The Love Spell

The Love Spell: An Erotic Memoir of Spiritual Awakening, by Phyllis Curott,(Gotham Books, 2005) is the sequel to her first memoir, Book of Shadows. Book of Shadows tells the story of how Phyllis, a lawyer in the cut throat corporate world, finds herself deeply drawn to the pagan spiritual practice of Wicca, which reveres nature and the sacred feminine aspect of the Universe. She transforms from a naive neophyte in search of her authentic identity into a confident, wise High Priestess who sees her life as a magickal journey rich with symbolic meaning and expression.
The Love Spell continues Curott’s odyssey into the mysteries of her religion and especially the romantic and sexual aspects, which Wicca celebrates and reveres. She begins the book searching for love and enthralled with the actor James Dean. When she starts to hear a voice, not her own, whisper to her and guide her in a way she has never before experienced, she finds herself opening to a path which leads her even deeper into self discovery. Afraid that she might be unraveling mentally, she seeks the guidance of her mentor, Nonna, an elder of the Wiccan community, or crone, who tells her that she is not crazy and that the voice she is hearing is that of her daemon, or guiding male spirit. He has cloaked himself in the guise of James Dean because his is an image Phyllis recognizes and finds appealing, and he will lead her to a profound understanding of spirituality and sexuality and the merging of the two.

The Love Spell is fascinating reading because it adds a context to the celebrity worship of our current culture. Curott is fearless in her exploration and excavates an area of human sexuality which is usually discarded and misunderstood. Currott expands upon the ideas of Carl Jung and his theory of the collective unconscious and archetypal energies, specifically the idea of the anima and animus, and she deftly weaves these ideas into the narrative of her own life.
Joseph Campbell asserted that modern humanity was out of sync with nature because of a lack of connection to archetypes and the deeply subconscious catharsis of ritual. In her book,The Love Spell, Phyllis Curott offers a practical and lucid example of how we can incorporate ritual exploration into our daily lives.