A Practical Guide to Modern Magic

There is a very particular kind of panic that comes from opening a beautiful witchy notebook and immediately realising you have no idea what you are supposed to write in it.

Which is fair.

You do not need an established craft, a cupboard full of herbs or a moon-phase app judging your life choices. Witchcraft can look wildly different from one person to the next, which is exactly why the Spell Journal was never designed to tell you there is one correct way to do any of this.

Think of it as somewhere to begin. Enough guidance to stop you staring at a blank page, with plenty of room for your own way of doing things.

1. Work out what you actually mean

Before you worry about what the working looks like, decide what you want from it.

The Spell Journal starts with an intention: one clear sentence about what you are calling in, ready to release or hoping to shift. It does not need to sound profound. Simple is usually better.

Maybe you want stronger boundaries. Maybe there is something you have carried long enough and would quite like to put down now. Maybe you are opening yourself to something new.

The five Coven symbols can help if you are not sure where to begin: Release, Open, Become, Protect and Seal.

You do not need to work through them in order. Pick the one that feels closest to what is already happening.

And if you keep staring at the same symbol while insisting you have no idea which one you need, we are just going to look at you knowingly.

2. Decide what belongs in the working

Once you know the intention, you can decide what actually needs to be there.

The Spell Journal calls this Setting the Ritual, which sounds very grand until you realise it mostly involves writing down the useful details and making sure you have everything before you start.

You might note the timing or moon phase if that matters to you, then add any correspondences you want to work with, such as colour, crystals or herbs.

Then comes Gather.

What do you actually need?

A candle. A crystal you already own. Your cards. Maybe far less than the version of witchcraft living on Pinterest suggested.

Choose things because they belong in the working, not because the table looked a bit empty.

If you are new to herbs or correspondences, do some proper reading first. Meanings vary between traditions, and anything you plan to burn or use on your body deserves the normal amount of common sense.

Coven is pro-magic. Coven is also very much pro-not setting the house on fire.

3. Turn the intention into a sigil

A sigil is a symbol made to represent an intention.

There are different ways to create one, and the Spell Journal gives you one approachable place to start rather than pretending we have uncovered the Official Correct Method.

Take the intention you wrote earlier, strip out the repeated letters and start playing with what remains. Overlap them. Rotate them. Curve something. Make one that looks terrible and try again.

Eventually, something will click.

The journal gives you space to rough out ideas before settling on the final symbol. From there, you can decide how you want to work with it, whether that means keeping it close or using an activation method that makes sense within your own craft.

The important part is that you know what it means.

Nobody else needs to understand it on sight. Honestly, that is part of the appeal.

4. Write down what actually happened

Once you have done the working, record the real version.

Not the beautifully edited version you think you should have done.

The Spell Journal gives you space for the method and any words you used, then a section called Shift for what happens afterwards.

Sometimes something will feel immediate. Sometimes you will come back a week later and notice a change you missed at the time. Sometimes your main discovery will be that you absolutely would not use that candle again.

Still useful.

Over time, those notes let you see what you keep returning to, what seems to matter and which patterns quietly show up again.

And you do not have to fill every section every time. One working might take the whole page. Another might be an intention, a sigil and a few lines afterwards.

The structure is there when it helps. It is not homework.

That is probably the easiest way to begin with modern magic too.

Start with something that means something to you, give it your attention and write down what happens.

The rest can find its way onto the page as you go.