The Book of Shadows—
Out of the Shadows
We tend to take published rituals for granted today. Between websites, e-books, and bookstores, there are probably hundreds of different “Books of Shadows” available for perusal and personal use. But that’s a modern development; it took nearly twenty years from the Craft first going public for ritual books and BoS’s to become readily available. In many ways these early books brought the BoS out of the shadows and into the light, though they were not without controversy.
The earliest Witchcraft books didn’t include much in the way of rituals. They tended to include a lot of history, along with a general overview of what Witches believed back in the 1950s and 1960s. Such books might contain a small ritual bit, but there was nothing in them to guide a practitioner in a ritual from start to finish. To receive Witch rituals, a person had to either be an initiate of a tradition or make up their own version of things.
The first attempt at a mass-produced BoS appeared in pamphlet form in 1964 and was done in an attempt to devalue the Craft. The BoS included in the pamphlet was allegedly that of Gerald Gardner himself and was published by Charles and Mary Cardell, a couple who liked to pretend they were brother and sister. (If that makes no sense to you, well, you aren’t alone. The Cardells were some strange fish.) The Cardells got their copy of Gardner’s alleged BoS from a disgruntled initiate of Gardner named Olive Greene (who may have also been their “spy”—I told you the saga of the Cardells was a weird one).
The Cardells’ early attempt at publishing a BoS didn’t work out very well for them. Privately published and not very popular with the Witchcraft community, their pamphlet/book was quickly forgotten. Other published BoS’s fared much better in the court of public opinion and have been in print now for several decades. What follows are some of the most popular mass-produced BoS’s, and I think it’s fair to say that they all changed Witchcraft forever—though depending on who you talk to, not always for the better.
From Sheba to Cunningham to RavenWolf:
BoS’s from 1970 to the Present Day
The first book to contain full-length rituals resembling those in modern Witchcraft was Paul Huson’s Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks & Covens. Huson’s book is a long way from being a BoS, and many of his spells and formulations feel closer to ceremonial magick than Witchcraft, but there’s also a lot of the familiar in Huson’s work.
Huson’s book opens with an illustration of the Wheel of the Year before going into a whole lot of spellwork. There are also invocations to deities such as Cernunnos and Diana, pentacles, and familiar exclamations such as “So mote it be!” Much of the material in the first two-thirds of the book is interesting but bears little resemblance to Wiccan Witchcraft, but that changes in the book’s last chapter, “The Coven and How to Form One.”
It’s here in the book’s waning pages that Huson begins outlining more than just spells; he basically provides a primer for creating one’s own BoS. He includes two initiation rituals, complete with excerpts such as “Blessed be thy knees that shall kneel at the holy altar,” 36 which is a line common to a whole lot of BoS’s and traditions. Huson’s book also includes the first published version of the Charge of the Goddess, though his version is a bit different from the one most of us are used to.
Huson’s book was a considerable step forward in published Witch rituals, but the biggest (and most contentious) step came in 1971 with the publication of Lady Sheba’s Book of Shadows. Lady Sheba (born Jessie Wicker Bell in 1920) claimed that she had been initiated into Witchcraft back in the 1930s and that her Book of Shadows came at least partially from that initiation. In actuality, Bell received her BoS, along with a Gardnerian Witchcraft initiation, via proxy, in 1970, from English Witches Michael Howard and Rosina Bishop. Bell later claimed that the Goddess had urged her to publish what were most certainly oathbound rituals.37
Sheba’s book was published in 1971 by Llewellyn Publications (the publishers of this book), whose then-president, Carl Weschcke, was part of Bell’s coven.38 Lady Sheba’s Book of Shadows isn’t quite a complete Witch BoS, but it comes very close. There are sabbat rituals, initiations, and elevations, along with The Laws of Witchcraft, known by some as the Ardanes. A longer edition was published the following year as The Grimoire of Lady Sheba and included even more rituals, along with several magical rites and spells and other odds and ends.
