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La Santa Muerte
Via AltReligion, here’s a halfway decent news article from the Arizona Daily Star on La Santa Muerte, Saint Death. In case you’re unfamiliar with this, La Santa Muerte is a Mexican devotional figure gaining increasing popularity.
She is basically a Grim Reaper figure (syncretized roughly with the Virgin Mary) who has roots in pre-Christian religion and who according to most accounts is popular with rogue elements of society. This article quotes one person describing her followers as “narcotraffickers, corrupt cops and politicians” but it seems that in general it’s becoming a very popular folk saint.
Of course, the Catholic Church is none too fond of this figure and doesn’t recognize it in their saintly pantheon. Rev. Juan Carlos Aguirrer of Tucson believes the cult to be “satanic”:
“There are followers who have broken away from the Roman Catholic Church,” he said. “Then, there are the followers who are Catholics who do not have a solid foundation in their faith. Out of ignorance, they go to the extremes. This leads to superstition. It is harmful because it turns religion into magic.”
This raises a lot of interesting points I think. Perhaps the best one though for conversational purposes might be: what’s the difference between religion and magic, and how does one turn into or influence the other? It’s interesting that in Catholicism, you’re taught to worship people who were essentially magicians: Jesus, saints, prophets - people who had and exercised strange otherworldly powers. But at the same time, you’re taught that it’s unacceptable for you to try to attain these powers yourself. So maybe a provisional distinction between religion and magic (based on the case of Catholicism anyway) is that in religion, magic is something that only happens to somebody else.
Mixed into this conversation we also might take a look at some of the racist rantings of the Santa Muerte cult’s enemies. There’s an article at this site about the cult which arose some rather heated comments in reaction:
i don’t care what they’re worshipping but i do care about what they do as an act of worship. for example, this cult was started by drug lords. every lowlife worships this thing: pimps, prostitutes, drug trafficers, murderers, rapists, thieves, kidnappers, etc.. they’re actually emboldened in their crimes because they believe the “goddess” protects them in their criminal activity.
I do have to wonder if the people who believe this is merely a criminal cult simply feel that way about all Mexicans and Latinos? Luckily, another person just comes right out and says it:
It just once again proves how superstitious and primitive the Mexicans really are! […]
If you ask me, I’ll bet most of their “divine visions” come from drinking large quantities of Tequila in the sun!
I’m not going to waste my breath trying to pick apart any of that, but include it here merely as illustration of the many and varied reactions to this phenomenon.
For more info on St. Death, you could try Wikipedia’s short entry. ReligionNewsBlog also has a category with several articles on her. And Google Images has a bunch of cool pics of her. If anybody knows of a good online retail source for St. Death statues and artifacts, please include it in the comments below.
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September 23rd, 2005 at 1:02 pm
I had another weird dream the other night, where I was introduced to a “boneman”, he asked why I looked at him in such distress, don’t you know I can look like anyone or anything”, and proceeded to morph into different public figures. These dreams are just getting too weird, lately. My interpretation was that death is an illusion, he was very amusing this boneman and kept cracking jokes, he even morphed into Dick Cheney once. Seems funny to think of the Grim Reaper as having a sense of humour.
September 23rd, 2005 at 1:09 pm
i have seen some fabulous santisima muerte statues on ebay in three colors:
red, for witchcraft having to do w. love & sex
white, for healing & spiritualism
black, for protection & hexing
Jesus says in the Bible “hoc est me corpeum” - this is my body - he turns bread in flesh and wine into blood
the slurred & shortened version of this phrase, latin repndered as rhyming nonsense - “hocus pocus”
LOL
ABracadabra comes from abraxas
Now here’s one thing I wonder
The catholic church condemns folk saints, condemns magic
why can’t catholic priests do magic though? Theoretically theyre channelling the power of god, a catholic priest should have the juice to be able to help someone get a job, or get laid, or heal from a disease, whatever
I read this article recently where the author was arguing that the Church condemned magic, condemned gnosticism as irrational, primitive, demonic, etc and so chased all of the worl’ds mystery and magic into hiding until people lost the ability to see non-christian gods
once this trend started, it was hard to stop. ove rthe centuries, Chritsianity promoted itself as something rational and reasonable as the world was emptied of enchantment
but the emptying didn’t sop once christianity’s main rivals in pagan europe had been de3feated. it kept going and going util now chritsianity has been emtied of magic and miracles too. And so now many people reject chritsinaity on a rational basis
its like scientists who invent a genetically engineered bacteria to kill a certain crop-destroying pest and are horrified to discove rthat now their invention has killed all the pests and is continuing on to eat the crop as well!
