Death As A Woman Santa Muerte and Religi PDF

Death as a Woman: Santa Muerte and Religious ‘Othering’
in Mexico
Manon Hedenborg-White
Abstract
During the past decade, worship of the Mexican folk saint Santa Muerte has been
on the rise. Santa Muerte, literally translated as ‘Holy Death’ or ‘Saint Death,’ is
thought to be the female personification of death, and is usually depicted as a
skeletal figure robed in black, red or white and carrying a scythe. Although a
reverence for death has long been part of traditional Mexican culture, exemplified
by the hugely popular celebrations of Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead),
Santa Muerte is a highly controversial figure. Persecuted and condemned as satanic
by the Catholic Church, the skeleton saint is strongly connected to the lower
classes and criminal elements of Mexico. Moreover, veneration of her by several
well-known criminals and drug cartel members as well as sensationalistic news
reports linking Santa Muerte worship to murder and human sacrifice have added to
her sinister reputation. There are also indications that the Santa Muerte cult can
provide a spiritual framework that legitimises acts of extreme brutality. However,
the Catholic establishment’s demonization of Santa Muerte is also part of a
religious power struggle, as most members of her cult invoke her aid for
benevolent ends. Candles, statues, incense and rosaries connected to Santa Muerte
are available in botanicas and stores selling Mexican imports. She is also
considered a protector of homosexual, bisexual and transgender people, and is
often invoked in same-sex marriage ceremonies in Mexico. Furthermore, she is
strongly associated with love, and often invoked by women wishing either to
punish or bring back wayward lovers or unfaithful husbands. This chapter will
introduce this feared and beloved folk saint and attempt to explain the growing
popularity of this allegedly ‘evil’ figure, examining how and why Santa Muerte is
constructed as an ‘Other’ of the Catholic Church and what this means for those
who venerate her. I will also analyse how perceptions of what constitutes
‘authentic’ religion versus superstition or witchcraft are socially constructed and
shaped by power relations.
Key Words: Santa Muerte, folk Catholicism, magic, Mexico, social class, gender,
drug war, evil.
*****
1. Introduction
During the autumn of 2013, I visited the city of San Antonio, in Texas. The
city’s large Mexican population and relative proximity to the border has made an
impact on its religious landscape, like a growing number of American cities, San
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All Rights Reserved.
236 Death as a Woman
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Antonio has a number of so-called botanicas; shops selling candles, incense,
statues, spell books and other religious supplies aimed mainly at practitioners of
Latin American and African diaspora religions such as Santeria, Candomblé, and
Palo Mayombe. When visiting one such store I agreed to a reading with a santera,
a priestess of Santeria. I made the unfortunate choice of showing up to our
appointment wearing a ring I had bought at a different botanica, bearing the image
of a figure resembling the Grim Reaper: the Mexican folk saint Santa Muerte.
The santera, immediately noticing the ring, was clearly unnerved: every card
she brought forth during our reading seemed to indicate evil, death and destruction.
She stated firmly that the cards indicated I was in legal trouble, and proceeded to
ask me in a conspiratorial whisper whether I had been trafficking drugs. She
cautioned me against continuing my presumed involvement with Santa Muerte.
Repeating a relatively common belief among non-adherents, the santera claimed
that Santa Muerte killed the family members of those who broke their promises to
her, and implied that something along these lines would happen to me: ‘I don’t
mess with her. She will fuck you over,’ she warned me. 1 Our encounter ended on
an ominous note: as I left, the priestess called after me: ‘Good luck with the
Santisima Muerte. You’re gonna need it!’
Why was the santera so unsettled by a seemingly innocent piece of cheap
jewellery? Why did she appear to associate the icon with such terrible evil?
