, you could have a wonderfully structured spell book with an index of neatly laid out subjects, or you could have a stack of papers in a haphazard order, stapled together, both are correct, both are valid… but…
I’m going to be preaching from the corner of the organised witch and I’m going to be talking about the benefits of having a system and an order in place for your first grimoire, your main grimoire, the go-to grimoire that needs a little bit of stability. Any other grimoires you create can be as chaotic as you like, but the first one really benefits from having a little order because it helps you get your thought process and your understanding of your witchcraft and magick in order also.
Structure:
The first thing to do when faced with those blank pages it to ask yourself why. Why are you creating a grimoire? Is it to have something pretty and aesthetic on your altar to take pictures of for insta?
Wrong answer.
Is it to have a grounding anchor point in your witchcraft, something to tether you back to your practice before you get too lost and confused in the world of rituals, faeries, and black salt?
Correct.
What do you want to write about? What do you want to record? There’s no point dedicating time, energy, and resources to a subject you don’t enjoy, or a part of witchcraft that you don’t even practice.
I have seen this a lot on my travels over the past few years in the online witchy world. For example; I’ve noticed witches from landlocked counties with entire spreads dedicated to ocean magick, pages on how best to practice their sand-sigils to time with the right tide levels, which shells to use to house their ceremonial candles, etc. Don’t get me wrong, its perfectly valid to take an interest in other kinds of magick outside of your own practice, it helps us to understand other witches, and the other elements in our world when we do this extra research, but putting these very practical parts of a craft you don’t practice into your personal grimoire rather than a general or dedicated research one, just means you are filling up space and prioritising work that you probably aren’t going to do.
Your first/main grimoire should always be a reflection of your own craft… but how do we deal with that first page dread? How do we choose what to write about and record first?
The Basics:
The best place to start is with a list of contents that are not only easy to follow, but are also easy and interesting topics to create spreads on….
Ethos: After a decorative front cover, or insert, your first page could consist of an ethos, a mission statement, a page that talks about your why. The ethos page should consist of a small paragraph talking about your beliefs and your ethics as a witch, and the intention of the grimoire. You could also pop a little invocation, or sigil, or intention on the first page to add to the energy and the protection of the spell book.
About the Witch: This is a cute little addition, and a chance to toot your own horn. Write about yourself, your beliefs, your craft, the things you love about witchcraft and your hopes and goals. Include images and colours that you feel relate to you the most, personal photographs, scraps of fabric from old clothes, charms, buttons, beads etc.
The Wheel: Following the Wheel of the Year isn’t for everyone, but it’s a great way to track the seasons and the magickal energy and connotations. I’m not Wiccan, but I find the wheel to be a useful and engaging ‘tool’ and use it often to plan and execute my craft. If you don’t want to follow the sabbats on the wheel then you can of course just focus on the four seasons, or your own personal wheel (we’ll talk more about that in another post).
Moon Cycles: Another staple in a basic grimoire, The Moon is at the forefront of the majority of our minds whether we are doing spellwork, ritual, or charging and cleansing ourselves and our tools. You can document the cycle of our moon, her waxing and waning meanings, what to do when she is full, the highs and lows of a new moon. You can also track the 12 full moons we have in our year and their meaning for you and your craft, and their folklore and stories.
Candle Magick: Here is where we start getting into the parts that go from being acknowledged and sort of set by history, folklore, and witchy culture and experience, and start to drift into the parts of the craft that become quite personal and unique from witch to witch. I’ll just state now that I think that different colours mean different things for different people… I agree with the very standard explanations about colour magick and candles, but I think that the more you practice the more you come to see how colour interacts with you and your magick on a much more personal level. For example if I want to do just a standard calming, meditative ritual to centre myself, I won’t use a white candle that symbolises calm and peace, I’ll use a pink one, because I LOVE pink, its my favourite colour and it automatically calms me down. As you create your grimoires you’ll notice after a while that the orange candle you used for creativity actually responded more when you used it for energy magick, and that yellow works better for you for creativity. Make spreads on candle magick, the colour uses and meanings, but also the kinds of wax you can use, and whether or not to use tea lights or taper candles for particular spells.
Cleansing & Protection Magick: This is the perfect topic to make a bumper spread on. I spoke last time about the joy of adding pockets, flaps, pull tabs and various other extra bits and bobs onto a page, as a way of getting more information into a small space… well what better subject to get creative with. There are so many different ways to cleanse and protect yourself, your tools, your space etc, adding envelopes and stuffing in wads of paper that you’ve written instructions down on is a quick and easy way to get that information safely into the pages of your grimoire.
The Elements: You can either dedicate an entire spread to each element (fire, water, earth, air) or you can have a separate spread for each. Having a separate spread feels like the best choice as you can decorate and arrange the pages with each element in mind. Think reds and oranges for fire, blues for water, lilacs and pink for air (hello dusk vibes), and beautiful green and brown hues for earth. The same goes for texture, using watercolour paints to decorate the page on water is sure to evoke that kind of energy, similarly using burnt sigil ash for fire, acrylic paint on a sponge to create moss for earth and air… well give me an idea for that because I’m stumped? Cotton wool clouds?
Now you have around 17-20 spreads already filling up the pages of your grimoire, and you should be feeling much more confident having made that many creative and energetic spreads about the most basic parts of your crafts. With this number of completed pages under your belt you’ll also be noticing what’s working and what isn’t - creatively speaking, you’ll have a preference for the supplies you’re using, how much a page can hold, which of your pens bleed through, and which sit nicely on the paper. It’s all a learning curve, but the only way to learn is to do so keep going into the more niche and complicated subjects of your witchcraft.
There is no limit to what you can include in your grimoire, I try to squeeze as much in as possible but part of the fun is having multiple grimoires for all the interesting parts of yourself and your craft that you discover.
I have created pages on…
-The spiritual and folkloric meaning of flowers, animals, butterflies, fossils, trees, and other natural parts of our world
-The history of my local area, so that I can get to know the spirits that walk through my town and the surrounding areas.
-Glamour magick, which products I’ve used and their effects when charming myself for events, gatherings, or when communicating with others.
-Recipes for simmer pots, dream sachets, home made incense and perfume, lots of kitchen magick!
Filling a grimoire is a wonderful part of witchcraft, even if you make it as simple as possible it still contains a lot of magickal energy. What will you pop in your grimoire next?
Until next time,
Laura
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My book ‘The Handmade Grimore’ talks more about how to create your magickal spell book and enhance your creative practices. It’s available from anywhere you like to buy books!
Loved this!!! ✨✨
I was wondering what a grimoire was as I kept seeing the word everywhere. Thank you for explaining in this post!🥰🙏