About this episode
Join us for a thought provoking discussion with the wonderful Phyllis Curott as we discuss her latest work Wicca Made Easy and the upcoming 20th anniversary of her revolutionary work Book of Shadows. Phyllis Curott is a pioneering spiritual teacher and one of America’s first public Wiccan Priestesses. She is an attorney and outspoken advocate in the courts and media on behalf of Pagans, Wiccans and other religious minorities and is also the internationally bestselling author of Book of Shadows: A Modern Woman’s Journey into the Wisdom of Witchcraft and the Magic of the Goddess (Broadway Books 1998), WitchCrafting: A Spiritual Guide to Making Magic (Broadway Books 2001) and The Love Spell (Gotham/ Penguin 2005). An interfaith activist for many years, Phyllis was the Vice Chair of the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions, creator of the historic Inaugural Women’s Assembly and drafter of the Declaration for the Dignity and Human Rights of Women, adopted by the 2015 Parliament. She is the founder of the Temple of Ara, one of the oldest Wiccan congregations in America, a shamanic tradition rooted in the experience and ethics of immanent divinity. Phyllis was inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. Collegium of Scholars and honored by Jane Magazine as one of the Ten Gutsiest Women of the Year. New York Magazine described her teaching on Earth-based spirituality and the Divine Feminine as one of the culture’s “next big ideas” and Time Magazine featured her writing in their Ideas column, a forum for America’s “leading voices.” She has been widely profiled in the national and international media including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, The Nation, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Self, The View, The O’Reilly Factor, Lifetime, Oxygen, and CNN & Company. She is featured in the Howcast Youtube series on Wicca, Beliefnet’s “Preachers and Teachers,” PBS’s What’s Your Calling? and in the documentary Many Voices, One Faith. She is currently producing a short film on the emergence of the Divine Feminine and women’s spiritual leadership at the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions. As an attorney and outspoken advocate for the rights of Wiccans and other religious minorities. Phyllis has successfully won the right of Wiccan clergy to perform legally binding marriages in New York City and rituals in the public parks of Chicago and has been a pro bono consultant on numerous religious liberties cases. She is a co-founder of the Religious Liberties Lawyers Network, a member of the Lady Liberty League and a long-standing member of the American Civil Liberties Union. And she is currently working on a new and spiritually revolutionary Witch’s Tarot Deck, also for Hay House.