Book of Shadows
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which he utilised first in his Bricket Wood coven and then in other covens which he founded in following decades. The concept of the Book of Shadows was then adopted by other Wiccan traditions, such as Alexandrianism and Mohsianism, and with the rise of books teaching people how to begin following Wicca in the 1970s onward, the idea of the Book of Shadows was then further propagated amongst solitary practitioners unconnected to earlier traditions.
In popular culture
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, the Book of Shadows was referred to as an object in which a witch keeps her "power thoughts".
The 2000 sequel to The Blair Witch Project was titled Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, despite there being no mention of a Book of Shadows during the film, the title was seen as an attempt to capitalise on the Charmed series' established market.
An episode of the television series First Wave featured a wiccan with a Book of Shadows that contained the secret to identifying the alien infiltrators which were the central antagonistic force of the show.
