Grimore - Tumblr Posts
Grimore de Tenebris Manuus
BETTER SHIT TO PUT IN YOUR GRIMOIRES THAN THE BASIC SHIT EVERYONE SAYS:
Maps! Maps! MAPS! If you're a death witch, get one for the cemeteries you visit and mark gravestones/areas you've practiced in! Garden witches! Map out your gardens! Green witches! Map where you find specific herbs in your area! Lunar witches! Mark the best spots to go look at the sky! Make a key! Take notes!
Recipes for COMPONENTS! Write down how to make the mixtures you use in spells often- A special salt mixed with herbs and put under the moon, a mixture of oils for protection, the herb mixes sachets you keep making to add to sachets, whatever!
For green witches- press samples of stuff and glue them in! Go to an arboretum and ask for permission to take leaves to press, they'll usually let you take some- add them in with your notes about trees
Cool ways to make spells! I make spells in envelopes and on empty spools, what are some ways you do?
The local plants in your area and what they do. You're not going to be likely to find chrysanthemums to forage in Missouri, but you will find creeping charlie and prairie plants. What can you do with a thistle?
When you celebrate a sabbat, write down what you did and include samples! Ribbons from your Beltane altar, a pressed sample of your lemmas harvest, a scrap of your Yule decorations. Maybe do a spell and tape the remnants into your grimoire in a plastic baggie
Learn how to make an envelope out of paper just by folding it, how to string seeds, how to dry plants, how to macrame rocks and hang them from your window. Find those little witchy skills and write them down.
How to incorporate your hobby into your magic. Sigiling origami paper, weaving knot magick into your crochet, making blessed bookmarks, etc
Substitutes! Rosemary, rose and clear quartz are good for most things, but there are more substitutes to be used that are more powerful. Roanoke bells are good substitutes for bluebells, apparently.
Correspondences of odd things. Turns out different kinds of cats have different correspondences, huh.
Superstitions and such from where you're from.
For kitchen witches: easy to alter recipes. An egg noodle recipe that takes herbs really well, a simple bread recipe that can be dressed up for spells or rituals, how to make a good pie crust that you can sprinkle nutmeg in or whatever you desire.
Or: What foods go good with what herbs. You'll make a better apple pie (and get the benefits of apples, nutmeg, and cinnamon together!) If you know how your herbs taste together with your cooking. (Most kitchen witches know this stuff, but for a green witch who likes to make teas or a sea witch that likes to make soup, etc, this is important)
Some topics + prompts for your grimoire or book of shadows
books you want to read
local folklore / mythology / legends
the wheel of the year
plants you have in your house or garden (their care, properties, uses, draw them etc)
theban alphabet
days of the week and their correspondences
write about a deity you worship / are drawn to
draw art for / of a deity you worship or are drawn to
colour magic
the elements
write about the crystals you own (draw them, write their properties, correspondences, uses, how it makes you feel etc)
how to make your own crystals
your birth chart
your sun, moon and rising sign
natural medicine (as a chronically ill witch I love natural medicine NOT AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR PRESCRIPTIONS! for example I take all my prescription meds and then if I'm having period pain I might drink some raspberry leaf tea)
positive affirmations / mantras that you connect with
how to manifest
history of witches
deities in a certain pantheon you're interested in or drawn to
write about a spell you've done (how you did it, why you did it, how you felt, the results of it, what you would change if you did the spell again etc)
chakras
write about a dream you've had
tarot reading tricks and tips
moon phases
sabbats
zodiac signs
family tree
poetry / songs / quotes you connect to (i like to find ones that make me feel powerful or witchy, or remind me of certain aspects of my practice. a song i like for this is rhiannon by fleetwood mac and i'm going to post more things like this regularly on my page)
feathers and their meanings
simple everyday magic
recipes
some ideas for the next sabbat you plan to celebrate
tarot spreads you like
write about a tarot reading you've done (any prep you did, the deck you used, the cards you pulled, your personal interpretation of the cards based on the art and how you feel, the meaning of the cards, how the cards relate to the questions you asked, final reflection on how you feel the reading went)
interesting mythology
tree of life
glamour magic
money bowls
crystal shapes and their meanings
grounding techniques
cleansing
protection
banishing
cord cutting spells
essential oils
types of divination
planets and their correspondences
angel numbers
witchy wishlist
go to supplies and ingredients (herbs and things that you use regularly)
favourite crystals
working with your inner child
if you've had a really good or particularly insightful meditation session it can be nice to either draw or write what happened and how you felt during it
witchy arts and crafts and diys you want to do
altar ideas
read a witchy book / watch a witchy video and take notes
write about your ancestors
witchy things to incorporate into your daily routine
what is a tower moment
witchy reset / self care days
the history of the area you live in
veiling
how to make your own incense sticks
shadow work
shadow work prompts
ok, that's all the ideas I have for now and I hope that helps someone! I'll be posting some pages from my grimoire and some more prompt / topic ideas in the near future which I'm really excited for.
P.S. please remember that everyone's practice is their own and you should do what feels right to you while respecting that other people have their own beliefs (as long as they're not hateful).
i personally use the default notes app on my phone as my grimoire. for me, it's easier to format, organize, and edit info. i don't have to worry about making it super pretty and neat. and if i want to decorate it, i can just use emojis that fit the topic!
Friendly reminder that you can accommodate things to make witchcraft easier. The only realm where it would be difficult to do so is high end ritualism, but for my pals with ADHD I don't recommend that route because the intense planning makes my executive dysfunction kick into overdrive. There's a reason Hundreds of cultures around the world have different practices requiring different effort across hundreds of years - What may work for one society may not or will not work for another, and that same practice applies to witchcraft on an individual level. With that, I want to share the biggest thing that's helped my brain:
I keep my grimoire digitally. I cannot tell you how many journals dedicated to the Occult I've kept over 10+ years and I have never completely finished one. I get too in my own head about how it should look, how I should format the pages, if I want to be more artistic or more plain in my pages, and I get so overwhelmed with choices and the fear that I'm somehow keeping it "wrong" that the journal ends up sitting on my shelf. Digitally, I use Evernote and keep my grimoire as a separate Notebook. My spells and tinctures/balms are kept as recipe cards, my notes are kept however I feel like doing them in that moment and I have the relief of knowing that if I want to change it, I don't have to start an entire new page or journal. I transcribed all of my journal pages over to the app and the sheer relief I've had in being able to have a more forgiving format of keeping my grimoire has made me feel so much more comfortable in my practice.
"Keeping a journal is more personal" so essays written in Word about deep rooted personal experiences aren't personal because they were written digitally? Of course not, that would be absurd. I comprehend that keeping a physical journal is supposed to hold more power and symbology for witchcraft, but you drain yourself of your power by repeatedly plunging yourself into stress over your Grimoire. Not to mention, if you're in the broom closet it's infinitely safer to go digital than to have a journal - Something that would have saved me a lot of grief as a budding teen witch had I not been convinced that I was less than others if I kept it on my phone or laptop.
With that being said, I don't think digital is better than physical journals or vice versa - I know what works for me may not for someone else and I don't judge that. I just know what's best for me and my brain and I've finally decided to listen to that instead of insisting to myself that it needs to be like everyone else despite no other part of my practice being held to the same standard in my mind. Do what's best for you, not what the internet is saying is the Only Way™ to do things.