Phyllis Currott, Wiccan high priestess and author, wants to spread the love.

Currott is a New York-based author, attorney and Wiccan high priestess. The Love Spell is an account of past relationships and the dynamic of magic, sex and love in her life. In it, she casts a spell to find her soul mate; it's also a sort of meta-spell.

"This book was visiting that early spell and becoming clearer and clearer about it so that the energy became crystallized," she explains.

The book focuses on one relationship in particular, a love story from the beginning of her search through the end of the marriage. It's sex-filled and personal, enough that Currott changed names, identifying characteristics and more. For example, her husband in the book, Derek, is actually drawn from two men.

"I essentially combined two of them so as not to dwell on one or the other," says Currott. "I was creating an archetype of those men." But the men aren't the point, she says. The patterns of those relationships are what she's interested in.

"Each person in a relationship brings a gift, and the gift is like a lesson. The gift is a mirror in which we see each other. Once we accept that gift, then we can become whole."

Sex is a major part of the dynamic, and Currott doesn't skimp. With Wicca as she practices it, sex is not just fun; it can be a kind of worship or a form of magic. Celebrating sex, and through it the divine, even takes on a tone of combative liberation at times.

"Most of the people who are anti-sexuality? Look at them -- they're not people you'd want to have sex with anyway," she says, citing a few of America's favorite extreme conservatives as examples.

Currott doesn't mince words when it comes to sex, politics or spirituality. Wicca for her is inherently feminist, with a goddess who has just as much right to divinity as any god.

"Western culture has conceptualized divinity as masculine," she says. "Personally, I can't understand why the penis is a prerequisite to divinity, especially if he doesn't have any place to put it!"

In talking about Western culture or religions, Currott generally refers to Christianity, Judaism and Islam. (To a skeptic, it's worth pointing out that, strictly speaking, none of these are Western in origin, and nor are Eastern religions devoid of phallic representations.) The distinction is helpful, though, because it tells a little about what Wicca is not. Wiccans are diverse in their beliefs, but most combine a smattering of Eastern religious philosophies with a hodgepodge of pre-Christian pagan beliefs and practices. Quantum physics pitches in its 2 cents, and so does Carl Jung.

"It's really more of a spiritual practice than a religion," Currott explains. "What's more attractive to men -- and more and more men are coming to it -- is that it's a practice. There's no one single interpretation."

Magic is a key part of that practice. For Wiccans, magic is evidence that the divine is present in the world, rather than remote and inactive. Concepts like synchronicities and archetypes are important, and spells really do work.

Currott happily reports that this spell -- the book -- has worked, and just in time, too. She started writing before the book's ending had taken place.

"Literally, within a lunar cycle, he manifested," Currott says of the new love in her life, a man from Toledo. "I went back (to my editor) and said, 'OK! He's manifested.' "

Currott hopes The Love Spell will reach out to young women who are themselves searching for love, to help people "see how magic manifests itself in their life." She says, "I wrote this book because there isn't enough love in the world -- each of us needs it, and the world needs it."