Z Budapest is author of the acclaimed The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries (1989) originally published in 1975 as The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows. This book served as the first hands-on guide to lead women into their own spiritual/Goddess heritage. The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries contains just about everything you need to know and then some for actualizing a goddess-centered lifestyle. This interview is for any woman seeking to know more about themselves, women’s spirituality, and the goddess movement.

Zsuzsanna “Z” Budapest was born in Hungary in 1940 and emigrated to the United States in 1959. She grew up respecting and appreciating Mother Nature as god. Following her family’s spiritual tradition, she ultimately started the Women's Spirituality Movement. She also founded the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number l, the first feminist witches' coven, which became the role model for thousands of other spiritual groups being born and spreading across the nation.

Z has led rituals, lectured, taught classes, given workshops, written articles tirelessly, and published in hundreds of women's newspapers across the country. She has powerfully influenced many of the future teachers and writers about the Goddess.

Today Z lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the star of the cable TV show 13th Heaven and is the director of the Women's Spirituality Forum, a nonprofit organization sponsoring a Goddess lecture series. Z founded and sponsors the Dianic University Online.

A women's spirituality classic now back in print!

The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries is essential for Pagans, feminists, and women seeking to learn more about the spiritual path as it relates to the feminine and the Goddess aspects of witchcraft and Wicca. This book is not about reinstating a matriarchy or tearing down patriarchy; it is about women's spirituality and its relationship with politics and lifestyle.

Z. Budapest is one of the founding mothers of modern women's witchcraft, beginning with the establishment of Susan B Anthony Coven in Los Angeles in 1971. She catapulted herself into the media spotlight when she was tried as a witch and found guilty in 1975 after being arrested on Venice Beach for reading tarot cards. She fought the charges and, after a nine year battle, won the right for every tarot reader to do so legally.

The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries is a seminal text that contains invaluable information on Dianic witchcraft and spells, including everyday magick, sabbat rituals, and divination methods; a section on how vegetarian theories and politics relate to witchcraft and the feminine aspect; and a good deal of information on goddesses and how the patriarchal religions distorted old myths to serve their own needs.

There are several unique and beautiful Rites of Passage for women and men that you don't often find, and Budapest's personal life stories are an equally valuable read, from her escape across the mountains from Communist Hungary to her fight for women's religious freedom upon moving to America.

* This reprint features a new introduction by Z. Budapest, in addition to essays by luminaries such as Starhawk and Merlin Stone.