To say that Gardnerians were outraged in 1971 when Sheba’s book was first published would be an understatement. To this day its publication remains contentious, and by the late 1970s Bell had retired from public Paganism and Witchcraft. Though Bell’s book was the first to truly present a Witch ritual in order from start to finish, it wasn’t a complete Gardnerian BoS. Bell’s version of a BoS contained a lot of information about rituals but completely lacked any context for those rituals. A Gardnerian BoS is more than just a collection of rituals; it’s a source of information about the Craft, containing the wisdom of generations of high priestesses and high priests. The BoS received by Bell at her initiation also only represented one particular strand of Gardnerian Craft, and a rather unique one at that. Michael Howard has openly admitted that his line changed certain parts of Gardner’s original Book of Shadows.39
Just how big was Bell’s impact on Witchcraft? We’ll never know for sure exactly, but I can offer an interesting insight. In 2011 a friend and I visited the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, where we rummaged through the diaries and rituals of American Witch Aidan Kelly.40 In the late 1960s, Kelly, along with a few friends, created a tradition known today as NROOGD (New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn), drawing ritual inspiration from texts such as Margaret Murray’s Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and Robert Graves’s The White Goddess (1948).
Upon studying Kelly’s early rituals, I was amazed at the changes that appeared in them, especially from 1971 to 1972. At one point I loudly exclaimed, “That’s when he must have read Lady Sheba!,” surprising my colleague (and many of the library’s visitors), who had missed what had obviously caused the tonal shift in Kelly’s rituals. Within just a few months of its publication, Lady Sheba’s Book of Shadows was already quickly influencing other Witch traditions.
Despite the misgivings of many Witches, Bell’s book has been in print now for over forty years. In 2001, just a year before Bell’s death, Llewellyn released a beautiful hardcover edition of Sheba’s Grimoire, along with a new edition of her Book of Shadows the following year. Lady Sheba may be gone from this world, but “her” BoS lives on and will continue to influence new generations of Witches.
The next complete Book of Shadows published proved to be a lot less controversial. Raymond Buckland’s 1974 The Tree: The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft featured no oath breaking and was the first attempt at a Witch book for the solitary practitioner. Buckland is one of the most influential Witches in history, and that influence goes well beyond The Tree. Buckland was born in London, England, but emigrated to the United States in the early 1960s. In the States he began corresponding with Gerald Gardner and later received an initiation (along with his then-wife, Rosemary) from Monique Wilson, one of Gardner’s high priestesses.
The Tree bears a lot of similarities to British Traditional Witchcraft, but Buckland’s sabbat rituals were completely different from those of Gardner and Sheba. With The Tree, Buckland essentially created a brand-new Wiccan tradition, one he dubbed Seax-Wicca, and one that’s still being practiced today. Buckland’s BoS also included something sadly lacking in Sheba’s book: context. More than just bare-bones ritual, Buckland’s BoS provided information explaining how his rituals worked. For many years The Tree was the best source for Witchcraft in the tradition of Gardner and his initiates (other than initiation itself, of course).
The year 1978 saw the publication of A Book of Pagan Rituals by Weiser Books, with New York occultist and Witch Herman Slater listed as editor. The material in Pagan Rituals was originally created by a group known as the Pagan Way (which continues to this day) and was passed along in the magazines and Pagan periodicals of the era. The rituals created by the Pagan Way served two functions: the rituals could be used in Outer Court–type settings (an Outer Court is a pre-initiation training circle used in some traditions) or in public settings where Witch-style rituals were being shared. Since nothing in the Pagan Way material of that era was oathbound, things could be shared without violating any trust.
Since much of the material in A Book of Pagan Rituals was designed for groups, many of the rituals and ideas in it lacked context, but it also represented a huge step forward in the distribution of Witch ritual throughout the English-speaking world. It was also one of the first books to include the word Pagan in its title instead of Witch or Witchcraft, another milestone.
Hailed as the “mother of modern Witchcraft,” Doreen Valiente (1922–1999) was one of the great writers and architects of the modern Craft revival. Initiated by Gerald Gardner in 1953, Valiente went on to write much of the material found in the Gardnerian Book of Shadows and many of the later books that were influenced by it (or that copied it directly). She was a tremendous poet, and her words have been a part of my own personal journey as a Witch nearly from the very beginning. (We also share a birthdate of January 4, which is of no real consequence, though I find it tremendously cool.)
