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Santamuerte.Pdf Death Welcomes Everyone Santa Muerte (Holy Death or Saint Death) is the female personifi cation of death. This powerful and mysterious folk saint provides blessings including safe passage to the afterlife. Santa Muerte is the patron saint of those who live on the fringes of society, as well as those who face violence and death. She is hailed as a potent and powerful guardian and protector. Death is the great equalizer, and Santa Muerte potentially grants miracles to anyone and everyone. Santa Muerte is a complete ritual guide to working with this famous—and infamous!—Mexican folk saint. Go beyond the sensational headlines to dis- cover the truth about why Santa Muerte is so beloved by so many. Author Tracey Rollin presents simple, straightforward methods for working with Holy Death that may be used alone or easily incorporated into your own magical practice. “Tracey Rollin’s very well written book Santa Muerte: The History, Rituals, and Magic of Our Lady of the Holy Death avoids a dogmatic approach to Santa Muerte. The author, who hails from New Mexico, where Doña Sebastiana, Lady Death, presaged Santa Muerte, incorporates more research on Santa Muerte than other books aimed at devotees.” —Professor R. ANDREW CHESNUT, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint www.redwheelweiser.com U.S. $16.95 is edition rst published in 2017 by Weiser Books, an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC With oces at: 65 Parker Street, Suite 7 Newburyport, MA 01950 www.redwheelweiser.com Copyright © 2017 by Tracey Rollin All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechan- ical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages. ISBN: 978-1-57863-621-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request Cover design by Kathryn Sky-Peck Interior by Frame25 Productions Typeset in Adobe Devanagari Printed in Canada MAR 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Chapter 1 Introducing Santa Muerte, the Skeletal Lady of Mexico Who Is Santa Muerte? Santa Muerte, or Holy Death in Spanish, is a folk saint who is believed to be the feminine embodiment of death. Her modern form comes to us from Mexico, where she is styled as a female Grim Reaper gure. She is oªen depicted as a skeleton wearing a long robe and carrying a scythe, but with added feminine features such as jewelry, ©owers, and ©owing hair. Her devotees describe her as a warm, friendly, and convivial spirit who is delighted by the antics of the living and who enjoys interacting with them. Santa Muerte has power over everything that can be touched by death and decay, which gives her an incredibly broad scope of in©uence. Since life ©owers before it fades, Santa Muerte cures illnesses and addiction. Since fortunes can quickly change, she showers her devotees with money and prosperity and untangles legal problems. She also provides ironclad protection from harm, cutting short with her scythe the curses and maledictions of others. Because death touches on everything, her knowledge and wisdom are unparalleled. She empowers her devotees to deepen their understanding and strengthen their creativity; like necessity, mortality is the mother of invention. Because death touches every- one, she may also throw open the doors of social in©uence as well as attract a wide variety of lovers. Santa Muerte holds the keys to the underworld as well as other planar realms, and she may unlock their gates to allow communication with spirits of the dead as well as other entities. Since death and dying both have the power to transform your consciousness, Santa Muerte is also a powerful patron spirit of magic. She may assist in shaping and empowering the consciousness of devotees, deepening their wisdom, strength- ening their willpower, and expanding their awareness. ese three things translate to increased magical power, making Santa Muerte the natural ally of both witches and magicians. Even this is not an exhaustive list of Santa Muertes broad portfolio of powers. Because she is the face of death incarnate, her capacity to act is limited only by her devotees capacity to ask. It is deeply ingrained within many of us to openly deny what we really want because we are afraid of being viewed as greedy, sin- ful, or cynical. For example, many people ask spirits for help with winning money in the lottery. Oªen these requests are lled with prom- ises to use the winnings to help the less fortunate, such as giving large sums of money to charity. If this is done honestly as a form of spiritual bribery, it can be quite e®ective. Some spirits respond well to being paid for their services, such as with charitable dona- tions made publicly in their name. However, making such prom- ises to simply mask your greed will actually have two di®erent e®ects. First, spirits tend not to respond well to deception. Not 2 SANTA MUERTE only is being deceptive itself very rude, but you are also telling the spirits that you think they are stupid enough to be deceived. Since no one likes being insulted, spirits will respond poorly—if at all. Second, making such promises also weakens the power of your request, since you are wasting time and energy trying to convince a spirit that you truly desire to donate millions to charity when actually you dont. Since this attempt will fail anyway, making these kinds of false promises is an ultimately self-defeating practice. Many people try these tactics because we believe that friendly and helpful spirits will not help a person whose desire to win the lottery is rooted in greed, as greed is thought to be destructive and evil. e kind of spirit that would fulll such a request is oªen not the kind of spirit that many peo- ple would choose to ask for help. Santa Muerte is notable because she is not concerned with the underlying motivations driving the requests of her devotees. She assigns no particular moral weight to any kind of request, because, to death, everything is a zero-sum game. Whether you dedicate your lottery winnings to feeding the homeless or to retiring to a beach in Fiji, you will still die in the end. erefore, Santa Muerte is far more likely to respond to a greedy but heartfelt request than one that is diluted by fake feelings of altruism. Because she is so nonjudgmental, her willingness to intervene is limited only by her devotees willingness to ask for her help. Because she assigns no moral weight to any kind of request, her response also extends to using her power to harm other people. is has led to Santa Muertes condemnation by religious and civil authorities and to her followers oªen being considered suspect. It is the destructive side of Santa Muerte that has helped her garner so much attention in recent years. e US Federal INTROD UCING SANTA MUERTE 3 Bureau of Investigation labels Santa Muerte as a narco-saint that is idolized by drug trackers; it blames her cults for shock- ing acts of violence and ritual slayings committed on both sides of the US–Mexico border. Cults dedicated to Santa Muerte fre- quently operate within drug cartels because it is believed that she will grant their members supernatural protection and aid. e media oªen sensationalizes stories of her statues found in graveyards and at roadsides, apparently leª there as components of spells designed to harm specic targets. Her veneration is not condoned by the Catholic Church. In fact, the Catholic Church condemns Santa Muerte as a Satanic gure. To the police, the appearance of Santa Muerte at a crime scene presents a dark omen indeed. During an interview with a law enforcement ocial from New Mexico, I was told about a local drug bust conducted by the US Drug Enforcement Admin- istration. While raiding a cartel compound, the agents found an entire room turned into a temple dedicated to the worship of Santa Muerte. e main feature of the temple was a Santa Muerte statue made out of a female skeleton wearing an elaborate black silk wedding dress. e ocial explained to me the primary reason that authorities fear Santa Muerte cults and thus specically target them for eradication. Its not that they fear supernatural repercus- sions. What they fear is how reckless and violent drug trackers can become when they believe they have supernatural protection. Such a criminal is incredibly dangerous and capable of anything. In an attempt to curb cartel violence, the Mexican military speci- cally targets Santa Muerte shrines for demolition in an attempt to demoralize drug cartel members. Even if the authorities do not believe in Santa Muerte, they are forced to respect her power. 4 SANTA MUERTE Santa Muertes ocial condemnation has done little to slow her meteoric rise in popularity. Interest in Santa Muerte has exploded in recent years, fueled by increased immigration and sensationalized media reports linking her to the activities of drug tracking cartels. is increased exposure has helped Santa Muerte successfully transition from being a mere folk saint to being a virtual pop culture icon. For example, in the popular television series Breaking Bad, the season three episode No Más opens with two cartel assassins belly-crawling through a dusty village to pray at a Santa Muerte shrine. She has also been featured in the popular television series American Horror Story, Criminal Minds, and Dexter, among others.
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