"By treating the "Harry Potter" books with the deep attention traditionally reserved for texts religion has deemed sacred, the team aims to help listeners carve out community and connection to what they love in their own lives.”
"Touring the country this summer, the podcasters have been met night after night by adoring, mostly millennial crowds who want to soak up their secular meaning-making."
"Zoltan and ter Kuile use ages-old spiritual practices like the Christian tradition of Lectio Divina and the Jewish practice of Havruta to find deeper meaning within the text. Harry Potter and the Sacred Text has hit a nerve with Harry Potter fans, who have suddenly found their religious obsession with these books justified by actual religious scholars."
"The chance to discuss 'Harry Potter' from a spiritual standpoint is what brought hundreds of fans to a live taping of 'Harry Potter and the Sacred Text' last week in a sold-out auditorium at the Indianapolis Public Library’s Central Library."
by Vanessa Zoltan "Harry Potter may be the perfect series to speak to this moment in time: It is pro-love and about integration and kindness, among so many other things."
by Casper ter Kuile "None of us are born inherently evil. But we are born into a world where the battle for good and evil rages. Not just in the headlines, but in our own hearts. What the Potter series teaches us is that we must consistently and together examine our actions, to find where the seeds of evil have taken root — in our racism, our selfishness, or our hunger for power."
Episode 106: Our third-annual Yom Kippur apology show, with clemency advocate Mark Osler, apology blogger Ari Kohen, and a personal story from podcaster Vanessa Zoltan
Episode "There Are No Gay Wizards": Albus Dumbledore isn't gay, no matter what J.K. Rowling says. But that doesn't mean the "Harry Potter" books aren't incredibly queer.
Episode 'Self Portrait of My Own Misery' We are all just products of the people who raise us. And they are products of those who raised them. Vanessa Zoltan knows that better than most. She is the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, and for her, nihilism and depression kind of run in the family.
Episode 214: Bart chats with Vanessa Zoltan, a research assistant at Harvard Divinity School where she graduated who has been involved with the Humanist Hub at Harvard University and is well-known for her approach to reading books like Harry Potter as a sacred text.
Women of Harry Potter: Guest Vanessa Zoltan stops by to discuss the women of the Harry Potter universe, and why examining fictional works through a feminist lens matters. Bonus discussion of Jane Eyre.
Episode 19 : Vanessa Zoltan of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text joins to further discuss the Yule Ball. Topics include Wizard dermatology, The Weird Sisters, Voldemort's hatred of finals, the start of Ron’s crush, Warrior Hermione, PERCY, Harry and Ron: the worst dates, and Parvathi saving the day.