Phyllis W. Curott, J.D. H. Ps.

Phyllis Curott is a spiritual pioneer. As one of America’s first public Witches, teachers and advocates, she has spent more than 40 years helping Witchcraft become the fastest growing spirituality in America and expanding its reach across the globe. Phyllis is an attorney whose groundbreaking cases secured the legal rights of Witches, including the right to form religious organizations, perform legally binding marriages, perform rituals in public places, have religious holidays off from work, retain custody of children, wear or display symbols of faith, and more.

Phyllis is also an internationally best-selling author and the most widely published Witch/Wiccan priestess in the world. The creator of the acclaimed Witches’ Wisdom Tarot with artist Danielle Barlow, her YouTube series What is Wicca? has 3 million views, and her online course Awaken the Witch Within has helped countless seekers discover and deepen their practice of Witchcraft as the modern rebirth of Euro-Indigenous wisdom traditions.

Inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. Collegium of Clergy and Scholars, Phyllis was honored by Jane Magazine as one of the Ten Gutsiest Women of the Year, by One Spirit Seminary and Learning Alliance’s with their 2018 Service to Humanity Award, and by Kindred Spirit’s Person of the Year Award in 2020. TIME published her in its IDEAS column as one of America’s “leading voices,” and New York Magazine described her teaching as the culture’s “next big idea.” Within the Pagan community she is notable for her rejection of the Wiccan Rede and Threefold Law, and her teachings of Nature’s divine magic as the divine organizing principle of Creation and the moral compass for our future.

Phyllis is the founder of the Temple of Ara, America’s first and oldest shamanic Wiccan tradition with a growing Italian and international community.She continues to teach, to initiate, and to train clergy within the Ara Tradition. Phyllis is a Trustee and the Program Chair of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, served as its Vice Chair and creator of the historic 2015 Inaugural Women’s Assembly and drafted the Declaration for the Dignity and Human Rights of Women adopted by the 2015 Parliament. She was the Wiccan representative to the Harvard University Religious Pluralism Project’s Consultation on Religious Discrimination and Accommodation, at the Religions for the Earth Conference, is First Officer Emerita of the Covenant of the Goddess, serves on the Advisory Board of Cherry Hill Seminary, the first Pagan seminary, and has taught and spoken at numerous universities, churches, organizations, seminaries and conferences.

After a hiatus from the public limelight and an apprenticeship with Mother Earth, she has published several new books and the Witches Wisdom Tarot, and teaches in person and online. She conducts a monthly circle for her Patreon community and is working on her next book on Nature’s divine magic and developing a new teaching protocol to guide people in experiencing that magic and their own.

Phyllis received her B.A. in Philosophy from Brown University and her J.D. from New York University Law School.

 Phyllis in the Media