Although the priestess’s attitude towards my supposed pact with the saint of death
sheds little light on the multifaceted nature of the Santa Muerte cult, it is indicative
of the saint’s uneasy relationship with society. Literally translated as ‘Holy Death’
or ‘Saint Death’, Santa Muerte is regarded as the female personification of death
itself. The Catholic Church has condemned her as evil and satanic and news reports
have portrayed her as the patroness of the Mexican drug cartels. 2 Statues and altars
honouring Santa Muerte have been uncovered at the homes of numerous drug
traffickers. She is immensely popular in Mexican penitentiaries, and her assumed
connection to drugs, violence and human sacrifice has been emphasised in popular
TV shows Breaking Bad, Dexter and True Blood, and films such as Oliver Stone’s
Savages (2012). 3
However, available research indicates that the vast majority of Santa Muerte’s
devotees are not cartel affiliates. Like many Latin American folk saints, the
skeletal lady of death is seen as a protector of the poor and desperate, an agent of
vengeance to scorned women, and a defender of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender (LGBT) community, prostitutes, and others who are marginalised by
the Catholic Church. To some devotees, the suspicion with which Santa Muerte is
viewed by the Church and government seems only to make her more appealing,
either due to displeasure with institutionalised Catholicism or a wish to ally oneself
with forces that instil fear in one’s enemies. However, most of her worshippers are
also practising Catholics.
Manon Hedenborg-White 237
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Thus, this chapter aims to problematize the image of Santa Muerte as evil. In
order to do so, it is necessary to adopt a critical attitude towards popular cultural
depictions as well as the claims of sensationalistic media and religious competitors,
while simultaneously avoiding the trap of apologeticism and the inclination
towards glossing over the more problematic aspects of the cult. The purpose of this
chapter is to provide an understanding of how and why Santa Muerte is constructed
as an evil ‘Other’ of mainstream Catholicism in Mexico, as well as to consider the
importance of her ‘otherness’ to her devotees and outsiders. In order to understand
her cult, I will argue, it is necessary to realise that the ‘otherness’ of her position,
her alleged ‘evilness’ – like that of many religious practices unfounded in official
doctrine – is culturally constructed and, in this case, the result of a struggle for
religious hegemony in Mexico. This constructed otherness provides a forum from
which underprivileged groups can challenge established power relations. This is
particularly important in light of Santa Muerte’s gender and that of her devotees:
similar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, she is commonly regarded as a maternal figure
and her marginality and femaleness appears to render her particularly appealing to
women. However, institutionalised Catholicism’s continued harsh condemnation of
the cult is also likely to add to its appeal among criminal elements seeking a
fearsome symbol with which to increase their power.
2. History, Beliefs and Practices

Despite the rapidly growing number of devotees (roughly 5 million on both
sides of the Mexican border) and the relative and increasing visibility of the cult in
both Mexican and U.S. media in recent years, the Santa Muerte cult – but for a few
exceptions – managed to go unrecorded in both colonial and government records as
well as, until recently, the media. Therefore, there is a lack of sources documenting
the origins, size and development of her cult. Most devotees take little interest in
the saint’s historical origins, being more preoccupied with her putative miracle-
working powers. A popular explanation among historically interested devotees is
that Santa Muerte is the modern, Catholicised avatar of Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec
death goddess and queen of the underworld, whose cult was presumably driven
underground by the Spanish conquistadors only to resurface in the 21st century. 4
While difficult to prove historically, this origin myth still reveals something
interesting about the saint. The Santa Muerte cult has an uneasy relationship with
institutionalised Catholicism, and has been condemned repeatedly by members of
both the Mexican Catholic Church and the Vatican. Thus, although there is
insufficient historical evidence to prove that the cult is a surviving branch of
indigenous, pre-Christian culture, this narrative indicates the willingness of some
Santa Muerte adherents to distance themselves from the Church.
In Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (as of yet the only
academic monograph on Santa Muerte in English), Latin American historian
Andrew Chesnut outlines what he believes to be the most plausible historical
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trajectory of the cult. While pre-Christian death worship in Mexico likely paved
the way for the figure of Santa Muerte, Chesnut contends that it seems more likely
that she originated in medieval Western Europe. 5 During the years of the bubonic
plague, which obliterated a third of the population, the looming presence and
familiarity of death inspired artists and clergy to begin personifying death as the
skeletal, scythe-wielding Grim Reaper. When the Spanish settled in the Americas,
they brought the symbol of the Grim Reaper and his female counterpart, La Parca.