In 1978 Valiente released Witchcraft for Tomorrow, a book so good that writer and Witchcraft historian Philip Heselton called it her “magnum opus.” 41 Witchcraft for Tomorrow was the first Witchcraft book published in England that provided full rituals for each of the sabbats, along with a self-initiation ritual. For many in the United Kingdom, Valiente’s 1978 work provided a way into Witchcraft away from the up until then traditional coven structure.
One of the most important books in the history of modern Witchcraft was released in 1979 and closed off the decade in style. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess by Starhawk was the first great “American Witch Book,” with Doreen Valiente calling it “practically a new Book of Shadows.” 42 Starhawk’s book wasn’t just about Witchcraft as practiced by Gardner (and the various offshoots that used his system); it detailed a new kind of American West Coast Witchcraft, complete with feminism, environmentalism, and the influence of Cora and Victor Anderson, two of the most important Craft teachers in American history (and also the founders of a truly unique Witch tradition).
Starhawk’s book was not meant to be a BoS, but it might as well have been. Even today, years after first reading it, I’m amazed at just how many pages in it look like ones from my own BoS, and read like it too. Every spell and rite in The Spiral Dance feels circle-tested and as if it was lifted straight from the rituals that must have been going on in Starhawk’s home before its publication.
In 1981, English Witches Janet and Stewart Farrar released Eight Sabbats for Witches, featuring rites and ceremonies from the Alexandrian Witchcraft tradition. A companion volume was released in 1984, titled The Witches’ Way: Principles, Rituals, and Beliefs of Modern Witchcraft. Both works featured input from Doreen Valiente, and the three collaborators thought of The Witches’ Way and Eight Sabbats as a way of “publishing a definitive text of the (Gardnerian) Book of Shadows.” 43
Much like the release of Lady Sheba’s book nearly ten years earlier, there were some who saw the publication of the Farrars’ books as a violation of their secrecy oaths. But as Valiente wrote to the Farrars during the lead-up to The Witches’ Way: “I am the co-author with Gerald Gardner of the Gardnerian ‘Book of Shadows’ and therefore, it seems to me, I’m entitled to say whether or not it should be published.” 44
The Farrars and Valiente succeeded masterfully in their attempts to create a working BoS based on Gardner’s work in the 1950s. The rituals flow like water, and thanks to Valiente’s participation, the reader knows that everything in both books (later collected into one volume as A Witches’ Bible) is being presented in exactly the way the composer of those rites intended. Unlike Lady Sheba’s books in the 1970s, both volumes by the Farrars provide plenty of context while succeeding as a BoS.
Before the Internet became our primary form of communication in the extended Pagan world, many Witches and other like-minded folks kept up with one another through magazines and other periodicals. One of the pioneers in this area was Ed Fitch, whose work has had a lasting effect on Witchcraft. Fitch not only helped craft the rituals of the Pagan Way (discussed earlier) but also put together two “underground classics” that helped bring Witchcraft-style rituals to the masses.
The Grimoire of the Shadows and The Outer Court Book of Shadows circulated privately throughout the 1970s (and into the present day) and allowed coven leaders to present rituals without worrying about oath breaking.45 (Those two works saw an eventual “official” release in 1996 through Llewellyn Publications as A Grimoire of Shadows.) In addition to writing his underground books, Fitch also founded the Witchcraft magazine The Crystal Well in 1965, in which he and writer Janine Renee shared several sabbat rites. Those rituals also circulated widely in the Pagan underground and were finally collected and released as Magical Rites from the Crystal Well in 1984.
One of the most influential BoS’s of the past forty years first appeared publicly back in 1989 as “Section III” in Scott Cunningham’s (1956–1993) Wicca: A Guide For the Solitary Practitioner. Cunningham’s Wicca was revolutionary for a number of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, it was the first widely circulated book in the United States to use the word Wicca in its title instead of Witchcraft. That was a pivotal moment in the history of the Craft and is often overlooked.
