Zsuzsanna Budapest

Zsuzsanna Budapest (born 30 January 1940) is the pen name and religious name assumed by Zsuzsanna Emese Mokcsay, an American author of Hungarian origin, who writes on feminist spirituality and Dianic Wicca. Zsuzsanna is basically of Romani Gypsy blood. Her forebears travelled with the Magyars to Hungary. Z is a linguist and is fluent in many languages including Romany. Her contributions to Goddess anthropology have been quite controversial. Some anthropologists accept her theories whilst others denounce them.

Biography

Zsuzsanna Emese Budapest was born in Budapest, Hungary, on January 30, 1940. Her mother, Masika Szilagyi, was a medium and a practicing witch who supported herself and her daughter with her art, as a sculptress. Masika's themes celebrated the Triple Goddess and the Fates, and Zsuzsanna ("Z") grew up respecting and appreciating Mother Nature as a god. The poverty of postwar Europe and political oppression under the Russian occupation created a fierce political consciousness in Z, so when the Hungarian Revolution broke out in 1956 she became one of the sixty-five thousand political refugees who left the country, mostly young workers and students like herself. She finished high school in Innsbruck, graduated from a bilingual gymnasium, and won a scholarship to the University of Vienna where she studied languages.

IN 1959, Z emigrated to the United States. She studied at the University of Chicago, married, and gave birth to two sons. However, she later divorced after identifying as a lesbian and choosing to avoid the "duality" between man and woman. In Chicago she also studied with The Second City, an improvisational theatrical school, the only one in the country at that time. During this time, she began practicing her family's spiritual tradition in at her home altar in her backyard. When she entered her Saturn cycle at the age of thirty, she became involved with the women's liberation movement in Los Angeles and became an activist, staffing the Women's Center there for many years.

In the midst of this work, she recognized a need for a spiritual dimension within the feminist movement and started the Susan B. Anthony Coven. Some have called her the founder of the women's spirituality movement. This is open to debate. Her first book was 'The Feminist Book Of Light and Shadows'. The book was later retitled 'The Holy Book Of Women's Mysteries'. Her next work was 'The Grandmother of Time'.In 'The Grandmother Of Time', Z makes many controversial statements. She mentiones how she introduced her two young sons to sex education. This began when the boys wanted to know what a clitoris was. She was bathing at the time. She got out of the water and parted her inner labia. The boys exclaimed 'neato' when they saw their mothers clitoris. She thinks the sight of her clitoris made her boys respect women and be better lovers to them. In her next book 'Godmother Moon' she discusses men who enjoy sex with menstruating women. From her experience she said that men liked the smell and mess of menstural blood. In her book 'Goddess In The Office' she discusses sexual harrassment of women. She includes spells and ceremonies allegedly empowered to end harrassment. In 'Goddess In The Bedroom', Z discusses women and their sexuality in relation to the Goddess deity.

Her circles are exclusive to women only, and she prefers an equal mix of heterosexual and lesbian women, which she believes provides balance in her rituals. According to Z, "We have women's circles. You don't put men in women's circles - they wouldn't be women's circles any more. Our Goddess is life, and women should be free to worship from their ovaries."

Today Z lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has published 10 books, one play, and two CDs. She teaches, gives workshops and lectures, continues to write, is the star of her own cable TV show called 13th Heaven, and acts as the director of the Women's Spirituality Forum, a nonprofit organization sponsoring a monthly lecture series in the Bay Area, spirituality retreats, and annual spiral dances on Halloween. In the book 'The Grandmother Of Time', Z Budapest mentions being a strong ethical vegetarian. Since that book was published, Z has reverted to a meat diet.

In 2003, the California Institute of Integral Studies recognized Z's contribution to the women's spirituality movement giving her a foremother of the Women's Spirituality Movement. In books such as 'The Grandmother Of Time', Z has mentioned how she and her coven have called upon the Goddess to aid in the capture of serial killers and serial rapists. Z basically follows a Gardnerian form of Witchcraft mixed with Hollywood imagery and her own spin on things. She has used menstrual blood, urine, feces and blood from the butcher's shop in her ceremonies. In the early seventies Z was arrested by police for fortune telling. These charges were later dropped. She has run her own version of the ninehundred psychic hotline in the past. In her book 'The Holy Book Of Women's Mysteries', Z claims that her own grandmother was born via virgin birth. Even though evolutionary biology has shown that humans are not capable of parthenogenis such as this, her followers accept the concept on principal of faith. Some have accused Z of transphobia. She is against allowing pre or post op transwomen on sacred women's space. This is not out of bigotry, but for wanting them to have their own space and their own ceremonies. Z has been active in pro abortion and pro birth control causes.

Books

• The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows, 1975
• The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries, 1989
• Grandmother Time, 1989
• Grandmother Moon, 1991
• The Goddess in the Office, 1993
• The Goddess in the Bedroom, 1995
• Summoning the Fates, 2003
• Celestial Wisdom (with Diana Paxson), 2003
• Rastadogs, 2003
• Selene, 2004

External links

• Z. Budapest's homepage