Chesnut writes that some indigenous groups may have interpreted these imported
figures through the lens of their own cultural heritage and seen the personifications
of death to be saints in their own right. This was not what the Church had intended,
and, according to Chesnut, clerical persecution of worshippers of such skeleton
saints forced them underground where they would remain for many years. 6
The first specific references to Santa Muerte appear in the colonial record in the
1790s, which mentions the occurrence of secret ecstatic ritual gatherings centred
on a deathly skeleton figure. 7 However, continued harassment by the Church
ensured that Santa Muerte devotees remained secretive. In the 1940s and 50s,
anthropological studies in various parts of the country revealed cases of love
sorcery involving a skeletal figure whose aid was sought by women needing help
in matters of the heart. This saint was primarily invoked by women seeking to
punish and/or return unfaithful husbands and boyfriends. 8
According to Chesnut, Santa Muerte’s aid seems mainly to have been sought in
romantic affairs until the late 1980s although, as stated above, the sources
documenting the worship of Santa Muerte prior to this time are scarce. However,
the search for a missing college student in 1989, which led police officers to the
ranch of a Cuban-American drug trafficker, revealed a darker aspect of the saint.
Police uncovered a large amount of human remains and ritual items buried on the
property, among them a statue of the grim reapress, and learnt that the drug lord
and his gang were involved in an unconventional fusion of Mexican witchcraft and
Afro-Caribbean religion. Santa Muerte’s role in the drug gang’s worship is unclear,
and the source material does not lend itself to any conclusions regarding the saint’s
involvement in violent or criminal matters prior to this discovery. 9
The skeleton saint achieved national notoriety in 1998 thanks to the infamously
brutal kidnapper Mochaorejas (Ear Chopper) who brought a figurine of the saint
with him when he was incarcerated. 10 Since then, the media has reported numerous
cases where police officers have discovered altars and statues to Santa Muerte at
the houses of known narcos, and she is frequently presented as the ‘patron saint’ of
the drug cartels. 11 However, Chesnut emphasises that her following includes
people who work in close proximity to death on both sides of the law; Santa
Muerte enjoys almost equal popularity among the police officers and prison guards
who deal with the cartels on a daily basis. 12
Numerically, violent cartel members constitute a small portion of Santa
Muerte’s adherents, and the saint’s different roles are illustrated by the fact that her
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statues and candles come in different colours. The red Santa Muerte, called ‘La
Roja’, is connected to love magic and red statues and candles continue to be the
most popular, indicating that Santa Muerte is still primarily invoked for non-
violent purposes. Chesnut notes that this aspect of the saint is particularly
important to underprivileged women, who face enduring sexism in Mexican
society and to whom the loss of a male partner can have severe financial
implications. 13 The black Santa Muerte, ‘La Negra’, is favoured by those who turn
to her for protection against harm or to help in inflicting it, including the drug
cartels.
While the Santa Muerte of love magic is still the most popular, ‘La Negra’ is
certainly gaining a wider following. This can be connected to the escalation of
drug-related violence in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s. Until the 1990s,
Colombian drug traffickers were largely in control of the drug trade to the United
States, the world’s largest market for selling narcotics. However, a series of
counter-offensives against the Colombian cartels by the U.S. government as well
as the increasing sophistication of their Mexican colleagues enabled the Mexican
cartels to claim the upper hand. 14 The struggle to conquer the market and
outcompete the Colombians resulted in increasing levels of violence in the late
1980s and early 1990s. On coming to power in 2006, former president Felipe
Calderón initiated a full-scale drug war, which resulted in a veritable explosion of
inter- and intra-cartel violence claiming tens of thousands of lives. 15
In 2002, worship of Santa Muerte went public when quesadilla vendor
Enriqueta Romero decided to display a statue of the saint visible to her customers.
