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Electronic Book of Shadows

This is an article I wrote in 2011 for the Witches Companion 2013. A little use of our current technology can ensure you do not lose your precious notes, recipes, and research. There are so many ways to save our hard-earned lessons. I have included some tips and tricks to help you find files quickly and track their origins and sources better. I also have updated information and some additional information about current tech.

We all have them. Notebooks crammed with material we have copied off the web or out of books that we reference again and again in our practice. We have shelves of books, notebooks, and sheets of paper in folders that we really do want to keep, or maybe not. I used that spell, well, maybe two, or was it three years ago, and it worked well. Still, I forgot what I used it for, and I thought I remembered it worked well, but maybe some of those notes in the margins scribbled quickly say otherwise.

Some of us may have a mess of notes. I know I did. Well, I still do, to be honest. It is going to take a long time to get my BOS sorted out. Recipes, spells, chants, rituals, poems, miscellaneous writings, material copied from the web, pictures – all for my own private use. And I do use them. I am, after all, a practicing witch.

So, how can we organize this better? Well, many of us have a great tool at our disposal, yet we never think of using it - our computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Well, how about an e-BOS (electronic Book of Shadows.) Oh, you tried that years ago, and now you have CDs with info on them that you can't read. But the technology today is much better. Storage is more accessible and just as easy to back up and keep safe.

So, let's start with the mess. I am sure, as I have material on both my computer and on paper, that you face the same issue. How do you sort this all out and make sense of it? Let's start with software and work our way up the line.

Word processing programs are available for many folks at no cost or low cost. Open-source software is free for personal use. Open Office and Libre Office provide several mediums to work with, such as word processors, presentation programs, and graphics programs. Then there is Google Docs. There is more, but for what we are looking to do, these are all the basics you will need.

If you are interested in Microsoft Office, which is available at considerable discounts to students through the Microsoft Student and Microsoft Office Professional Academic. The software is available through their website. It offers Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneDrive Cloud Storage. This is available to ALL students, including non-traditional students.

A side note and addition to the original article: There are Microsoft Office Apps that are available for free for many electronic devices. What this means is that you can use the apps to do basic copy/paste routines to save to laptops, phones, tables, and more. Check Google Store and Microsoft Store for more information and the apps.

Running Windows 10 on your home PC also allows you to download these apps. And if you are like me and absolutely must have the Office package, you can purchase a yearly family subscription to Office 365 Homefor $99.99. It is $69.99 for a single user. The home package gives you Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Editor, cloud storage, and Defender. The software is the latest version, and you get all the software fixes and updates over the year. When you renew next year, you get the newest version. Hopefully, they keep the same price points.

All kinds of word processing and storage software are available to use on mobile devices as well. But all you really need is a word processing program of some sort.

A significant advantage would be to have a program that creates .pdf files. This kind of program allows you to create .pdf files from any website, complete with the website address (URL.) This would allow you to track and, when needed, quote your resources. Some of these features are built into OneNote, where anything you copy is also stamped with a date and URL of the site it came from. A .pdf program allows you to print to a .pdf file, which opens with Adobe Reader. There are PDF Creators online for free, and Adobe Reader is also a free program. Or you can purchase Adobe Acrobat, which has gone subscription as well. This will eliminate lots of paper and ink. Check around. There are some free Adobe programs today because the market is that competitive.

An update: Microsoft now has a print-to-.pdf in the print program, so you can bypass the Adobe programs.

Why would you care where your saved information came from? Well, for purposes of identifying the material you are saving. Look at the paperwork you have already collected. Do you know where it all came from? Some printouts may have a URL on them, but they may be abbreviated or hard to trace. And if you decide to share, are you sure you wrote that spell, or was it copied from somewhere?

This brings us to a brief discussion on copyrights. You are free to use anything for your own personal use. That means for you and you alone. Not to be copied to the web, a website, Facebook, or anywhere else. You can copy anything to your computer, use it, print it out, and keep it in your own personal folders. But you can't publish it or share it in a public forum, even if you share it for free. Copyright does not permit any sharing of someone else's work without permission. You can share your own material if you want. So, keep tabs on what is yours and what belongs to someone else, and you will never end up embarrassed. Enough said.

So, let's start sorting through your paperwork.

First, how old is it? Old material can sometimes be good, or sometimes be so much Unicorn Farts. It depends on how far you have advanced and what you have learned thus far. And who wrote it. Make a choice. Keep it, or throw it away because it doesn't apply anymore.

Do you know where it came from? If not, you can either look it up on the web or you can throw it away. I am sure you will find something better once you start researching again to fill up your new e-BOS.

Does it mean anything to you? It's all well and good that you have it, but really, have you ever used it? Do you still relate to it? Does it mean something special or unique to you and you alone? If so, then it is worth cherishing. If not, throw it away.

And as you go through your paperwork, you are going to find duplicates. Throw away the duplicates. You don't need six copies of Charge of the Goddess. Or three copies of the pagan light bulb jokes. You will be surprised how often we print something out simply because, over the years, we knew we had seen that already but couldn't find the copy we had. Or you don't realize that it's the same thing again, as it seems new to you, so you print it out or save it again. If you are unsure if you saw that piece of paper earlier, don't worry about it; we are going to sort through this paperwork and file system one more time to get it into working order.

Let's look at your filing system on your computer. Umm, you do have a filing system for all your files, correct? I thought so. Let's start fresh and work on a system to file, backup, and find your files.

