Welcome to the second in my "3 Free Pagan Apps" series where I choose a topic and discuss my 3 favourite Pagan apps around that topic. Most of these will be free with optional purchases, but some may be entirely free - no tempting/annoying extras withheld!
So have you ever wanted a digital digest of useful spells? Or perhaps even somewhere to keep your own, on hand, on your phone? Today it's Spellbooks!
In no particular order...
1. Wicca Spells and Tools by Big Book Apps, LLC
This is BY FAR my favourite free Spell book on the iTunes app store. It is designed for both iPhone and iPad and has a pro (no ad) version at £1.79.
What makes this Spell Book so good is it's amount of information. There are tons of spells in this app, all available for free in categories such as banishing, beauty, fertility, healing, love, luck, prosperity and so many more. Each of these categories has many spells for different goals.
There are extracts under a title called "Books" from Gardnerian Book of Shadows, Witchcraft Today and Correlian Witchcraft. These include basics such as casting a circle, the history of witchcraft, altars, and much more. These are not small extracts, they are fully compiled to explain each topic, and work very well.
You have the ability to favourite spells, there is a glossary of terms, a calendar that dictates witchcraft-y events in the year and national days, a journal for your own notes (a book of shadows perhaps?), and a complete encyclopaedia of herbs, plants and trees and their magickal associations and uses.
Adverts on this free app are placed at the bottom of the screen in an easily ignorable position, and a full screen still image ad appears whenever you choose a page, meaning that you have to dismiss it to view the page. These are easy to ignore and could be fine to put up with, but there is also the ability to pay for removal of ads permanently. I do not think the Pro version of the app adds anything to the content, it just simply removes the ads.
The apps design is simple and easy to navigate, and is a wonderful witchy and Pagan app for everyone! I hope they continue to add to the spells list, because the quality of the app itself is obvious in comparison to others on the market.
2. Liber Umbrarum et Lux by Feles Magus
Literally trying to mean "Book of Shadow and Light", this app is for the iPhone and iPad and has another simple design.
This app has the same set up, with a menu in the left sidebar, with somewhat confusing page titles. "Prefixes" is actually hiding the front cover image of this app, an About section, an interaction to Wicca and a short literary extract called Darkness and Light. The second title "The Old Book" has several tidbits of information such as on the Cone of Power, Usage of Runes, and the Witches Rede. The third title, "Rituals" does actually have rituals such as initiation rituals, an opening ritual, the charge of the goddess, sabbat rituals, and a closing ritual.
"Consecrations" is another self-explanatory title, explaining consecrations of ritual tools, food, and more. "Spellcraft" is the actual spell book in this app, with 13 individual spells listed. "Herbs" is again quite well-explained, and is an encyclopaedia of herbs and their magickal uses. "Personal Journal" is a place to create your own notes, again like a Book of Shadows. And finally, "Appendices" includes a glossary, Goddess and God names, on tools, and a few more tidbits.
This app offers an upgraded version of Liber Umbrarum which looks different in the example it gives, and apparently includes new sections such as Divination, and Talismans and Charms. I don't know if this will include more spells or not, as this app seems limited in that section, but you can check it out!
This app does not appear to have ads at all, which is a bonus!!
3. Spell Book Lite by AppCore
This app is for iPhone and iPad, and isn't as well designed as the first two apps I have reviewed, but it deserves a chance!
The app is uncomplicated in terms of it's title screen - there is only two pages, "Spell Book" and "Favorites", where the latter is empty by default until you add favourite spells.
The spell book itself is difficult to navigate because the spells are not in a list form, but displayed one by one as you swipe left to view the next one.
The spells are listed with a picture, and a title, with no other explanation until you click "Read More" and the page flips to show the spell instructions. There are more than 20 spells in this app (I checked) and some of them less like spells and more like charms or rituals. The navigation makes it hard to find what you are after, but if you can see past that, the amount or spells and variety is very good.
Clicking the "More..." button allows you to add spells to favourites and therefore find the best spells without endless swiping, which is good. There is also a button enabling you to share a particular spell which you might find cool, if you are in a coven or are member of a witchy/pagan group.
I do not think this app has any ads on it, I have not encountered any so far which is good!
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That's it for my 3 free spell book apps this week, and I hope that has been helpful to somebody. Next week I will be trying to find 3 free tarot apps, so look forward to that!