Within days, her neighbours and customers had filled her small kitchen with
flowers and candles to honour the saint. Enriqueta Romero has since established a
formal shrine that has had hundreds of thousands of visitors to date, and she still
runs a regular service in honour of Santa Muerte. This service attracts thousands of
visitors on the first day of every month. 16
Santa Muerte can be seen as a manifestation of the centrality and familiarity of
death in Mexican culture. Chesnut writes that there is little historical connection
between Mexican customs such as the Day of the Dead and Santa Muerte, but
claims that Mexican society’s view of death as something familiar may have
facilitated the saint’s rise to popularity. 17 It is also likely that this view has
impacted adherents’ relationship with the saint. Hispanic studies scholar Frank
Graziano argues that death in Spanish American Catholicism is regarded more as a
change of state than a permanent withdrawal from the world of the living and that
living and dead people are seen as part of ‘a kind of extended family, a community
divided between this world and the next.’ 18 The dead, Graziano explains, are
thought to protect and aid living family members and function as intermediaries
between human and divine spheres. The most famous expression of this attitude
towards death is the celebration of Dia de los Muertos on November 1-2, when
Mexicans visit the graves of their deceased loved ones to leave flowers, light
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candles, make offerings, and often share meals to celebrate with the dead in the
cemetery. 19
The familiarity with death may help explain why Santa Muerte, who might
otherwise be considered a thoroughly fearsome figure, is revered among her
devotees as a kind of celestial godmother or sister. This contrasts sharply with the
image of the deadly cartel patroness; her allegedly amoral nature aside, Chesnut
notes that the Santa Muerte cult bears many resemblances to the veneration of the
Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s most beloved saint. 20 Chesnut reasons that the
greater female-centeredness of Mexican folk Catholicism caused partly by
Guadalupe’s immense popularity may partly explain why Santa Muerte has
retained her female gender, while other similar skeleton saints in Central and South
America are male. 21 Devotees’ descriptions and prayers often convey a sense of
love and respectful kinship with the figure. Some of her nicknames such as the
‘Bony Lady’ and the ‘Skinny Lady’ imply an even greater sense of familiarity and
a light-hearted relationship that is characteristic of many folk saint cults. 22
While there is no formal doctrine, and devotees are free to design their own
prayers and rituals, most borrow heavily from Catholic tradition. Many prayers to
the saint include a supporting cast of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary and other
saints and feature prayers such as the ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Hail Mary’, the sign of
the cross, and the use of rosaries. 23 As is the case with many folk saint cults,
however, devotion to Santa Muerte is pragmatic and contractual. 24 Devotees
communicate with her mostly through prayer, and petition her to grant them all
kinds of favours both large and small. As Santa Muerte is un-canonised and her
role is not fixed in any official, universally accepted doctrine, her identity is
malleable. This allows devotees to see her in the position best suited to their
current need, whether it is as a repairer of broken marriages, a bestower of
financial success, a healer, a protector from harm or corrupt police officers, or as
the grim reapress with the power to destroy enemies.
The relationship between saint and devotee is reciprocal: if the miracle is
granted, the petitioner is obligated to give something in return, such as an offering,
a candle, a recital of prayers or a pilgrimage to a Santa Muerte shrine. In several
ways, Santa Muerte devotion is thus similar to the veneration of other Spanish
American folk saint cults. Graziano writes:
The more usual relations with a distant, silent God (and even the
personal but formal relations with canonized saints) are displaced
in folk devotion by an intimate familiarity with saints who are
conceived as otherworldly extensions of their communities. The
relation between devotee and folk saint is comfortable and
interactive: a dialogue, a reciprocal exchange. 25
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As is the case with many folk saints, many of her devotees regard her as a
supernatural family member; they identify with her and feel an affinity with her,
because she is believed to be like them. 26 This close relationship and sense of
affinity is a significant aspect of her appeal, especially so in combination with her
marginalised status, as will be demonstrated in subsequent sections. She is
approached with intimacy, and is thought to enjoy the same food, drink and
smokes as her adherents; popular altar offerings include alcohol, cigarettes and
candy. At Enriqueta Romero’s shrine in the Tepito neighbourhood of Mexico City,
many devotees choose to offer shots of tequila, cigars or cigarettes, and
marijuana. 27 Candles are ubiquitous on Santa Muerte altars, and flowers are
another popular offering. Glasses of water are also nearly always present, and are
believed to cleanse and purify the altar as well as quench the thirst of the saint. 28
Contrary to her largely one-dimensional media image as the sinister
benefactress of the cartels, and in addition to her position as a love sorceress, the
Santa Muerte of today is considered to be a celestial multi-tasker whose powers
can be equally useful in many areas of life. Among her devotees, Santa Muerte has
a reputation as the most powerful saint in the divine hierarchy – sometimes even
more so than the Virgin Mary – and is famous for reputedly granting all kinds of
requests. 29 As I will attempt to show below, Santa Muerte’s malleable identity,
made possible by her dislocation from Catholic orthodoxy and her reputed efficacy
also appear to contribute to her popularity.
