Budapest, Zsuzsanna E. (1940-)

Founder of the main branch of Dianic (feminist) Wicca and author of a number of books. Budapest was born Zsuzsanna Mokcsay in Budapest, Hungary, on January 30, 1940, but left in the wake Hungarian revolt of 1956. She moved to Austria and then to the United States, where she studied at the University of Chicago. She married and had two children, but the marriage ended in the late-1960s. In 1970 Budapest moved to California and became involved in the women's movement and in Witchcraft. She opened a feminist bookstore and began to develop a form of Wicca that would meld Gardnerian Witchcraft (based on the teachings of John Gardiner ) and her growing feminist ideals. In 1976 she published The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows, the basic text of what is known as Dianic Wicca.

Budapest was by this time the priestess of a feminist coven, the Susan B. Anthony Coven, in Venice, California. The coven began a newsletter, Themis (now Thesmorphoria ), and in 1979 she and the coven relocated in the San Francisco Bay Area. Budapest opened the Women's Spirituality Forum, which gave Dianic Wicca a public outreach. Among her many books are The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries (1979) and The Grandmother of Time (1989).

Sources:

Budapest, Zsuzsanna E. The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows. Venice, Calif.: Luna Publications, 1976.

——. The Grandmother of Time. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.

——. The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries. Los Angeles: Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One, 1979.

Guiley, Rosemary E. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Witches. New York: Facts on File, 1989.