Dianic Wicca

Dianic Wicca

Wiccan tradition focused solely on the feminine aspect of deity. Most Dianic covens are open only to women.

Dianic Wicca was founded by Zsuzsanna Budapest during the winter solstice of 1971. According to Rosemary Guiley, Budapest says that the tradition is based on what she learned from the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and the feminist movement in the United States. Her first Dianic coven was named the Susan B. Anthony Coven.

For ten years, Budapest led full moon circles and sabbats and initiated others, training them to become Priestesses. She wrote and published The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows as a text for the tradition. The Manifesto of the tradition states: We believe that Feminist witches are wimmin (sic) who search within themselves for the female principle of the universe and who relate as daughters to the Creatrix. We believe that just as it is time to fight for the right to control our bodies, it is also time to fight for our sweet womon souls. We believe that in order to fight and win a revolution that will stretch for generations into the future, we must find reliable ways to replenish our energies. We believe that without a secure grounding in womon's spiritual strength there will be no victory for us. We believe that we are part of a changing universal consciousness that has long been feared and prophesized by the patriarchs. We believe that Goddess-consciousness gave humanity a workable, long-lasting, peaceful period during which the Earth was treated as Mother and wimmin were treated as Her priestesses. This was the mythical Golden Age of Matriarchy. We believe that wimmin lost supremacy through the aggressions of males who were exiled from the matriarchies and formed the patriarchal hordes responsible for the invention of rape and the subjugation of wimmin. We believe that female control of the death (male) principle yields hummin evolution. We are committed to living life lovingly towards ourselves and our sisters. We are committed to joy, self-love, and life-affirmation. We are committed to winning, to surviving, to struggling against patriarchal oppression. We are committed to defending our interests and those of our sisters through the knowledge of witchcraft: to blessing, to cursing, to healing, and to binding with power rooted in womon-identified wisdom.

We are opposed to attacking the innocent. We are equally committed to political, communal, and personal solutions. We are committed to teaching wimmin how to organize themselves as witches and to sharing our traditions with wimmin.

We are opposed to teaching our magic and our craft to men. Our immediate goal is to congregate with each other according to our ancient womon-made laws and remember our past, renew our powers and affirm our Goddess of the Ten-Thousand Names.

Guiley suggests that the impact of Dianic Wicca may be seen in the increase of literature and college courses devoted to the goddess and women's spirituality.