Beginner Foundations · Touch of Magick Book of Shadows
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A commonplace book is a personal collection of passages, ideas, and observations arranged so they can be found again. Long before digital bookmarks, readers built these notebooks by hand. This guide separates the historical practice from diaries, grimoires, and modern Books of Shadows, then offers a source-aware page you can begin with a notebook and pencil.
At a glance
| English / Spanish | Commonplace Book / Libro de lugares comunes |
|---|---|
| Historical purpose | To collect selected excerpts and notes under headings for later study or use |
| Not automatically | A diary, scrapbook, grimoire, spell book, or record of supernatural truth |
| This guide’s practice | An original source-aware page separating quotation, observation, interpretation, and chosen action |
What is a commonplace book?
“Commonplace” once referred to a topic or heading—a place where related material could be gathered. The Harvard Library’s Take Note exhibition explains that readers transferred notes into books written in ink and organized under carefully chosen headings. A compiler might combine excerpts from written or spoken sources with personal observations. The result was individual in arrangement but made from many voices.
Commonplace books were not one uniform genre. Students, ministers, lawyers, writers, and householders adapted them to different needs. Harvard’s history of classroom notes describes college books in which interesting excerpts were copied under headings for later retrieval; some continued to be used for many years. The Library of Congress preserves Thomas Jefferson’s legal commonplace book from 1762–1767, filled with notes and extracts on cases and precedents. These examples show a study technology, not a single spiritual tradition.
Locke’s method—and its limits
John Locke’s A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books appeared in English in 1706. The Wellcome Collection describes its compact indexing system, designed to help a reader locate entries without reserving large blocks of blank paper. Historian Michael Stolberg places Locke’s method among earlier systematic, alphabetical, and sequential approaches. Locke was refining a long-standing practice, not inventing note-taking itself.
A historical method also carries the choices and limits of its compiler. What gets copied, omitted, titled, or grouped reflects a reader’s interests and assumptions. A useful modern commonplace book therefore preserves attribution and keeps the source’s words separate from the keeper’s interpretation.
Similar books, different purposes
| Form | Primary purpose |
|---|---|
| Commonplace book | Collects selected passages and notes by subject so they can be retrieved and compared |
| Diary or journal | Usually follows personal experience or reflection through time |
| Scrapbook | Assembles clippings, images, keepsakes, and other materials, often visually |
| Historical grimoire | Contains magical texts, prayers, diagrams, instructions, or compilations within a particular manuscript tradition |
| Modern Book of Shadows | May record rituals, correspondences, sources, experiences, and revisions; some pages can use commonplace-book methods |
An original source-aware Book of Shadows page
Touch of Magick original practice: This is a modern study exercise inspired by historical commonplacing. It is not a reconstruction of one manuscript, a restricted teaching, or a method for proving spiritual claims.
- Choose one heading. Write a narrow subject at the top of a page, such as “Rosemary in named sources,” “Dream symbols I have observed,” or “Questions about protection.”
- Add one short source note. Copy a brief passage or paraphrase it accurately. Record the author or institution, title, page number when available, URL, and the date you consulted it. Put exact words in quotation marks.
- Separate four fields. Label them Source, Observation, Interpretation, and Possible action. Do not let your interpretation appear to be part of the quoted source.
- Name the context. Note the tradition, period, place, and author when known. If the identity or provenance is uncertain, write “uncertain” instead of filling the gap with a guess.
- Choose a modest action. Your action might be to compare another source, ask a respectful question, label a specimen, or revise an earlier page. No candle, incense, ingestion, skin application, or purchased object is required.
- Leave room to disagree. Add a line called “What could change my mind?” and revisit it when you find stronger evidence.
Care, consent, and attribution
Do not copy private family stories, photographs, initiatory material, or culturally restricted teachings without permission. Keep quotations brief, credit their creators, and link readers to the full source. Historical collections reflect unequal access to literacy, publishing, and preservation; surviving notebooks are evidence, not a complete map of who produced knowledge. A personal spiritual interpretation can be meaningful without being presented as universal history or established science.
Journal prompt
Which idea do I want to preserve, whose voice does it come from, and how will I keep my own interpretation visibly separate?
Sources & further reading
- Harvard Library, “The Fragment and the Whole,” Take NoteCuratorial history of tablebooks, headings, excerpts, and personal observation in commonplace books.
- Harvard Library, “Notes in the Classroom,” Take NoteExamples of college commonplacing as a long-term method for organizing excerpts.
- John Locke, A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books (1706), Wellcome CollectionDigitized primary edition and catalog description of Locke’s indexing method.
- Library of Congress, “Thomas Jefferson, 1762–1767, Legal Commonplace Book”Primary manuscript record showing legal notes and extracts arranged for study.
- Michael Stolberg, “John Locke’s ‘New Method of Making Common-Place-Books’” (2014)Scholarly comparison of systematic, alphabetical, sequential, and Lockean approaches.
The four-field page, source-labeling steps, consent cautions, and “What could change my mind?” prompt are Touch of Magick Shop’s original additions.