The second revolutionary bit in Cunningham’s book was that “Section III” (titled the “The Standing Stones Book of Shadows”) was a complete BoS, with sabbat rituals, spells, and magical oil recipes. For much of the 1990s (and even up until now), Cunningham’s work served as an entryway into the Craft, and as a result the rituals in his BoS have influenced an entire generation of Witches. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve seen bits of Cunningham’s rites show up in rituals across the United States and Canada. An extended version of Cunningham’s BoS was released in 2009 as Cunningham’s Book of Shadows: The Path of an American Traditionalist.
Another of the most influential American Witches of the 1990s was Silver RavenWolf. Her 1994 book To Ride a Silver Broomstick appealed to the new generation of Witches raised on the 1996 movie The Craft and TV’s Charmed. (Confession: Broomstick was one of my absolute favorite books as a young Witch, and still is.) RavenWolf’s 2003 Solitary Witch: The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation, weighing in at over six hundred pages, might be one of the most complete publisher-produced BoS’s in existence.
Over a span of just thirty-five years, published BoS’s went from being rather slim affairs (and, in the case of Lady Sheba, mostly plagiarized) to full and complete volumes that could be used to get a coven or solitary practice up and off the ground quickly. It’s amazing to think of how far these types of books have come in such a short period of time, and the innovation is not over yet. In addition to BTW (British Traditional Witchcraft) and eclectic Wicca BoS’s, all sorts of other Witchcraft traditions are being shared.
If the last fifty years are any indication, publishers will continue to release full BoS’s, with many of us in the Craft continuing to buy them. I don’t always use the BoS’s shared by Craft leaders and elders, but I do look to many of them for inspiration when writing a ritual or puzzling over one of Witchcraft’s many mysteries. I hope there are more to come.
Every Trick in the Book:
An Excerpt from Gnostica News
while i was working on this book, my editor came across an article on the Book of Shadows published back in March of 1973 in Llewellyn’s Gnostica News periodical. The article itself doesn’t offer a whole lot of insight into the BoS, but it does cast a very illuminating light on the time period in which it was written. The article’s author (given as the “American Brotherhood of Wicca” in the magazine) calls the BoS “a true holy book” and dismisses any Book of Shadows that doesn’t resemble that of Lady Sheba! Times have certainly changed.
Here is an excerpt from the “Brotherhood Messenger” column in Gnostica News, March 21, 1973:
… The Book of Shadows was published (except for minor typos) exactly as it was handed down within her family for generations. Perhaps Lady Sheba’s names for the Sabbats, her wording for the Circle Chant, and other chants, differ from other sources—but who is in a position to say which is the more correct? Knowing Lady Sheba to be a true hereditary Witch Queen, I give more weight to her copy of the Book than I do to either Gardner, Grillot de Givry, or similar sources. …
Reading and listening to some of the new “authorities” on Witchcraft, I have learned that some think that a Book of Shadows is merely a Witch’s record book, either as a Grimoire or collection of rituals being worked, or as a magickal diary recording the person’s psychological and spiritual growth. This is not so!
“The Book of Shadows” is a true holy book, the “bible” of the Wiccan religion. It is the only Wiccan book to be traditionally handed on from generation to generation. All other books, the personal grimoires, the personal magickal diaries, the “lecture notes”, etc. were traditionally to be burned at death.
The Book of Shadows contains the Witch Laws, the basic rituals and initiations, and the Sabbat rituals. It is not to contain notes of explanation, commentaries, additions, alterations, etc. This “Book” is to be handed on unchanged except for those changes approved by the Council of Elders. (I may be allowed to write more about the Council of Elders in a later column—but let me say that these Elders are not elected or appointed by the covens!) At the same time that the “Book” is handed on without change, it is proper for each generation, each coven, to make changes and additions to the practice of the rituals, initiations, and Sabbats. Note, however, they must always go back to the original source, the unchanged Book of Shadows as their one authority. Each generation thus starts off fresh with the Book of Shadows basic material. These changes and additions are part of the “experimental research” that is proper to a Witch or magician—if it proves to be truly valid and “ageless”, it may be incorporated into the continuing Wiccan tradition upon the Elders’ approval.
This, The Book of Shadows is not a personal record book—it is a true Holy Book! Unlike the holy books of other religions, it is not a collection of folk lore, myths, family history, etc.—it is a Book of Worship and a Book of Living—it shows the way to the Gods!
