Institute for Thealogy & Deasophy

 

Zsuzsanna Budapest
HP, D.Min (h.c.)

Dr. Zsuzsanna E. "Z" Budapest founded the Women's Spirituality Movement in the 1970's as a direct result of the influences of the first wave feminists had on her. Budapest saw a need to develop a female-centered theology that not only would help women, but would answer opponents of the feminist movement who claimed that feminism was "against God." Thus, she birthed the Women's Spirituality Movement. Drawing on her own heritage and her improvisational skills, she collected six friends and began holding sabbats. A coven was born on the winter solstice, 1971, named the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One after one of the leaders of the woman's suffrage movement. Looking back over the last forty years, you can safely say that Budapest's Women's Spirituality Movement is one of the few aspects of the second wave that still thrives today.

Budapest opened a shop, "The Feminist Wicca", in Venice, California, and self-published a book which became a basic text of Dianic Wicca, The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows (1975) a collection of rituals, spells and lore. The book later was sold to a publisher, and was issued as The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries: Feminist Witchcraft, Goddess Rituals, Spellcasting and Other Womanly Arts (1989); an enduring classic in the Craft.

She brought forward her Hungarian heritage and traditions, which included reading tarot cards. Budapest was arrested in 1974 for giving a Tarot reading to an undercover policewoman. In 1975, came her trial making Z Budapest the last person to be tried for witchcraft in the United States. She went to trial and lost because all of her predictions to the policewoman had come true. Z worked with others to repeal the outdated laws prohibiting psychic readings, and finally succeeded nine years later. It is because of her that it's legal to perform any type of divination and psychic readings in the United States.

She grew as a feminist during the time of her legal battles with reading tarot. Z found herself immersed within the feminist culture with the likes of such notable women as her friend Gloria Steinem. It was these two powerful influences, her arrest and feminism, that inspired Z to author ten internationally published books on the topics of Women's Spirituality. Ultimately, Z is accredited with the founding and propagation of the Women's Spirituality Movement, which continues to thrive to this day.

The impact of the Women's Spirituality Movement and Dianic Wicca may be seen in the increase of women's goddess based literature and college courses. There are now whole educational departments devoted to the Goddess and women's spirituality due in part to Budapest's inspired teachings and books. Budapest termed religion as the "supreme politics" because it influences everything people do. "Patriarchal monotheism has worked to the detriment of women; it has glorified war and suffering and martyrdom."

Her vision for the future is that of peace and abundance, expressed in female values, to dominate the world's consciousness. Then, Budapest said, "Both sexes will be free to flourish according to their natural inclinations and abilities. Global goddess consciousness means acknowledging the oneness of all as children of one Mother, our beloved blue planet, the Earth."

Today Z lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, traveling, giving workshops and lectures. She was the star of her own cable TV show called 13th Heaven, and continues to act as the Director of the Women's Spirituality Forum, a nonprofit organization sponsoring Goddess, spirituality topics and events. Z founded and sponsors the Dianic University Online, a vagina-friendly online school for Dianic Wicca and Goddess studies for women.

The California Institute for Integral Studies recognized Budapest's contribution to the Women's Spirituality Movement. Budapest was awarded a Doctorate of Ministry from the Ocean Seminary College in 2010.

Books by Z Budapest:

• Holy Book of Women's Mysteries
• Grandmother of Time
• Summoning the Fates
• Goddess in the Office
• Goddess in the Bedroom
• Grandmother Moon
• Celestial Wisdom

Additional Information about Z Budapest

Z Budapest is listed in the book Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975 edited by Barbara J. Love, who wrote: "[she]...saw women taking part in political demonstrations and speaking truths she had only felt - about private property, and how women need to own their own bodies. Inspired, she became a volunteer at the Los Angeles Women's Center. [She] ...soon learned that her greatest contribution to women's liberation would be through her spirituality. She used her spiritual healing practices to help heal rape and abuse victims, and founded the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number 1. Considered the first feminist witches coven [still in existence], it became the role model for thousands of other groups across the nation [and globally]. Budapest was arrested in 1975 for reading Tarot cards.... Although she lost the case, it led to the abolishment of laws against psychics nine years later [because she fought for it as women's rights to counsel each other]." (p. 64)

Z's contributions to the feminist movement and women's spirituality are being recognized by the Canadian Centre for Research on Women and Religion, Department of Classics & Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa in May of 2011 with a conference focused solely on Z's body of work. The conference organizer is Prof. Lucie Marie-Mai DuFresne, PhD., who writes:

Z's influences transcend the communities of feminism, spirituality and gender studies. Her life's works will be remembered in American History as one of the great foremothers of the second wave of feminism, the founding mother of the Women's Spirituality Movement and an outspoken lesbian woman who fought for women's reproductive rights in Los Angeles at one of the first abortion clinics, who co-founded the Los Angeles Anti-rape Squad (the first rape crisis intervention), who established the Los Angeles Take Back the Night marches for which she received the mayor's proclamation of appreciation. And of course, she will be remembered as the last witch put on trial for her witchcraft and found guilty in the United States; meaning she also blazed a trail for the popularizing of Paganism.

The importance of Z's work on the development of contemporary women's spirituality cannot be overlooked. At a time when women were finding their voice, when the archaeological findings of Marija Gimbutas and Merlin Stone had not yet been published, Zsuszanna Budapest had already drawn the link between feminism and spirituality with her Feminist Book of Light and Shadows, which later became The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries. The Susan B. Anthony Coven No. 1, which she started with a group of other women in 1971, became the springboard and training grounds for many well-known leaders, like Starhawk, Ruth Barrett, Carol Christ, Charlene Spretnak, Barbara Chesser, Susun Weed, Ava Carpenter, Fiona Morgan, Patricia Monaghan, Anne Carson, Vicki Noble, Lunaea Weatherstone, Riane Eisler, Diane Stein, Jade River, Kathy Jones, Kriszta Veres and hundreds of other authors, scholars, artists, musicians and spiritual leaders.