Book of Shadows

In other Wiccan traditions and amongst a number of solitary practitioners, alternate versions of the Book of Shadows have been written, which are independent of Gardner's original.

Gerald Gardner, the "father of Wicca", first introduced the Book of Shadows to people that he had initiated into the craft through his Bricket Wood coven in the 1950s.

Valiente made the claim that Gardner found the term "Book of Shadows" from a 1949 edition (Volume I, Number 3) of a magazine known as The Occult Observer.

In this edition, she claimed, was an advertisement for Gardner's novel, High Magic's Aid, which was opposite an article titled "The Book of Shadows" written by the palmist Mir Bashir.

The article in question was about an allegedly ancient Sanskrit divination manual which explained how to foretell things based upon the length of a person's shadow.

[5] It appeared to be a first draft of Gardner's Book of Shadows, and featured sections based upon the rituals of Ordo Templi Orientis which had been devised by the occultist Aleister Crowley.

She noticed how much of the material in his Book of Shadows was taken not from ancient sources as Gardner had initially claimed, but from the works of the occultist Aleister Crowley, from Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, from the Key of Solomon and also from the rituals of Freemasonry.

[9]Valiente rewrote much of it, cutting out a lot of sections that had come from Crowley (whose negative reputation she feared), though retaining parts that originated with Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, which she felt was genuine witchcraft practice.

[10] Valiente also noticed that a chant in one ritual in the book was based upon the poem "A Tree Song" from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling, which she had enjoyed as a child.

This version of the ritual, written by both Gardner and Valiente, but containing sections adopted from various sources, such as Aleister Crowley, Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, and even Rudyard Kipling, went on to become the traditional text for Gardnerian Wicca.

[13][14] There sometimes exist two Books of Shadows kept by more traditional Wiccans, one being a coven book of core rituals and practises which remains unchanged and from which new initiates copy, and the second, intended for personal use, which differs from witch to witch and contains magical material collected by the initiate, such as astrology, herbal lore, and information regarding divination.

In non-traditional or "eclectic" forms of Wiccan or Neo-pagan practice, the term Book of Shadows is more often used to describe a personal journal, rather than a traditional text.

The television fantasy series Charmed features a fictional Book of Shadows which contains spells and arcane law, and has a supernatural ability to defend itself from harm.

In the 1996 film The Craft, which some critics saw as a major influence on the series Charmed,[17][18] the Book of Shadows was referred to as an object in which a witch keeps her "power thoughts".

In the trailer, the "Book of Shadows" was found by a half-naked woman with a twana symbol behind her back, at the woods of Black Hills, until she was attacked by an unknown man.