In the documentary Saint Death (2009), a worshipper at Romero’s shrine
explains that criminals and members of the LGBT community turn to Santa Muerte
because, unlike the Catholic Church, she is unprejudiced and does not discriminate
on the basis of sexual inclination. Neither does she judge the ethically questionable
means of survival regarding who can go to heaven and who cannot. The same
documentary also features anthropologist Sylvia Guiterrez of the Universidad
Ibroamericana. Guiterrez says that Santa Muerte is believed to care for the people
that the Church does not accept, and claims that the recent growth of Santa Muerte
worship originated in prisons, mainly among convicted narcos and assassins who
would not have been welcomed by the Church. 30 Santa Muerte’s apparent
popularity among groups of transgender sex workers (see below) is further
indication that her position as an ‘Other’ of the Catholic Church as well as the
Catholic political establishment is an important aspect of her appeal to some
devotees.
3. Evil Religion/ Non-Religion: Santa Muerte and the Catholic Church

The generally flexible identities of folk saints allow devotees to approach their
miracle workers with all kinds of demands according to their current need.
However, Graziano notes that many folk saints are stereotyped and reduced to one-
dimensionality by non-believers. For instance, the cult of San La Muerte – an
Argentinian folk saint similar to Santa Muerte – is regarded as diabolical and
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threatening, connected to witchcraft and the black arts, although most devotees
invoke the saint’s powers for benevolent ends. 31 Nonetheless, Santa Muerte has
become increasingly popular in the Mexican underworld. While her flexible image
renders her accessible to a highly heterogeneous crowd of devotees, Santa
Muerte’s malleable identity and reputed amorality may also facilitate her spread in
criminal circles. It is reasonable to assume that her sinister image and the lack of
regulatory mechanisms in the form of institutionalised leadership among her
adherents may boost her suitability as a source of spiritual legitimacy for acts of
brutality.
All of this notwithstanding, it is worth repeating that a majority of Santa
Muerte’s devotees do not operate in the world of organised crime, and most
consider themselves Catholic. However, spokespersons of the Catholic Church
have denounced Santa Muerte as a satanic idol, among others the president of the
Mexican Bishops’ Conference, José Guadalupe Martín Rábago in 2004. 32 In May
2013, the Vatican issued its first statement on the cult: its cultural minister Cardinal
Gianfranco Ravasi accused the saint’s devotees of sacrilege and anti-religious
behaviour, claiming that ‘Religion celebrates life, but here you have death . . . It’s
not religion just because it’s dressed up like religion; it’s a blasphemy against
religion.’ 33 He has compared the Santa Muerte cult to the spiritual practices of the
Italian Cosa Nostra, stating: The mafia, drug trafficking, and organised crime have
nothing to do with religion, even if they use the image of Santa Muerte. 34
The above quotes exemplify a discursive strategy commonly employed against
folk saint devotion and other forms of popular belief. In contrast to ‘authentic’
religion, in this case represented by institutionalised Catholicism, the Santa Muerte
cult is reduced to its most controversial expressions. Although numerically
speaking criminal cartel members constitute a small portion of the cult, all of the
saint’s devotees are accused of blasphemy, idolatry, and of being driven by greed
and malice rather than the lofty aims of religious orthodoxy. The image of the saint
conveyed in statements like those above is decidedly sinister, and cannot only be
explained by reference to the ‘content’ of the cult.
In some cases, the Church’s attitude towards Santa Muerte seems to mirror her
sensationalistic portrayal in popular culture. In Oliver Stone’s movie Savages from
2012, two Californian marijuana growers are threatened by a Mexican cartel,
whose brutal enforcer Lado (Benicio Del Toro) worships Santa Muerte. In the
Catholic News Service of the movie Savages, reviewer Joseph McAleer writes that
the saint is ‘a perverse idol which makes a blasphemous mockery of Catholic
imagery and specifically of Our Lady of Guadalupe.’ 35 While this quote comments
on a fictional motion picture rather than actual events, it still demonstrates the
same attitude of reducing worship of Santa Muerte to blasphemy and idolatry
rather than regarding it as a legitimate form of religiosity.