You can save your files to your hard drive. That is, if it is big enough, if it is new enough, and if you trust your computer. I have external hard drives. These have become so cheap that I have found uses for many different drives. I save it to my hard drive, and I then back it up onto external drives, which then gives me a duplicate system for all my files. Invest in an external hard drive. They are small, they are cheap, and they are easy to hook up - plug-and-play is terrific. This will be the critical backup you need to keep your e-BOS and all your other essential files safe and available. Spend money where it counts. Sometimes, it's a good idea to spend a few bucks to save time, energy, and precious memories.

Another updated entry - cloud storage. You can get all sorts of storage in the cloud for free. Microsoft, Google, Amazon - they are all reliable, and they offer free storage. What does this mean? Well, if you back it up to the cloud, you will not lose it. Also, it can be shared between your devices. So, what you save on your PC can be accessed from the cloud on your phone. If you sort your files right, that particular Bend Over spell is right at your fingertips.

Next, how do you set up your filing system? I can make suggestions, but in the end, you will find a system that works for you. I can give you some helpful hints that will assist you in getting started.

How would we want to file away our information? By topic! So, let's create some topics. How about starting with My eBOS as the top file folder name? Start clean with an empty file. Then, add it to that from elsewhere on your computer and add your paperwork. Inside the My eBOS file, start your topics: spells, recipes, chants, songs, prayers, rituals, photos, and pictures. Make them very basic; you can get more specific within these topics.

OK, what about your actual files? Do you name them to match the content, or are they a mishmash of files with names that don't seem to make much sense? We can fix this by creating a system of file naming. All my files have a date written in year, month, and day. Why? I hate outdated information. I also like to know when I wrote something or when I first cataloged that piece of information. Then, I catalog what the item is. Spell, recipe, chant, song. And a further topic, Hekate or protection, or chicken soup. Yes, I include recipes in my BOS because there is nothing more magical than a meal made to be memorable, happy, healing, or comforting; you get the idea.

So, my file names can look like spell.protection.redbrickdust.20050609.doc. Please be aware that naming conventions on different computers will vary, and you will need to adjust your names to fit what your computer will accept. For articles by another author: spell.healing.morrison.2010.docx. You can save rituals in a similar way: yule-for-2-20071222.pdf, referencing a Yule ritual for two I wrote for the web in 2007. How about a picture? I like to add the name of the artist or those pictured and the year the photo was taken; oracle.collier.jpg or mary-pagan-event.2010.jpg. Remember, this is a suggestion only. You may find a way that works even better for you.

So, what about all that paper? Well, we do the same thing; start sorting out the paper into piles like your files. Once you have gone through everything, you have three options. First, find the same article on the web. You may get lucky with Google searches. When you see it, print the webpage to a .pdf file and save it with the appropriate name in the proper My eBOS location. Recycle the paper. Or, you can scan the paperwork into your computer using a scanner. They are very cheap these days, and it's standard with many printers. Again, scan and save it as a .pdf, name it appropriately, and file it away.

The last resort is to re-copy the material by hand. Yes, type it into a word processing program. This will take time, but it can be done. Good typing practice, and it will allow you to learn how to use the many features of the program you have.

Now for some good ideas on what to do with your new e-BOS! You can save pictures from the web that you feel are pretty or appropriate or just touch you in the right way. When you find something you want to save on the web, you can use these pictures to embellish your e-documents by adding them to the files. Adding graphics to documents has become very easy, and you can make your BOS pretty as well as functional. For frequently used files, print out and place in a protective plastic sleeve and place in a binder! If it gets dirty or worn, replace it with the file on your computer.

A friend of mine purchased a handmade BOS. Beautiful embossed cover, lovely paper inside, well bound. It cost a fortune and she was very delighted with it. But the book did not allow her to insert pages. It was pre-bound, and she didn't want to actually write in it as she felt she would probably mess it up. I suggested she get some specialty papers either from the office supply store or from the hobby shop and then design her work in a processing program, pick a script that was both legible and elegant, type her BOS entry, and add pictures and graphics. Then, print the pages out. She could glue them to the book pages or insert them between the pages so she can take them out and use them. She thought that an excellent idea! You can do the same with scrapbooks or other books purchased from stores with blank pages. Your e-BOS does not have to be confined to your computer.

There are so many ideas you can come up with for arranging and using your saved material. And with today's technology, you can save just about anything for your own personal use. Just be sure to keep track of where you got it from. Always give the original author or artist credit. From this you can create hard copy or electronic keepsakes that can be passed on from generation to generation.

As an add-on to this article: If you have never used OneNote, you're missing out. Imagine a notebook that contains little notebooks that you can fill with anything you want, and you never run out of space. This is OneNote. I can't begin to tell you how I have come to rely on OneNote. Recipes separated by type, my short stories, and my books are just the start. Ancestry research, graphics I want to save, and crocheting instructions are easy to copy into a pdf and then drop the pdf into OneNote. You can tell OneNote to save the file as an attachment, or, and this is the significant part, you can save the file on a OneNote page and/or have it insert a diagram. So now you have the file, and you also have a printout of the file right there on the page. You don't have to keep opening and closing files to find what you want.

You can download the app for free, or it comes in the Microsoft 365 package. There are other similar programs, but none match the functionality of OneNote.

Another note: External hard drives are cheap, depending on what you buy. Standard Seagate or Western Digital disk drives are very affordable, about sixty dollars for a terabyte, or for two terabytes, around ninety dollars. It is cheaper as a Black Friday special or a Prime Day deal.

Solid State is a bit more expensive. But I did get a terabyte solid state portable for about ninty dollars on a special. Shop smart. Keep more of the money you earn.

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Boudica Foster is the pen name for Margaret Foster

All website material that is written, drawn, or photographed is the work and property of Margaret Foster unless otherwise noted.