Guide

Getting started

Open Book of Shadows from the main menu. It opens into columns: Book (pages, books, pictures), Library (herbs and plants, stones and crystals, colours, oils, incense, deities and aspects, animals, tarot, trusted sources, and all correspondences), Year (calendar, celebrations, gatherings), Profile (your profile, your lists, membership tiers), People, Quick entry and, for moderators, Moderation. The Today screen shows tonight's moon, a small wheel of your year, what is coming up on your calendar, your recent pages, and a short getting-started list that ticks itself off as you go. Hide this takes the list away when you no longer need it.

Start with your Profile. Choose your craft name: it is the name other members see everywhere. Your account name and email are never shown to other members. Then set your time zone, your hemisphere and, if you like, your place, so the moon, sunrise, sunset and planetary hours are right for where you are. You can also choose a look for the site: a theme, light or dark, or follow your computer; larger text; and whether cards carry soft shadows.

Choose how you are shown to others: your initials, a symbol from the site's set, or your own picture. Your picture is shown only to the people you choose; everyone else sees your initials.

Discreet mode is on until you turn it off: the browser tab says only "Page" or "Calendar", never what you are reading, and emails say only that something is waiting. Numbers of things waiting are hidden unless you turn on Show how many things are waiting; your inbox still shows a dot.

Write your biography on your Profile, in the editor, with headings, links and pictures, and choose who reads it. Your personal page, linked from your Profile, shows your craft name, biography, path, lists, reviews, and the pages and books you share, each only to those you shared it with. See it as on your personal page shows it exactly as a member with no ties, or one of your own people, would see it.

Your profile keeps a history of the names you have used, seen only by you. Remove for good takes an old name out of it entirely. Nobody can find you by an old name.

Then open Calendar and start your wheel of the year from one of the starting wheels. It is yours to change.

Pages

Everything you keep is a page. A page is one of five kinds:

Reference: a spell, ritual, formula, herbal, spread, technique, lesson, lore or note that you refine over time.
Record: something that happened on a day, such as a working, a reading, a dream, a meditation or a journal entry. A record captures its moment when you make it: the date and time, the moon's phase, light and sign, void of course, the planetary day and hour, and the nearest celebration on your wheel.
Subject: something you keep or are in relationship with, such as a deity, an ancestor, a spirit, a tool, a deck, a place or a charm. A person you read for is a subject that stays private.
Path: a course you work through, such as a year and a day or a degree, with steps you tick off and a sign-off at the end.
Pledge: a promise that stays open, such as a dedication, an oath or an intention, with its history and a day to review it.

For something quick, use Quick entry: a spell, journal entry, dream, reading, note or working opens in a small window wherever you are. Leave the title empty and it is named for its kind and the day, such as Dream 2026-10-13. If you close the window after writing, it asks whether to keep it as a draft. A quick entry is private until you share it, and Add more detail opens it in full.

Choose New page, then the kind and the type. Each type has its own fields, and every field is optional. You can start from a template. Fields can link to entries in the library, to your subjects and to other pages, and the pages you link to show what links to them.

A page can be marked oathbound, as a whole or one part of it, so only those at the oath level ever see it. A page can be sealed until a date, which closes it even to those it is shared with until then.

A page can be tied to a celebration or to a moon phase, with a reminder some days before if you want one. It then shows on your calendar on that day.

Each page can carry pictures, and pictures can go anywhere in your text. Press Picture under any text box: choose one of your own, upload new ones (several at once), or pick one of the site's pictures, then say what it shows, add a caption if you like, and choose its size and where it sits. You can also paste or drag a picture straight into your text; it is saved with your pictures when you save.

Every picture is kept at no more than 1200 pixels on its longest side, turned upright, with the place it was taken and anything else hidden in the file removed. Your membership sets the largest file you may upload. Pictures from other websites are not kept: upload the picture instead.

Your pictures are kept privately. A picture is shown only to those who may see something showing it, and a picture inside an oathbound part only to those at the oath level. The same picture can go on as many pages as you like and is stored once. Pictures, under Book, lists them all with where each is shown; one nothing shows can be removed. Where a site picture's licence asks for credit, the credit is given at the foot of the page for you.

The trash

Moving a page to the trash happens at once, with Undo in the message that follows. Trash, on Pages, lists what you have put there, and Bring back returns it. Delete for good is only there, asks first, and says what goes with the page.

Books

Pages stand on their own; a book gathers them in the order you choose. Start a book from an outline or with nothing, add sections, and file pages into them from each page. A book can have more than one keeper. A journal book arranges your records by date by itself.

Print the book gives you the whole book to print or save as a PDF: its front pages, then every section's pages in full.

