Death has always been the single greatest motivating force in all of human history. Whether it be our basic instincts of hunting and gathering to fend off starvation or an ultimatum of war that serves as a rallying cry to unite us for the cause of the greater good, nothing has shaped the history of humankind like death. Moreover, many of humankind’s greatest cultural and architectural wonders have been created in honor of death: the pyramids of Egypt, the mausoleum and terra-cotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi, the Taj Mahal, St. Peter’s Basilica, Westminster Abbey, and much more. Even if not directly dedicated to death, many of the greatest books, songs, and achievements throughout the ages have been the result of a single person, aware of his or her own inevitable mortality, who wanted to make a mark on the world and leave a legacy by which they would be remembered.
As humans, one of our greatest powers over all other living beings on earth is our foresight, but this evolutionary gift comes at a great cost. Yes, we are the only animals that possess advanced logical reasoning skills and can envision far beyond our current reality, but we are also the only ones that know that we are destined to die. While many people, unable to cope with this predetermined fate, paralyze themselves with fear and anxiety, a growing number of people see it as an ultimate source of power.
These people are the devotees of the Spirit of Death herself, La Santa Muerte. Rather than shy away from thoughts of our impending mortality, those who are devoted to Death utilize this uncomfortable foresight, like the greats of history, to make a difference in the world here and now. Thinking “we have forever” might be more cheerful, but in no way does it compare to the motivational power of “we’re only here temporarily.”
Understandably, the modern veneration of Death (the Spirit of Death with a capital “D,” not the physical act of death with a lowercase “d”) is a type of faith that is still mostly underground and in the shadows of society. This is because death makes people uncomfortable, especially in the Western world. With medical breakthroughs and stronger environmental laws, infant mortality rates are at an all-time low while the average life-span continues to rise, thus making death all the more unfamiliar. And even when a death does occur, we have an entire funeral industry to take care of all things postmortem so we never have to interact with death or see it on a daily basis. In the not too distant past, it would have been very difficult to find someone who wasn’t well familiar with death and their own mortality, but nowadays, the first time many of us confront the reality of our own death is at the DMV when we have to check that box deciding whether or not to be an organ donor.
Death has become so unfamiliar to us that it is seen as almost unnatural, when it is the most natural thing in the world. Not too long ago, I was also a “death denier.” I had graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a degree in global socioeconomics and another degree specializing in Latin American studies. My life focus was on living people and how they interacted with other living people. Even when I lived in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and the Amazon jungle, Westernization was everywhere. Death was hardly ever present to inconvenience the lives of the living, let alone openly venerated by a group of devotees. It wasn’t until I returned to Los Angeles that I came face to face with the mystery school of La Santa Muerte … on a dare, no less.
One of my best friends had been looking for new and exciting things to do while hanging out in the heavily Latino-populated gateway cities of L.A. He mentioned a place that was rumored to hold midnight Masses by candlelight around a giant statue of the Grim Reaper. Growing up with a love for the macabre, nurtured by movies like The Addams Family and Beetlejuice, I was instantly fascinated, and he dared me to go in and talk to one of “them,” a devotee of Death. Admittedly, I was a bit scared, especially by the Grim Reaper statue that went to the ceiling and took up a good sixth of the building, but my anthropological curiosity was stronger. That subsequent conversation with a priestess of Santa Muerte lasted only a couple of minutes, but a fire had been lit within me to learn more. I wanted to be like them, able to talk openly about death without fear and using its mysteries to live a more connected, magical life here and now during my living years. Thus began my initiatory journey into the mystery school of La Santa Muerte.
This book is the accumulation of everything I have learned since then about La Santa Muerte, her unique brand of death magic, and the growing number of people who use her dark philosophy as a credo for life. The morbid and magical information found within these pages is the result of not only objective academic research and interactions with modern devotees, but also of firsthand experience as a devotee myself and practitioner of cross-cultural religious and spellcrafting traditions.
The book is written in a three-part format designed to be approachable to novice practitioners of magic, veteran spellcasters, students of academia, and those just curious about this macabre veneration of Death and its philosophies for the living.
Part I introduces you to the cross-cultural sociology of how humans have interacted with death and the historical origins of how people first came to venerate La Santa Muerte.
Part II dives into an overview of the mechanics involved in death magic, giving a general tutorial of the magical side of La Santa Muerte, including what tools we use in spellcasting, how we use them, why we use them, and the scientific psychobiological effects they have on us.
Part III contains actual spells from the Santa Muerte tradition, arranged in a step-by-step format that is easy to follow, covering everything from money, love, and healing to protection, lust, and legal magic, and more.
Until now, the history and magic of La Santa Muerte have been kept buried underground, shrouded in a black veil of esoteric Latino mysticism. With their spellcrafting tradition condemned as “infernal,” those who dare to seek out Death as an ally have disguised it as an eccentric form of Roman Catholicism to hide its darker secrets from the judgmental public. A veneration of the macabre that unabashedly counts the LGBT community, feminists, prostitutes, thieves, drug smugglers, prisoners, police, and armed services members among its most devout. You are about to learn the unearthed wisdom of Death that has for so long been predominately passed down in Spanish language oral traditions.
So come and face your fears head-on. To deny death is to deny one of the greatest unchanging truths of life. It is a truth that, once accepted, will lead to a greater understanding of life. Much like the innumerable funerary rituals throughout the world, the philosophy of La Santa Muerte is intended for the living. It is not a manual on how to die, but rather, how to enjoy life because it won’t last forever. We are here on earth to be human, not gods. And the human experience involves death, a lesson not to be feared, only understood. Now is your chance to learn the lessons of death without having to die. Let your old life and preconceived notions of death pass away. Your new, magical life is about to begin.