As noted above, secular and Church persecution of the Santa Muerte cult is
nothing new. In 2005, the Mexican government revoked the legal rights of a Santa
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Muerte church in Mexico City, and the government has also demolished shrines to
the saint along the U.S. border. 36 On October 28, 2013, the Mexican Bishops’
Conference issued another statement further condemning worship of Santa Muerte.
Although this statement is too long to be repeated in full here, it equates so-called
‘popular piety’ (devoción popular) – devotional practices that are not founded in
Catholic doctrine – with idolatry, and it presents the cult as evil and demonic,
warning that worshippers of Santa Muerte may lose family members or suffer
misfortune. In this sense, the statement from the Bishops’ Conference contains
something of a paradox: it denies the existence of Santa Muerte, while
simultaneously repeating the belief that the skeleton saint may claim the lives of
adherents’ family members and also warning devotees that they may become
victims of demonic possession. 37
Although the discovery of Santa Muerte altars and statues at the homes of
known drug lords as well as the saint’s popularity among Mexico’s criminal
elements seem to endorse the Church’s attitude, Chesnut argues that orthodox
Catholic animosity towards Santa Muerte must be seen in the context of the Latin
American religious landscape. Largely Catholic since the Spanish conquest, the
past decades have seen a decline of Catholicism in Latin America. 38 This is mainly
due to the increasing influence of Pentecostalism, but also the competition of other
religious movements such as those of Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, New Age
groups and Spiritists. 39 Therefore, Chesnut writes, the Catholic Church is keen to
condemn its competition, in order to maintain its hold on Latin American society. 40
From this perspective, while there is a connection between Santa Muerte and the
Mexican drug trade, the above statements from the Church must also be considered
as parts of a strategy to minimise the influence of religious competitors. 41 The fact
that the Church accuses Santa Muerte’s devotees of engaging in non-religious
behaviour is significant, in light of the fact that the socially constructed distinction
between ‘authentic’ religion and what is perceived as ‘popular piety’ has
historically been used to legitimise the marginalisation of the latter.
4. Power Struggles and Popular Religion

Discursive Dichotomies
As I have demonstrated, the Santa Muerte cult has an uneasy relationship with
the Catholic political establishment in Mexico as well as the Catholic Church, both
in Mexico and abroad. When attempting to understand the religious power
struggles that partly explain this state of affairs, it is important to take factors of
gender, social class, sexual orientation and ethnicity into account. A large portion
of Santa Muerte’s devotees belong to those groups of society that are marginalised
and/or underrepresented in or barred from positions of power in established
religious institutions, as well as groups whose religious customs, historically, have
often been considered superstitious or malevolent. 42 In my opinion, the Santa
Muerte cult is a potent example of the kind of unofficial religious expression that is
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usually saddled with the stigma attached to the notion of ‘popular’ religion.
Graziano writes that non-devotees generally regard folk saint veneration as
superstitious and irrational, and that this is reflected in the attitudes of the Catholic
Church. 43
Therefore, the image of Santa Muerte as evil and her devotees as engaging in
religious perversion or blasphemy is partly the result of power struggles regarding
what constitutes ‘genuine’ religiosity – which is constructed as rational, consistent,
and centred around faith in a coherent doctrine that is exclusively connected to one
religion – versus what is considered popular religion or superstition, which is
associated with irrationality and incoherence. Sociologist Meredith McGuire has
problematized this distinction, writing that the notions of official or ‘authentic’
religion and popular religion or superstition are relational, constructed, and shaped
by power relations. The distinction between ‘true’ religion and ‘popular’ religion is
generally created and enforced by successfully established religious institutions –
in this case, the Catholic Church – wishing to maintain their hegemony.
Consequently, the beliefs and practices denigrated by these institutions are simply
considered popular religion. 44 McGuire’s analysis highlights the necessity of
questioning the claims of hegemonic voices, and how the uncritical appropriation
of terms such as popular piety or superstition may serve the interests of the already
privileged. Thus, the Catholic establishment’s responses to the Santa Muerte cult
cannot only be explained by reference to its ‘content’ but must also be viewed as
part of an on-going religious power struggle and quest for spiritual legitimacy.
