What to Include
in Your Grimoire

One of the most common questions new practitioners ask is what actually goes in a grimoire. But before we get into that, let's clear something up because these two terms get used interchangeably all the time and they're actually different things.

A grimoire is a reference book. It's where you keep your knowledge: what crystals do, what herbs mean, which deities govern which domains, how timing works, what symbols represent. You consult it when you're building a working. Think of it like a witchcraft encyclopedia you've built for yourself.

A Book of Shadows is more of a personal log. It's where you record what you actually did: spells you cast, rituals you performed, synchronicities you noticed, results you got, dreams that stood out. It's your practice journal. Some people call it a spiritual diary.

That's my take on it anyway, and it's a distinction worth making because the two serve completely different purposes. You reference a grimoire. You write in a Book of Shadows.

This post is about grimoires specifically, and what a thorough one actually looks like in practice.

So What Actually Goes in a Grimoire?

The short answer is: whatever your practice needs. The longer answer is that a really useful grimoire isn't just a collection of notes. It's a reference system, and the more interconnected it is, the more powerful it becomes as a tool.

The Magick Manuscript is built across 15 grimoires, each covering a different category of knowledge. Every section links to every other section, so when you look up a crystal, you can follow that thread all the way to the plants, deities, timing, symbols, and rituals that share the same energy. Here's what's in it and why each piece matters.

Correspondences

This is the heart of the whole system. A correspondence grimoire is essentially an index of intentions: protection, love, abundance, healing, banishing, and hundreds more. Each entry shows you everything across every other grimoire that carries that same energy.

If you're building any working, you start here. What do you want to accomplish? Look it up, follow the links, and build from what you find.

Plants

Herbs, trees, flowers, resins, and roots. Each entry covers magickal properties, planetary and elemental associations, connected deities, ritual uses, safety notes, and cross-links to other sections. The safety notes matter more than people realize: plenty of plants are toxic, phototoxic, or contraindicated during pregnancy, and that information belongs in your grimoire.

Crystals and Minerals

Stones, gems, and metals. Every entry includes the crystal's energetic properties, gender, planetary and elemental associations, connected deities, and how it links to intentions in the correspondence section. Knowing not just what a crystal does but why, and what it connects to, is what makes the difference between using a stone and working with it.

Tarot and Divination Cards

All 78 tarot cards with upright and reversed meanings, planetary and elemental associations, numerical significance, and cross-links to entities, symbols, and correspondences. The Magick Manuscript also includes Lenormand cards and playing card divination, plus a spreads database with layouts for specific questions and intentions.

Runes

The Elder Futhark runes with meanings, historical context, magickal applications, and correspondence links. Runes aren't just for divination: they're used in spellwork, bindrunes, inscription, and ritual, so having a thorough rune reference connected to the rest of your system is genuinely useful.

Astrology

Planets, signs, houses, and lunar phases with their magickal correspondences. This section is what makes timing make sense. When you know that Venus rules love, beauty, and relationships, governs Taurus and Libra, and that Friday is Venus's day, you can start building workings that align multiple layers of the same energy at once.

Timing

Days of the week, moon phases, months, holidays, sabbats, and times of day. Timing is one of the most underused tools in a beginner's practice. Working with a waxing moon for attraction, a waning moon for release, or a Saturn Saturday for banishing doesn't require complicated calculations. It just requires knowing the system, which is what this section is for.

Rituals

Actual workings: spells, rituals, rites, and ceremonies organized by intention. This is the practical application section where everything from the other grimoires comes together into something you can actually do. Every ritual entry links back to the crystals, plants, timing, and entities that support it.

Recipes

Oils, incense blends, sachets, bath salts, teas, spell jars, and other preparations. This section covers the how of making things, while the plants and materials grimoires cover the why. Together they give you both the knowledge and the application.

Entities

Gods, goddesses, angels, demons, ancestral spirits, and other beings from a wide range of traditions. Each entry covers their domain, associations, symbols, offerings, and how they connect to correspondences and rituals. This section is one of the most referenced in the whole system because deity work touches almost everything else.

Dreams

Dream symbols, themes, and archetypes with their magickal and psychological meanings, cross-linked to correspondences, entities, animals, and timing. Dreams are one of the most consistent ways the unconscious and the spiritual communicate, and having a reference for interpreting them is more useful than most beginners expect.

Animals

Animal symbolism and spirit correspondences across a wide range of traditions. Each entry covers the animal's associations, what intentions it supports, connected deities, and how it links to the rest of the system. Animal symbolism shows up in dreams, omens, deity work, and spell ingredients, so this section gets used more than you'd think.

Symbols

Sigils, seals, sacred geometry, alchemical symbols, religious iconography, and more. Symbols carry compressed meaning: a single mark can hold an entire intention. This section covers what each symbol means, where it comes from, and how to use it in practical work.

Oils

Essential oils and their magickal properties, including planetary associations, intentions, safety notes, and cross-links to the plants they're derived from. Oils are one of the most versatile tools in spellwork: they're used for dressing candles, anointing, making blends, and adding intention to almost any working.

Materials

Ritual tools, candles, containers, cloths, writing materials, and other physical objects used in workings. This section answers the question of what each material means and what it's for, so you can make intentional choices rather than just grabbing whatever is nearby.

So What Should Go in Yours?

Start with what you actually practice. If you work with crystals, build a thorough crystal section. If tarot is your primary tool, make that your anchor. Add sections as your practice expands.

The most important thing isn't having every possible section. It's building something interconnected enough that you can follow a thread from one topic to another and find the relationships between them. That's what turns a collection of notes into a real reference.