Dianic High Priestess Zsuzsanna Budapest

Z Budapest ~ Early Life and Education

Z. Budapest was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her mother, Masika Szilagyi, was a medium, a practicing witch, and a professional sculptress whose work reflected themes of Goddess and nature spirituality.

In 1956, when the Hungarian Revolution broke out, Budapest left Hungary as a political refugee. She finished high school in Innsbruck, graduated from a bilingual gymnasium, and won a scholarship to the University of Vienna where she studied languages [1].

Budapest immigrated to the United States in 1959, where she studied German literature at the University of Chicago on scholarship.

During that same time, Budapest joined the groundbreaking originator of the art of improvisation, Viola Spolin, and the improvisational theater group The Second City[1]. She studied with Spolin for two years.  

She married Tomas Bartha and had two sons, Laszlo and Gabor. The family moved to New York, and later to Long Island. There Budapest was involved in the Film Industry, won Golden Eagle award, was a guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, witness the Stonewall Riots and attended Woodstock.  

She was later divorced in 1970 and moved to Los Angeles, California, where she got involved in the feminist’s Women’s Rights Movement. Budapest saw that the feminists lacked a spiritual element to their movement, and so she began the Women’s Spirituality Movement in 1971. Budapest took women lovers and eventually came out as a lesbian.

For more information, visit Z Budapest's website www.ZBudapest.com

1. Lesbian Pride Website
2. Llewellyn Worldwide Website