Throughout history, the constructed dichotomy between official and popular
religion has also been connected to gender and to notions of ethnicity and social
class. McGuire writes that wealthy, white males who have set the norm for what
constitutes ‘authentic’ religiosity are those who have, historically, governed
established religious institutions. This results in a marginalisation of the religious
practices of those groups that have been excluded from positions of power in the
religious hegemony: women, members of the working class and people of colour.
The religious practices of these groups are almost automatically labelled popular
religion, as they are not part of the religious elite. 45
Nonetheless, unofficial religious practices may also become sources of
empowerment for disempowered groups by means of their dislocation from the
regulatory mechanisms and hierarchies of official religion. Anthropologist Lena
Gemzö has also suggested that the notion of popular religiosity, equated with
irrationality, superstition and nature, is strongly associated with women and
femininity. Still, as Gemzö demonstrates, the link between women and unofficial
religion is not merely a discursive construct with no bearing on reality. According
to Gemzö, there is a greater portion of women in positions of authority in
heterodox religious expressions than in established religious institutions: as official
Catholic doctrine is constructed from a male-centric perspective, it is logical that
women in a Catholic society should have a greater tendency to adopt heterodox
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practices that better reflect their embodied experiences. 46 The ability of the Santa
Muerte to function as a source of empowerment for disenfranchised groups due to
its dislocation from Church hierarchies and male-centric doctrine will be addressed
in the following section.
Applied to the current topic, McGuire’s theory of lived religion implies that the
dichotomy between, for instance, orthodox Catholicism and the various folk saint
cults flourishing in Latin America is discursively constructed in a struggle for
religious hegemony, rather than based on the Santa Muerte cult being inherently
more malevolent, superstitious, or irrational than the Catholic Church. The fact that
most of Santa Muerte’s devotees are Catholic is further indication of this.
However, the Church’s active othering of the Santa Muerte cult creates a space for
the renegotiation of hierarchies and empowering disenfranchised groups, and is
also likely to contribute, in some ways, to the saint’s appeal. In the following
section, I will highlight some of the ways in which Santa Muerte’s discursively
constructed marginality has the reverse effect of that intended by the Church.
Redefining Authority
Esotericism scholar Wouter J. Hanegraaff approaches the distinction between
what has been regarded as true religion and superstition in a similar way to Gemzö
and McGuire. Hanegraaff writes that in European history, Enlightenment
philosophers and official religious institutions have required negative Others in
relation to which notions of modernity, rationality, and ‘genuine’ religion can be
defined; in this case, the spectres of paganism, superstition and magic. According
to Hanegraaff, what is today commonly labelled Western esotericism (generally
regarded as an umbrella term denoting a group of philosophical and religious
traditions originating in the 16th century from hermeticism, neoplatonism,
astrology, alchemy and kabbalah) exists as a unified field mainly because of this
discursive process, which has over-emphasised the similarities between a diverse
group of philosophical and magical traditions and treated them as part of a unified
Other, thus constructing a spectre against which normative culture can be defined.
This discursive construction of esotericism began with Protestant authorities during
the Renaissance who wished to eliminate elements of Christian theology that were
thought to be derived from Pagan philosophy and set about studying the history of
Pagan influences on Christianity. The idea that some aspects of Pagan philosophy
such as Platonism can be beneficial as long as they were compatible with reason
and not intermingled with religion gained popularity in the late 17th century,
resulting in a quest to eradicate the supposedly superstitious and magical aspects of
Pagan philosophy. Thus, Western esotericism was gradually constructed as a
unified set of traditions, and the discursive othering of these traditions continued
with Enlightenment thinkers.
