Rediscover the Divine in realms of Spirit, embodied by Nature and in the Magic that is you.
The Temple of Ara is the world’s first and oldest shamanic Wiccan tradition, founded in 1983 by High Priestess Phyllis Curott.
It is a path into realms of Spirit, a path that reveals Spirit embodied by the natural world and by you. It is a path of divine magic, Nature’s magic, your magic.
The Temple of Ara is a spiritual path and a community that is rediscovering the wisdom of our ancestors and creating a new and sacred relationship with our Mother Earth, with ourselves and with one another. The Temple of Ara is the path of the Witch, the wicce, a wise one, a seer of the sacred. It is a path that welcomes all , whether you are a Witch or not.
Just as you don’t have to be Buddhist to benefit from meditation or Hindu to practice yoga, you don’t have to be a wicce, to transform your life with the wisdom and practices of the Temple of Ara.
At the heart of the Temple of Ara are spiritual techniques, ancient and modern, to take off the blindfold tied on by history and habit so you can see realms of Spirit and see Spirit embodied by Mother Earth, by all of her children, by you.
Classes, workshops, teachings, spiritual counseling, gatherings in person and online, retreats and the Temple’s unique ritual of initiation all empower you and fill your life with joy, health, well-being and the fulfillment of your unique purpose—the reason you are here now that will make the world a better place for your having been here.
This is the mission and purpose of the Temple of Ara—to help you experience, rejoice in, and be guided by the Divine within and everywhere around you. It is a spiritual path home to a world of divine, natural magic.
We are the awakening self-consciousness
of a sacred Universe.
The Temple of Ara is open to all.
More than 20 years ago, after teaching for more than 20 years, Phyllis realized that the traditional coven model of training 13 people for three years was too constrained for a global spiritual movement. She created a series of three foundational classes to teach her Tradition’s essential, life-changing, spiritual practices: The Wand, The Grail, and The Guardian at the Gate/the Shadow.
Whether you feel you’re a Witch or not, Temple of Ara classes will open your heart, your mind and your spirit to the divine magic dwelling within and all around you. The classes offer simple, accessible and empowering techniques to restore deep, healing and life-changing connections to the natural world and to realms of Spirit, revealing your place and purpose in a world that awaits your return.
The Temple of Ara is also an initiatory, mystery tradition and for those seeking the transformative experience of initiation into the Tradition of Ara, all three courses are required.
We are living in a time of accelerating challenges, environmental and political crises that create tremendous personal anxieties, stresses and struggles. But you are enmeshed in a larger framework, a natural world organized to create, nourish and heal, a world that embodies the Divine, a world of Nature’s magic. And just as you need the divine magic of the world in which you live, the world needs you.
The Temple of Ara’s training is above all a path of personal revelation and responsibility. It’s a path of communion and community, of celebration and magic flowing through us, connecting Spirit and Creation.
Our central spiritual and ethical precept is that we live in a sacred world and so we seek to live in a sacred manner.
The moment you recognize that the world you live in is sacred, you are called and guided to live in a scared manner, to live a life of meaning and purpose, a life of joy, gratitude, personal power, and profound connection. The Temple of Ara offers wisdom and ways to find your path back home.
The world needs her Witches.
The Temple of Ara is not a structure or a building. It is not a website or a Facebook page.
It is the people who are part of it, the realms of Spirit and Creation that contain and guide it. It is a vessel into which divine magic flows to make the world a better and more loving place.
You are the Temple of Ara.
Welcome.
A Quick History
The Temple of Ara was founded by H.Ps. Phyllis Curott in 1983. Its roots are in Phyllis’s early training in the Gardnerian and Minoan traditions of New York City and in her practice of core shamanism with the Brooklyn Group, the first drumming circle based on the work of Dr. Michael Harner.
Uncomfortable with dogmatic, ceremonial and patriarchal remnants within traditional Wiccan teachings, she began to deconstruct and distill a system of core principles and practices. By integrating shamanic techniques into traditional Wiccan practices, the wisdom of ancient Euro-Indigenous wisdom traditions was rekindled and the Tradition of Ara was born, later formalized as the Temple of Ara, with branches in Italy, the Tempio di Ara, and around the globe.