The Colors of Death
“Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him.”
~e. m. forster, howards end
Now that you have a multicultural understanding of Death and are familiar with the symbology of La Santa Muerte, it’s time to learn about her different dominions of magic. In general terms, a dominion is a genre of magic such as money, love, healing, or protection. To help our subconscious minds connect with the different energies of each dominion, a specific color is assigned to a specific dominion of magic. Within the Santa Muerte community, these colors are called aspects.
Most of the colored aspects rely on the Hermetic Law of Correspondence mentioned in the previous chapter. In the philosophy of Hermeticism, there are a total of seven of these cosmic laws that govern everything in existence. Metaphysical in nature, they are said to date back to the mystery schools of ancient Greece and Egypt.
The role that these seven Hermetic Laws play in regard to the mystery school of La Santa Muerte is of great importance. Essentially, they explain the interconnectedness of the physical world and the spiritual world, and by understanding these ever-present connections, you can understand the fundamental laws of how to work with the energy of both worlds. In the same way the laws of thermodynamics provide the basic, unalienable building blocks to understand and work in the field of physics, likewise do the Hermetic Laws provide the basic, unalienable building blocks to understand and work in the field of energy manipulation, especially in regard to color. Thus, on the fundamental level, in all magical traditions one will find these same seven Hermetic Laws because they are the basic laws of magic itself.
Though fascinating, and essential for all magical work, a complete and detailed explanation of Hermeticism is a subject that could fill volumes of books all on its own. For those who are serious in becoming professional-level experts in Santa Muerte magic, I highly suggest doing individual research into Hermeticism. The most well-known book on the subject is the infamous Kybalion, but due to its high level of advanced symbolism and cryptic code writing, it tends not to be very novice friendly.
A more practical and understandable book on the subject (and a personal favorite of mine) is 49 Lost Secrets of Peace, Love, and Money by the ancient/alternative Christianity philosopher B. Dave Walters. It is a beginner-level e-book that explains the seven Hermetic Laws in such a way that one can take them apart, break them down into manageable bits of information, and see their effects in everyday life. But for now, let’s go back and explain a little more about the Hermetic Law of Correspondence in order to understand the inherent magic of colors.
As I mentioned earlier, the Hermetic Law of Correspondence is better known by the maxim “As above, so below. As below, so above.” At its simplest core, it explains why there are no coincidences in life. Beyond the larger “coincidences” of meeting certain people at certain times in life and the alignment of the stars with major events on earth, all magical systems most often focus on the smaller “coincidences” of life.
The two most common and basic examples of the Law of Correspondence’s presence in magic are the Synchronicity of Colors and the Doctrine of Signatures. All tools used within the magical system of the mystery school of La Santa Muerte utilize one or both of these examples. They are exclusive to no single religion or tradition of magic, and the ways in which they are used by devotees of La Santa Muerte are often similar to the ways they are used by other magical groups throughout the world.
The Synchronicity of Colors basically explains that everything of a certain color has the same or similar magical properties. While a few people believe this to only refer to something’s natural color, most magical practitioners have a more liberal view on this synchronicity and extend it to anything that is also artificially colored with paints, dyes, makeup, and so forth. This means that all blue things carry the same or similar magical energy, all red things carry the same or similar magical energy, and so on for all other colors and shades in between. This synchronicity also applies to the unique colors of black and white. Black, being the result of the absence of color due to the absorption of light, has a mix of all magical energies focused inward. White, being the result of the reflection of all visible colors, has a mix of all magical energies focused outward.
While that may all seem far-fetched to the uninitiated, the efficacy of colors to manipulate energy is well documented by the scientific community. Most validation comes from the field of psychology where the use of color has been shown to affect a person’s mood: blues and cool colors tend to have a calming effect upon a person while reds and warm colors tend to have an exciting effect. Artists throughout the ages have used this phenomenon to purposely elicit a certain emotional response from their audiences. For example, Picasso’s Blue Period works have a more naturally depressing and introspective effect upon the onlooker than works from his Rose Period.
In terms of magic, colors have the same psychological effect, which is essential for uniting the conscious and subconscious minds into a single focus. But the Synchronicity of Colors goes beyond the realm of psychology. Each color also has inherent magical energies.