Everything starts private. Share a page, a book, a book's section, a gathering or a pledge with:

named people,
your Web, at a trust level and above,
a group, at a rank and above, or a group and the groups linked to it,
members of a membership tier,
every signed-in member,
or someone without an account, through a view-only link.

Every page says in one line who can see it. On the sharing screen, See it as shows the page exactly as a member with no ties to you, or one of your own people, would see it. Apart from the front page, the site is for members only: someone without an account sees only what a view-only link opens for them.

Each share lets people view, comment, contribute or edit, and can end on a date. Oathbound pages cannot be shared, copied or printed beyond the oath level. You can take a share away at any time.

The library

The library holds the correspondences: herbs, stones, colours, oils, incense, metals, planets, days, signs, elements, directions, moon phases, runes, ogham, tarot, deities, numbers, symbols and animals. Where traditions differ, an entry shows each view as an option. Choose your own, or write your own words, and your choice is yours alone. Plants that can harm people or pets carry a caution. Add a private note to any entry.

Trusted sources

Trusted sources, under Library, is the catalogue of books, tarot and oracle decks, websites and blogs, podcasts and video channels, courses and teachers, music and anything else members learn from. Browse it by kind, search by title or by author, artist or teacher, or choose Most trusted to see the sources most trusted by the people whose marks you can see.

Open a source to mark it Like, Love or Trust, and to write a review. Your mark and review are yours alone until you choose who sees them with Who sees it: your coven, your Web or all members. Counts and Most trusted include only the marks shared with the reader.

Add a source with Add a source. Entries like the one you type are shown first, so its reviews stay together; tick None of these is it to add yours anyway. A new entry is yours to use at once, and every member sees it once someone who approves sources has approved it. Those who approve sources also merge duplicates and keep a trash, under Moderation.

Keep lists of sources: books for beginners, the decks you read with, music for the sabbats. Make one from My lists, or from a source with Make a new list with this; add a note to each source, put them in your order, and share the list as you would a page. A group's managing ranks keep the group's own lists, shown on the group's page.

Calendar and wheel

Your calendar shows your wheel's days, your groups' days, the moon's phases and signs, eclipses, gatherings you can see, and your records and plans. Open a day for the sunrise, sunset and planetary hours, and to start a record there.

On your wheel, choose each celebration, when you keep it (a fixed date, the solstice or equinox, the astronomical moment, or by the moon), what you call it, whether it follows your hemisphere's seasons, and how many days ahead to be reminded. Add your own days.

Celebrations, under Year, lists every festival the site knows, by tradition. Each has its own page: what it is, its other names, how its date falls, and when it next falls for you, worked out for your hemisphere and time zone. Add to my wheel puts it on your wheel. Every festival named on your calendar, a day, your wheel and Today opens its page in a window over the screen you are on; close it, or press Escape, to carry on where you were. The sabbats and esbats have their full story: where they come from, what people do, foods, correspondences you can open, simple ways to mark them when you are starting out, and the books it comes from.

Find a time looks between two dates for the days, hours and moon phases that suit a purpose. It looks over up to 30 days at a time, or as many as the site allows; the screen says how many.

People and groups

Your Web is the people you are connected to. Ask someone in, and each of you chooses how far you trust the other. Letting an ask go, changing a level and blocking are quiet: nobody is told.

Found a group (a coven, circle, grove, study group and more) or join one. Groups have ranks; a group's managing ranks invite, approve and promote. Groups can link to each other. A group keeps its own book, wheel and discussions.

Talking

Groups have discussions, open to the group or to a rank and above. A page's owner can open it to comments. Conversations are private messages between people in each other's Web or in a group together. Your Inbox gathers notices and conversations; choose in your preferences what reaches you there, by email or in a daily summary.

Gatherings

Open rituals, moots, esbats, sabbats and study nights, hosted by you or by a group. Each shows in every reader's own time zone, can link to its ritual page and record, gives roles for the night, and takes answers about who is coming.

Reporting

If something someone shares or says is wrong for this site, a list or a review among them, report it with a reason. Your name is never shown to them. A group's own moderators see its reports first, then the site's moderators. Nothing is deleted by a moderator: hidden content can be restored, and each action can be appealed once. You can see your own standing on your Profile.

Membership

Your profile shows your membership tier and how much of each limit you have used. A tier only limits what you can make; it never decides who sees anything, and moving to a smaller tier hides and deletes nothing.

Your data

On your Profile, Download everything I keep gives you one file of everything that is yours here. Print on any page gives it to you on paper. If your account is ever deleted, what you kept to yourself goes with it; what you shared or wrote with others stays, shown as from a former member. Your lists, marks and reviews go either way; a source you added stays once approved, for those who use it.

If you would rather your messages did not stay, Delete what you wrote in conversations on your Profile removes every message you have written in conversations, for everyone and for good, after warning you and asking you to confirm. It never touches your pages, your books or what you wrote in group discussions.