Tim, still not ‘buying’ the idea that our bastions of cultural power (that they are!) are out to help us meet our so-called needs, especially with regard to their awareness of the power of folk saints.

Well, I wasn’t there so much talking about folk saints, as the idea that companies which were once organized more hierarchically are noticing that there are alternate ways to organize, approach and interact which may be both more successful and natural.

What I was saying is that I think the increase of technologies which restructure information according to this new paradigm will gradually influence outward to the world at large. I see this in general as being very positive, and I think that since corporations have so much money and social influence, then that’s very likely a place to watch the action unfold.

When people start to realize that they can make their own tags (or folk saints), they become less and less happy when other people try to do it for them. But then, that’s only a certain percentage of people who prefer it that way. Others will always want somebody else to give them the answer, or will conform to whatever is socially dominant. Corporations, churches, etc have always known this and will always exist to fill that role. The key change I think is that we will see more and more institutions who recognize the other segment of people who want to make our own way, and will need to adapt to us as we do that in order for them to survive at all.

I was recently in Guate and made sure to visit 3 of the main Maximon/Saint Simon “casas” or temples. Some refer to him as the “drinking, smoking saint”, or even the “evil” saint depending on which holy-roller or tourist guide you are (cautiously) getting info from. They also refer to him in whichever way they want to. No one really knows his origin and many theories abound. (Simon Peter? Simon the Zealot? Judas? A wealthy 19th century Ladino merchant? Simon Magus? Maximon = a play on a mayan word for tobacco? Synchronous incarnation of Mayan deity Mam?)

Each of the three sites I visited housed completely different variations of San Simon. The trickster and mediator role of San Simon/Maximon is strong in all variations. Maximon of Santiago de Atitlan, my favorite, is very fond of stogies and beer. San Simon of San Andreas Iztapa, the most elegant version, is famous for receiving prostitutes. One variation, San Simon of Zunil, is a doll dressed like a motorcycle bandit sitting on a bizarre glass and steel throne, who is put to bed at 7.00 pm each night (well-made bed behind curtain adjacent to the throne) and woken at 8.00 each morning. I witnessed one ceremony where the house shaman/caretaker intervened with San Simon on behalf of a couple with relationship problems — candles were lit, prayers recited, incense burned, and cheap rum drunk and sprayed from the mouth all over the participants (the San Simon doll was even tipped back and given a swig from the bottle - the rum passing through a small hole in the doll for that purpose). The ceremony was much more involved and complex than i make it out to be here and amazing to behold.

Does anyone know of a good site or book which represents a decent study of Mayan, Mexican, Central American folk saints (specifically, San Simon, as I now feel rather intimate with him??)

Tim, still not ‘buying’ the idea that our bastions of cultural power (that they are!) are out to help us meet our so-called needs, especially with regard to their awareness of the power of folk saints. I fear that will surely be another means to overall abuse, just as they have abused so much else. ‘fraid the evidence of corporate malfeasance outweighs anything positive. I see them as the canonical (capital, profit, growth) hierarchies we are seeking liberation from, and that any concessions to the masses are merely to placate unavoidable realities so as to continue onward in whatever control they think they need to have over us. Kinda like the Catholic church (now more than before) allowing the Maya to have their synchronous saints while still linking up with government and multinationals to maintain control over the overall socio-economic situation, something I think not ultimately in their best interest. Start to mix corporatism with folk mythology or religion and you get I think a pretty deadly cocktail. Certainly open to alternative views on this. Maybe the protestant fundies infesting central and south America now (who have no tolerance whatsoever for native or local saints) are more akin to the corporations I fear – and the Catholic church, lesser of the two evils, represents the more flexible, less totalitarian corporations. Dunno, either way, it ain’t really good for the locals when all these structures are linked into “godless” neoliberal capitalist policies.

I used to live there, and while there is more stuff up here and more poverty down there, there is quite a bit of hope and joy in Mexico. Folk saints are a result of a different cultural worldview, not a desperate self-delusion to sugar-coat an intolerable and hopeless existance.

if i’d known about jesus malverde i would have bought a statue of’em

i like the idea of a saint specifically for miscreants

St Cyprian (patron saint of occultists and sorcerors) is cool too

Cyprian was a heathen magician of Antioch who had dealing with demons. By their aid he sought to bring St. Justina, a Christian virgin, to ruin; but she foiled the threefold attacks of the devils by the sign of the cross. Brought to despair Cyprian made the sign of the cross himself and in this way was freed from the toils of Satan. He was received into the Church, was made pre-eminent by miraculous gifts, and became in succession deacon, priest, and finally bishop

Mexicans have a way of creating “saints out of figures who give them a glimmer of hope in their everyday lives,”

geez, those wacky backwards Mexicans! they’re all kinds of runnin’ around makin’ shit up down there! gimmee a break, like we don’t do the same damn thing with corporate logos . . . .