Take the color green, for example: in Hindu and tantric/yoga traditions, green is often associated with the heart chakra, energetically located mid-chest near the heart. The heart chakra is the center of love, and in all things associated with love, we can find a correspondence to the color green. Green is one of the main color symbols of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Green is the color of springtime, the season of new romances. Green is the color of emeralds, a stone used in love magic. Green is also the color of love’s greatest saboteurs: envy and jealousy. Furthermore, green foods such as leafy vegetables have been proven to lower cholesterol and blood pressure, both of which greatly affect the heart. Green tea is famously praised for its ability to lower the risk of heart disease, more so than black tea, white tea, and herbal teas. Even the color green itself is the result of combining the primary colors blue and yellow, just as the green chlorophyll of plants is primarily the result of blue water and yellow sun. All things green are interconnected through the Law of Correspondence.
Another color with many obvious parallels is red. Used often in sex magic, red is the color of the root chakra, energetically located between the genitals and the anus. The physical act of sex is dependent upon the physiological effects of the blood in the human body, and when exposed to our eyes, blood is a deep red color. Sex also increases body temperature, and besides being naturally associated with heat, red and its shades are also the color of hot and spicy foods such as chili peppers and their derivatives (paprika, sriracha sauce, etc.). The strawberry is considered a sexual food, and red makeup such as lipstick and blush is used to enhance a person’s sexual attractiveness. Red cranberries are healthy for the urinary system, which uses the sexual organs for excretion. Most infamously, red has been associated with prostitution in various cultures around the world, creating the term “red-light district” for an area of a city where ladies of the evening can be easily found awaiting johns. All things red are interconnected through the Law of Correspondence.
While innumerable examples and parallels can be given for all colors, the main thing to keep in mind is that everything of the same color shares the same or similar magical properties. The more you work with colors and learn of their magical energies, the more you will see the interconnected Synchronicity of Colors all around you in all things through daily life.
Aspects of La Santa Muerte
La Santa Muerte herself has seven main colors: black, white, red, gold, green, blue, and purple. Sometimes brown is included as an eighth color or as a replacement for one of the other colors, but this tends to be the exception rather than the norm. These seven colors are called aspects in the Santa Muerte community, and in addition to the seven main aspects (plus brown), there are a number of other colors and shades that have popularity within the community, such as copper, silver, orange, amber, yellow, and bone. But the main seven are really the only ones a devotee will ever need to do all magic.
More traditional and conservative devotees of La Santa Muerte only regard three of these as “true” aspects: black, white, and red. To them, all others are superfluous and unnecessary, in much the same way that the three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) are the colors from which all other colors manifest via mixing and blending. While this viewpoint does have logical reasoning, it is, by far, a much less common viewpoint in the community.
Technically, Death is beyond colors, and even the colors visible to the human eye are only a fraction of the totality of colors that could exist in the universe. So, there is no absolutely correct answer to the number of main aspects pertinent to La Santa Muerte, and those who say otherwise either have a very self-limiting view of Death or are trying to convince themselves that they are “more enlightened” devotees because they know the “truth.” From my experience in the Santa Muerte Mysteries and exploring the mysticism of Hermeticism and a multitude of world religions, the middle path tends to be the best path, though not the only path. The seven-aspect Santa Muerte provides a good middle ground between the very restrictive three-aspect Santa Muerte and the ultra-liberal infinite-aspect Santa Muerte.
Each of her aspects is usually depicted by the color of her cloak. When not being petitioned or utilized in a spell, La Santa Muerte is shown in her signature black or white cloak. The main consistency is always to leave her bones white, but this is more of an artistic tradition than a rule. For rituals and spellwork, some people will have multiple statues of La Santa Muerte, each wearing a different colored cloak, and some will just have a general skeleton figurine and sew little pieces of cloth onto her. Creativity and ingenuity can be just as effective as purchasing power when it comes to magic. The list below provides all the information on the major aspects of La Santa Muerte.