Thats one thing hinduism has going for it, it doesn’t set itself in opposition to varying impulses - abstract psychologized theology, down & dirty folk magic - it embraces & absorbs all of them
FUck, if you can’t beat’em join ‘em.
September 23rd, 2005 at 1:12 pm
BTW you know who else is cool is St. Simon (aka Maximon). This is a guatemalan folk st. who is depicted as a dude in a black suit sitting in a chair with a rifle and a bag of gold. Very powerful “crossroads” type figure representing cthonic forces - a real “man of the world.” Anywho this is anothe rexample of a saint who came to catholicism from the outside and is not accepted by the vatican, his actual origins are as a Mayan underworld deity.
St. Judas is another cool one. And of course the Devil also!
September 23rd, 2005 at 1:22 pm
of possible interest:
ebay 1
ebay2
September 23rd, 2005 at 1:31 pm
holy crap! that santa muerte enclosed in a pyramid is so awesome and creepy!
Gina, you should check out some of the medieval art of the bonesman appearing to people of all different walks of life. His morphing ability sounds very similar to some of these depictions.
September 23rd, 2005 at 3:01 pm
some of the crankiest people i`ve ever met are catholic priests, so it` no surprise that they`d react this way to someone else making up saints. i`ve found it deeply theraputic the yell FUCK YOU to people who can be so ignorantly judgemental and use an international bureacracy to back up thier hostile position.
life is about celebrating our existance through ritual. we do it in all that we do. we have a little ritual for getting the keys out of our pocket and putting it in the lock, we have a little ritual for putting cream and sugar in our coffee. we have a little ritual for butting our soccer boots on before a game. the catholics don`t have a franchise on that,though they`d like to. fuck `em.
September 23rd, 2005 at 3:52 pm
ebay 2:
current bid 16.66
haha
September 23rd, 2005 at 4:26 pm
yeah from lex luthor
maybe its made out of kryptonite?
September 23rd, 2005 at 4:48 pm
Yeah, man, I kind of want it. It’s so weird and compelling…
September 23rd, 2005 at 6:07 pm
i’m sure this has already occurred to you as well
September 23rd, 2005 at 6:28 pm
oh of course
September 23rd, 2005 at 6:40 pm
In a lot of cultures the death spirits are bawdy and profane and like to play pranks
“What’s so funny? Care to let me in on the joke?”
Things must look differnet from their perspective
September 23rd, 2005 at 6:41 pm
Wait I’m confused, is this talking about Santisma Muerte or the Skull’n'Bones club?
September 24th, 2005 at 1:10 am
In my Phoenix store I sell some Santisima Muerte stuff alongside my Day of the Dead merchandise (although a Venn diagram of these two things would show little overlap). What I know about this saint comes from customers who share stories with me. The saint is benign, if respected properly, and many people pray to it for a variety of reasons. I suspect its veneration may be regional; I observe that most Mexicans or people of Mexican descent from the northern part of the country get into this, although there are some artists in Mexico City who are dabbling in the imagery. Like other forms of “folk Catholicism” throughout Mexico and the Southwest US, the Church frowns on it because it is the Spiritual outside of their top-down power structure. I have had devout Catholics come in my store and frown on the Santisima Muerte stuff. And by the way, I’ve never heard anyone refer to the Muerte as a woman, although in Spanish grammatically she definitely is.
September 24th, 2005 at 10:40 am
Hm, thanks Robert! That’s just the kind of first-hand information I like to hear. Much appreciated.
November 15th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
[…] rayer to old PKD. But, if you do, what’s the difference between that and praying to La Santisima Muerte or Jesus Malverde, or even the more mythical, nonhistorical tra […]
July 17th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
[…] It’s kind of hard not to use a word like “cult” after hearing such things. This whole thing about Ana, Bella and Mia makes me think immediately that perhaps they are tapping into some kind of actual spiritual entities (or maybe have created their own). Maybe they are beautiful skeletal beings who thrive on the offerings of food these girls (and men) are giving to them, instead of eating for themselves. Some of the obsessive and unhealthy behaviors associated with these disorders may in fact be keeping with classic characteristics of spirit possession or fixation. I also heard recently that La Santisima Muerte, the Mexican folk saint appears to people as a beautiful woman’s corpse drained of blood. So, hey who knows? I wonder how people’s attitudes towards these things would change if they understood that they were possibly feeding a malicious spirit with their life energy? […]