The true Book of Shadows is now available in published form only because Lady Sheba, as hereditary Queen, was directed to publish it to meet the need of these and the coming times. Only Lady Sheba had the authority to do this. And now IT IS DONE!
End
Are There Any Secrets Left?
Periodically people will ask me, as a Gardnerian, if the Gardnerian BoS is still a secret since so many texts seem to be based on it. The short answer is that yes, most of the Gardnerian BoS is still a well-guarded secret. A Book of Shadows is more than just a collection of rituals; it’s the living history of a tradition, and a BoS passed down over the decades will always be added to. I find things that are similar to what’s in my BoS in the pages of Sheba and the Farrars, but the material is not exactly the same.
Traditions are more than just the sum of their words. Any Witchcraft tradition (and coven, for that matter) older than six months will have its own oral lore and unique way of operating. Some things just never get written down in a book and can only be learned by experiencing them firsthand. Even the best and most complete BoS will always be missing something.
When I was elevated to the third degree in Gardnerian Craft and was preparing to initiate my first students, I was given a long list of things to do by my own initiating high priestess. After looking at her list, I replied stupidly with, “This isn’t in the book.” She laughed and told me that not everything gets written down and that it’s my duty as a Witch to pay attention to what we’re doing in the circle and pass down the things that don’t make their way into our BoS.
The portion of our Gardnerian BoS that my wife and I give to our first-degree initiates weighs in at nearly two hundred fifty pages! Even my most curious and well-read students have never encountered the majority of its contents. And when they stumble onto something online that’s in our Book of Shadows, it’s generally in a different form from the one found in our secret, oathbound book.
My Gardnerian BoS includes the work of six priestesses in my upline,46 along with many of their initiates. There’s no way all that material will ever make its way online. Much of the material in my oathbound BoS is relevant only to my wife’s and my particular coven, along with our immediate initiators. Initiatory Witchcraft includes the work of many amazing high priestesses and priests who are generally unknown outside their own tradition.
Initiatory strands of Witchcraft have also gotten pickier and more selective over the last forty years. No one wants to be the person who initiates the next Lady Sheba, so we pick students whom we believe will honor our secrets and traditions. Besides, with all the different forms of Wiccan Witchcraft floating around today, there’s no need to break an oath or reveal a secret. There are plenty of doorways into the Craft, and a person does not have to be initiated by anyone else to be a Witch.
Before I was initiated into the Gardnerian Craft, my initiating high priest said to me, “Jason, you’ve seen all of the stuff in Gard before, but how we use it and present it is very different.” And he was right: most of it was familiar, but it was also unique and it differed from what my wife and I were doing at the time—which was to be expected in a tradition that’s been passed down continually now for at least seventy-five years.
So are there secrets left in our initiatory traditions and their attendant BoS’s? You better believe it, and more are being created all the time. Craft traditions are living and growing things, and no one person or book is capable of revealing all of their secrets. Long may the mysteries of the Craft remain, and long may people share how they understand those mysteries!
36 Paul Huson, Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks & Covens (1970; reprint, New York: Perigree Books 1980), 224.
37 Michael Howard, Modern Wicca: A History from Gerald Gardner to the Present (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2009), 222–223.
38 Chas S. Clifton, Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), 96–97.
39 Michael Howard, Modern Wicca, 223.
40 Kelly is probably best known for coining the terms Mabon and Ostara for the fall and spring equinoxes, along with Litha for the summer solstice. He donated his early papers to the Graduate Theological Union in order to preserve them for future generations.
41 Philip Heselton, Doreen Valiente: Witch (The Doreen Valiente Foundation, 2016), 191.
42 Doreen Valiente, The Rebirth of Witchcraft, 187.
43 Philip Heselton, Doreen Valiente: Witch, 235.
44 Ibid., 237.
45 Chas S. Clifton, Her Hidden Children (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), 23.
46 Think of an initiatory branch of Witchcraft as operating much like a family tree: my upline includes my initiators and those who initiated them, all in an unbroken chain that stretches back to at least Gerald Gardner.