Black
Black is the default color of La Santa Muerte’s cloak. It is used primarily in protection magic and in hexes. Since black is the result of the absorption of light and the absence of color, it is widely associated with death (the absence of life) and witchcraft (whose stereotypical black robes are worn to absorb energies into spellwork). In the Taoist symbol for yin-yang, the yin energy of the universe is symbolized by the black half of the circle, which is often misinterpreted as evil, but is better understood as passivity and receptivity. Thus femininity, intuition, night, soft, cold, wet, and yielding are all categorized under black yin energy. For these reasons, the black aspect of La Santa Muerte is used in protection magic, where the objective is not to project energy, but rather intuitively foresee negative energy and take away its harmful effects and neutralize it, or, if that’s not possible, to become invisible to the harmful energy and avoid it altogether. Similarly, it is used in hexes and harmful magic to soften and weaken the intended target and cause them some sort of loss.
White
White is the other default color of La Santa Muerte’s cloak. It is unique in that it is not relegated to a single domain of magic and that it can be used in any and all spellwork. Since white is the result of the reflection of all visible colors, it has the magical energies of all colors in it. For this reason, the white aspect of La Santa Muerte is the universal “go-to” color when in doubt of which specific color to use in a spell. White is the only color used in purification rituals. When we purify something we expel and push all the toxins and negative energies away, just as all the colors in the visible spectrum are expelled and pushed away to make something appear white. In the Taoist symbol for yin-yang, the yang energy of the universe is symbolized by the white side of the circle, which is often misinterpreted as good, but is better understood as aggressiveness and projecting. Thus masculinity, logic, day, hard, warm, dry, and giving are all categorized under white yang energy.
Red
Other than the traditional black and white, red has become the most popular alternate color for La Santa Muerte’s cloak. This aspect is predominately involved in sex magic, both to impassion a lover and to keep him or her chaste. The synchronicity of red can be found in erotica, blood, and the root chakra, and it is the symbol of basic instincts such as hunger, thirst, sex drive, and survival. In some depictions of the Taoist yin-yang symbol, the white half is substituted by the color red, thereby creating an association between red and the yang traits of masculinity, aggressiveness, warmth, day, and so on. While deep reds are best for sex magic, lighter shades of red (such as pink) can be used for dating magic and romantic quests where sex is not the main focus of the relationship (symbolized by the lessened intensity of the color). Because red is the harshest and most powerful color in the visible spectrum, it is also associated with aggression (as in the term “seeing red”) and is used in magic that requires one to aggressively pursue something such as one’s dreams. In esoteric stores that sell Santa Muerte merchandise, the paraphernalia of her red aspect is often the highest seller of all seven main colors.36
Gold
The gold aspect of La Santa Muerte is a close second in popularity to her red aspect. Gold is the prominent color for money magic. Devotee entrepreneurs will often have a gold-cloaked Santa Muerte figurine in their shops, hidden or in public view, as a charm to attract prosperity. For many people living in the United States, green is often associated with money more so than gold is, because green is the dominant color of U.S. currency. But since the color of modern currency varies from country to country, green is not universally symbolic of wealth. Throughout time, gold has always been associated with wealth. From expensive and beautiful jewelry of gold metal to the wealth of golden wheat and grains after a bountiful harvest, gold subconsciously symbolizes abundance. Moreover, gold/yellow has a synchronicity with the solar plexus chakra, which is the energy center of personal power; when feeling threatened, we subconsciously tend to cross our arms and protect our solar plexus. Additionally, the amount of self-empowerment one feels can be directly correlated with one’s sense of career success and financial security.
Green
The green aspect of La Santa Muerte is used in legal and courtroom magic. In the subconscious, green is associated with nature, which, in turn, is associated with the “natural way of things” and “natural truths.” Ideally, the justice system is meant to get to the truth of a dispute between two parties and then deliver a judgment that effectively puts the parties back into their natural states before the dispute occurred. This ideal, however, is not always realized, and so devotees of La Santa Muerte will utilize her green aspect to ensure that the court proceedings play out according to true, natural justice. Ironically, those who know that they are truly guilty tend not to use this green aspect, instead preferring black to evade and become invisible to punishment. The color green also has synchronicity with the heart chakra and is used for love magic. While shades of red are used for sexual and romantic love, green is primarily used for self-love, which truly is the greatest love of all. A final interesting point about her green aspect is that it is also used in healing magic, specifically for autoimmune conditions such as HIV/AIDS, which is a rampant issue in the gay community, a community of people known for having trouble truly loving themselves and accepting who they are.
