Zsuzsanna Emese Budapest was born in Budapest, Hungary,  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. when the Hungarian Revolution broke out in 1956, she left the country. Z emigrated to the United States in 1959, became a student at the University of Chicago, married, and gave birth to two sons. In 1970, she became involved with the women's liberation movement in Los Angeles and 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. She wrote “The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries” in 1975 ( originally published as “The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows”.) This book was probably the first book ever written on Dianic Witchcraft.
Z was arrested in 1975 for reading Tarot cards to an undercover policewoman. She lost the trial but won the issue, and the law against psychics was struck down nine years later.

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.