This Grimoire Journal, or a book or textbook of magic, was mainly compiled during the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine. Written by its owner, it contains mainly witchcraft practices, including recipes, tarot spreads, and diagrams of the human body. Most of the information gathered in this book was passed down from the owner’s parents and grandparents from Eastern Russia and Japan. Education is sometimes taught from mouth to mouth and sometimes it is taught from the words on a page.
This object is part of the “Expanding Worldview” section of the Artifacts of Experience exhibition designed by University of Cincinnati students in the “Introduction to Public History” course in 2023.
We encourage you to explore the other objects in our collection.
Transcript
Fletcher Guttman [FG]: Can we start with a description of your object?
Anonymous [Anon]: It’s a little green, blank pages. And I use it as my Grimoire. In practices, spirituality and witchcraft.
[FG]: All right? Why did you choose this object?
[Anon]: This object has been with me throughout my adolescence into adulthood. Everything that’s written in here was taught to me by my mom, and her mom taught her so far back as five generations.
[FG]: That’s incredible. When you look at this journal, excuse not journal, this book, what memories does it bring back to you?
[Anon]: I guess struggle with feeling comfortable on Earth, I always knew that this wasn’t my first time here to like experience things. And like with Ryan, Ryan was like, I’ve been here before I’ve done these things, and I know how to navigate them. And sometimes I speak to people, and they need a little more help. Like, understanding?
[FG]: Yeah, of course. So, so this helps you understand concepts that are new to you. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. Um, do you have a favorite story about the journal?
[Anon]: Um, the bulk of the information that is in here was written during COVID.So So during that, that two year span of, yeah, and first six months, I had never left the house. And I just wrote like fervently.
[FG]: So how would you say this relates to like your own education in this case,
[Anon]: That’s why I didn’t finish college. And because I felt like the information that was being taught in school wasn’t what I wanted to learn. I wanted to know more about this. So, seek guidance from my mom, and she would contact her teachers in Russia, and we would have like conversation for hours at a time, before I eventually moved out.
[FG]: What kind of stuff has this allowed you to learn?
[Anon]: More about interpersonal relations? And that energy is real. And it’s like my gut intuition has never been wrong about meeting in person. So, I’ve been tuning in on how to listen to that more through like the book as guide.
[FG]: Of course. That’s amazing. Do you think it helps you educate other people as well?
[Anon]: Yes. Like my friend, Nya, she’s been recently interested in how to read auras, or how to sense them. And I showed her the images that I see when I look at auras, and then she’s been referencing how it makes her feel.
[FG]: Oh, interesting. So, you can see these auras, right? That’s incredible. How do you think this impacts your witchcraft?
[Anon]: It helps me get a better sense of who I’m talking to? And how to talk to them. So that we remain like, kind of on a neutral plane, where one person doesn’t have more information over the other?
[FG]: Yeah, of course. Here’s a good question. What does this object mean to you?
[Anon]: It’s a good way for me to be proud of my family. Because there’s not a lot to be proud of, we’re not very successful people. But having this information, be the one thing that we hold on to and pass down to each other is meaningful to me.
[FG]: Of course, yeah. That kind of intergenerational knowledge, you know. So, what exactly is in this journal?
[Anon]: There’s Tarot spreads. There’s chakra work and like how your physical body is in relation to chakra work. There. I even drew like, the vital organs of the body and the brain just as they are and what areas to work on and meditate on to put energy towards areas.