Blue
The blue aspect of La Santa Muerte is primarily used in wisdom magic. A popular color among students and teachers, spellwork involving the color blue is often utilized with the objective of absorbing and retaining knowledge and then subsequently being able to successfully communicate that information via teaching or performing well on exams. Much like the open sky and the ocean deep, blue is symbolic of mental clarity and the profundity of information in this world. Blue also has a synchronicity with the throat chakra, which is the energy center of communication. The throat is also home to the thyroid, a gland responsible for maturation and growth, two things often correlated with knowledge and wisdom.
Purple
The purple aspect of La Santa Muerte is primarily used in healing magic and transformational magic. While technically every color has its own specific association with healing, purple is the universal color for all healing, whether the ailment is physical, psychological, or spiritual. In most magical systems (including that of La Santa Muerte), there is a common belief that all diseases are essentially psychosomatic, meaning that bodily illness is the result of mental patterns and ways of thinking. Though controversial to nonmagical people, the acceptance of this truth is crucial for success in all healing magic. For a more in-depth and complete understanding of this metaphysical concept, I suggest reading You Can Heal Your Life by the profoundly wise author Louise L. Hay. For our purposes here, though, an acceptance that one’s thought patterns directly affect one’s bodily health is all that is necessary. The color purple has a synchronicity with the third-eye chakra (located on the forehead between the eyebrows), which is the energy center of enlightenment and vision. A correlation is often made between the third-eye chakra, the brain, and the pineal gland, which is the light-sensitive production center of both melatonin (which regulates sleep) and dimethyltryptamine (the human body’s only known natural hallucinogen). Interestingly, purple plants often have similar effects upon the human body, such as lavender, which is used to help induce sleep, and grapes, which are fermented and served as an alcoholic beverage to alter one’s mind, and whose excess can lead to migraine headaches and sensitivity toward light.
Brown
The color brown is sometimes accepted as an additional main aspect of La Santa Muerte or a replacement for one of the aforementioned aspects, but this varies from person to person. In general, the majority of devotees see brown as an in-between color that is less utilized and less important than the previous colors, yet more utilized and more important than any other alternate or additional color. This is fitting since brown is the aspect of La Santa Muerte most often utilized in necromancy. Subconsciously, brown is frequently seen as a very supportive and foundational color, like the roots of a plant, the trunk of a tree, the wooden frame of a house, and the stability of the earth. In the same vein, our ancestors and the people who inhabited this planet before us have all together formed the foundational basis of our modern society and the world today. To reach out and communicate with the spirits of the dead is to come in contact with our roots as a living being. The color brown is also symbolic of dirt, which forms the middle of the earth between the verdant top and the molten core, and so we use brown in necromantic spells since we are trying to form a bridge between the physical world and the spiritual world. Additionally, autumn has strong associations with brown, and it is the time of the year when plants begin to die en masse and the veil between the worlds becomes its most thin.
Rainbow
No discussion of the aspects of La Santa Muerte is complete without mention of her popular seven-color rainbow depiction adapted from the Seven African Powers candle of Santería. Although the colors and the order in which they appear tend to vary, the generally accepted (and most popular) rainbow aspect of La Santa Muerte is as follows from top to bottom in thick horizontal stripes: silver, copper, gold, red, blue, green, and purple. It is primarily used in a single, all-encompassing spell rather than a single category of spellwork itself. While the use of individual aspects produces a more focused and specific effect, the use of this multicolored rainbow aspect produces a less focused and broader effect. A good analogy would be the use of a hose in projecting water: the more focused the water is, the harder it will hit a specific target, and the less focused the water is, the more softly it will hit multiple targets. Specifically, the seven color correspondences are: silver = luck, copper = breaking of negative energies, gold = abundance/prosperity, red = love/sex, blue = wisdom/connection to spirituality, green = justice, purple = health/transformative thinking. Because it is all-encompassing, her rainbow aspect is often confused as equivalent to her white aspect, but this is not the case. The white aspect (in addition to its own dominion) can be used as a substitute for any one color, while the rainbow aspect is only used when targeting all aspects simultaneously.
The Doctrine of Signatures
In addition to the Synchronicity of Colors, the other major example of the Hermetic Law of Correspondence’s involvement with Santa Muerte magic is the Doctrine of Signatures. Although in its strictest sense this doctrine only applies to botanical magic due to its origins in ancient herbalism and early medicine, to most devotees, its definition is expanded into the realm of all things organic and inorganic.
Along the lines of the Synchronicity of Colors, the Doctrine of Signatures refers to a thing’s shape. If something is shaped similarly to something else, according to this doctrine these two things are energetically connected and correlated. This was first categorized and defined into a system during the eras of ancient Greece and Rome, but humans have been using the Doctrine of Signatures since we were first capable of rational thought. Naturally, it was first used as a way to find medicines due to its simplicity, and although simple, it proved consistently reliable: plants that look like human genitalia can be aphrodisiacs, walnuts look like little brains and are good for the brain, cloves look like little teeth and are good for toothaches, leafy greens have ridges on their leaves that look like the twisting and turning digestive tract and are a good source of fiber.
The visual similarity, however, does not have to look like a part of the human body for it to be medicinally helpful. The practical function of a thing’s physical design can signify that, in spellwork, its magical function is the same. For example, take the plants burdock and nettle, which are thistle-like with numerous pointy spines similar to barbed wire that can cut human flesh and leave a lingering sense of burning irritation. Naturally, this evolutionary trait is designed to keep harmful animals away, but interestingly, if ingested as a tea, both burdock and nettle act as a tonic that flushes out toxins. When looked at through the lens of the Doctrine of Signatures, this correlation makes sense since both burdock and nettle are defensive plants that keep out harm from its personal area, thus naturally, when consumed as a tea, they keep out harm from our personal area (the body). In spellwork, burdock and nettle are often used in protection spells to keep harm at a distance.
To the nonmagical community, this and countless other similarities between plant shape and plant medicine are thought of as superstition and explained as mere coincidence. As you are learning, though, there is no such thing as coincidence. Even in modern times, when scientific expeditions set out to places such as the Amazon jungle to find new medicines, they often employ the assistance of local indigenous tribes. The researchers are amazed at how consistent and precise the locals are in using plants to heal themselves despite their lack of familiarity with Western botany, chemistry, and toxicology. Moreover, the researchers are also frequently left in awe over the fact that, although the jungles of the Amazon are home to an array of poisonous plants, the locals never accidentally poison themselves in the search for new medicinal plants. When asked how they can always tell the difference between a helpful plant and a baneful plant, as well as for which specific ailments to use which specific part of the plant, the answer is always the same across various tribes. They “talk” with the plant spirit and/or they “read” the language of the plant expressed through its shape and colors.37
Even in the herbalism of medieval Europe, the visual logic of the Synchronicity of Colors and Doctrine of Signatures predominated. With mass illiteracy and a severe lack of double-blind scientific experimentation, how could the local healers have known what to use, when to use it, how to use it, and how much of it to use? Any single mistake and they would have undoubtedly lost the community’s trust since the death of a person due to medicine given to them was often followed by accusations of harmful witchcraft or deliberate poisoning. Even nowadays, to err in medicine can cost someone their career, as often seen in doctors who make surgical mistakes or pharmacy technicians who make a small imbalance in encapsulating prescriptions. Even if they didn’t lose their jobs, no one would ever again trust their skills.
Sympathetic Magic
Though there are numerous other examples that could be given for the Synchronicity of Colors and the Doctrine of Signatures, the important thing to keep in mind when working with Santa Muerte magic—and magic in general—is that there are no coincidences in this world. If we look hard enough, we can see patterns in everything, and these patterns repeat themselves in everything else. In Hermeticism, this falls under the Law of Correspondence, since the patterns above repeat themselves in the patterns below, and the patterns below repeat themselves in the patterns above. For magical practitioners who don’t subscribe to Hermeticism, the technical terminology for this phenomenon is sympathetic magic.
In almost every magical tradition (Santa Muerte magic included), sympathetic magic is an important and fundamental part of all spellwork. Much like how the indigenous tribes of the Amazon “talk” to and “read” the language of the plants, we must learn how to “talk” to the universe and “read” its responses. But because the universe cannot verbally speak to us or physically write down a response, it uses the patterns, signs, and symbols of sympathetic magic through the Synchronicity of Colors and/or the Doctrine of Signatures. To communicate with the universal forces involved in magic, it is necessary to be able to speak the language, and that language is sympathetic magic.
If this is all new to you, think of sympathetic magic through this example. Imagine that you are in a foreign country where you cannot speak, read, or write the language. You are very hungry and are in need of food, but there is no way to communicate your needs to anyone around you. Thus you are forced to express your desires and receive feedback through symbolism. First, you wave your hand at someone with the palm open, symbolizing that you want their attention. Next, you repeatedly curl your fingers toward yourself, symbolizing that they should approach you. Once they do, you smile to show that you are nonthreatening, and then you express your need. Because you are hungry, you might rub your stomach and follow it by facing your palms toward the sky and shrugging your shoulders, or maybe, instead, you pretend to hold some food and take overly dramatic bites out of it. If they understood, they might draw you a simple map of the closest restaurant or fast food place. Just to make sure you understand, you point to the direction of the restaurant and nod your head up and down. To affirm your assumptions they will repeat the nod, or, to show you that you are incorrect, they will shake their head back and forth and then point in the true direction.
Without speaking a single word, you have successfully communicated with someone by the use of signs and symbols, successfully expressing your desires and understanding their feedback on how to obtain what you want. This is how communicating with the magical energies of the universe works, including the magic of La Santa Muerte.
The most famous pop culture examples of sympathetic magic in action are the notorious voodoo dolls of Afro-Caribbean magical traditions. Through the creation of a doll that looks like someone, that doll becomes energetically connected to the person whom it depicts, and whatever is symbolically done to the doll, the person will symbolically experience. Never are the acts meant to be literal, though. Poking pins into the doll’s eyes won’t suddenly cause the person to suffer sharp eye pain. Remember, a magical practitioner speaks to the universe through the language of sympathetic magic, and sympathetic magic is never literal. For that previous example, depending on the magical intention, pins in the eyes might symbolize the forcing of that person to see the pain they’ve caused, or even to help them by symbolizing the granting of sharp eyesight.
The reason the universe does not speak in a literal fashion is because the universe does not speak to our literal, logical mind, but rather it speaks to our intuitive and symbolic subconscious. This is why it is so important to be able to focus both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind together on the same frequency. Already we are accustomed to understanding our logical minds, as doing so is a necessity to function in society, but we have forgotten how to understand our subconscious mind. The only time most of us communicate subconsciously is when we dream, and because our subconscious mind does not function in literalism, it can only express itself and understand new information through symbolism. This is why dreams are often so strange and meaningful yet never direct and logical.
By definition, our subconscious mind is out of our conscious control. Still, it is speaking to us all the time through symbolism. Much like how our eyes are constantly seeing various objects all at once yet we only really notice those objects that we focus on, so too is our subconscious mind constantly receiving information from the world around us, but because most of us don’t focus on symbolism, most of us don’t notice this information. By learning symbolism, you can become aware of when the subconscious mind is receiving new information, and you can, in turn, program your subconscious mind in the language it understands.
We may not be able to control the subconscious mind, but we can guide it with our conscious minds with training. When both the conscious and subconscious minds are on the same page, sympathetic magic can take place, and the energies of the world can be understood and manipulated according to our will.
A final word on the Law of Correspondence and sympathetic magic. For all of you who are new to magic, this chapter may have been a little intimidating—filled with technical terms, examples, and analogies to better explain concepts that can never be fully understood. It can be challenging. In many ways, you are learning a new language: the language of the universe, the language of magic. And like any new language, perfect fluency seems quite daunting when you are just starting out. Yes, you will make mistakes, you will mistranslate things, you will be at a loss for how to express your desires, and you will make a fool of yourself. But that’s all part of the learning process. By first learning the basics, and then building upon them, you will slowly begin to see the patterns of a language, and what seemed to make no sense in the beginning now makes perfect sense. But the only way you can learn a language is through practice and persistence.
Continue reading this book, and immerse yourself further into the language of Santa Muerte magic. Experiment and try things as you go along. If you have the determination and the wisdom to know that mistakes are part of the path, then you’ll eventually get to where you want to be in reading the signs of the universe and speaking right back. I believe you have the power to be fluent in this new, magical language. After all, there are no coincidences in life, and the fact that you are reading this book now is a sign that you are ready to learn to co-create magic with La Santa Muerte herself.