However, Hanegraaff highlights the self-reproductive nature and tendency of
discursive constructions to come to life: by constructing a negative Other,
__________________________________________________________________
connecting a group of phenomena and providing them with a counter-cultural
identity by labelling them as silly or dangerous, religious institutions have actually
created a forum in which people critical of the religious hegemony may mobilise
resistance. 47 In the area of Western esotericism, this mainly begun in the 19th
century when an increasing number of esotericists began criticising Christianity,
some turning to pagan or supposedly demonic symbolism in opposition to religious
hegemony. Notable examples include French occultist Eliphas Lévi – particularly
his ideas about the figure of Baphomet – and the controversial British occultist
Aleister Crowley who viewed the Scarlet Woman of Revelation as an independent
goddess with strongly positive connotations and identified himself with the Beast
666. 48 Some prominent Santa Muerte devotees, such as David Romo, who
established the first Santa Muerte church have taken a similar path, finding in the
Santa Muerte cult a religious platform from which orthodox Catholicism and the
Mexican government can be criticised.
Embracing and re-evaluating a mythological antagonist of mainstream religion
or culture is a potent strategy of resistance that can also be seen in the world of
contemporary literature, as is demonstrated in another contribution to this volume.
In her chapter ‘The Evil Witch of Slavic Mythology: Reading Myth, Gender and
’s Novel Baba Yaga Laid an Egg,’ Dunja
Plozonja explores, albeit from a different perspective, how symbols of cultural
otherness can be re-appropriated to promote a subversive agenda. Plozonja
discusses the contemporary novel Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, a modern take on the
Slavic myth of Baba Yaga, and demonstrates how the novel challenges Slavic
perceptions of ageing women and plays with established notions of gender and
identity by presenting a feminist reading of this folkloric villain. By interweaving
images of the Baba Yaga myth with the plot, which features several elderly women
as its main characters, the novel gives back the voice to the ‘old woman’ and draws
attention to this Other who is made invisible and voiceless by contemporary
society’s occupation with youth. At the end of the novel, Baba Yaga (as a
representative of all women) claims a new, more-than-human language, and
Plazonja interprets this as her revolt against the normal human mode of
communication that is ‘mostly used by men and imposed on women.’ 49
Although Plozonja’s analysis concerns literature, her conclusions regarding the
representation of supposedly evil women is shaped by power relations and how
hegemonic discourse can be disrupted through identification with a cultural Other
that can give back the voice to those who have been silenced. This analysis is
relevant to the present topic. Catholic authorities have constructed Santa Muerte as
a sinister ‘other,’ similar to Baba Yaga, who threatens the normative order.
However, part of the threatening power of these allegedly evil female symbols is
their potential to empower those who have been marginalised. The demonization of
such figures creates potent symbols of cultural resistance that sacralise the
experiences of underprivileged and marginalised groups, who can also gain
__________________________________________________________________
confidence through kinship with what is perceived as a tremendously powerful,
celestial mother figure. This is true both of those of Santa Muerte’s devotees who
have an explicitly counter-cultural, counter-Catholic agenda such as David Romo,
and those who see their devotion to the saint as an integrated part of their Catholic
faith.
McGuire and Gemzö have likewise shown how non-institutional religion can
provide a forum for challenging religious hegemonies and established norms, by
means of its discursively constructed separateness from established religious
institutions. By existing outside the Church, expressions of unofficial or ‘popular’
religion are not bound to the strictly regulated hierarchies of accepted religious
institutions, which can allow marginalised groups such as women, the working
classes and people of colour to assume positions of power that would otherwise be
unavailable to them. 50 As so-called popular religion often does not have the same
hierarchies as the Church, it allows women to assume positions of power that they
do not have access to otherwise. The confidence gained from being allowed to
assume such positions can be used to marshal resistance and criticise male
religious authorities. 51
This is certainly applicable to the Santa Muerte cult, whose lack of formal
credos allows poor people, women and others who are marginalised in the
hierarchy of the Catholic Church to formulate understandings of the supernatural
that mirror and sanctify their everyday lives. Creating an understanding of the
world and the divine that recognises and validates the experiences of marginalised
groups and allows them to view themselves as valuable to society and divinity is an
important step towards building self-confidence and security. This in turn can help
provide the basis for discursive platforms from which voices who are used to being
silenced can speak out. It is significant that one of the most popular Santa Muerte
shrines is located in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Mexico City, and that
the person presiding over it, and who helped bring the cult out into the open, is a
working-class woman. While most devotees still consider themselves Catholic,
Santa Muerte’s marginality and separateness from official Catholic doctrine seems
to be an important part of her appeal in this sense, as does her image as someone
who protects those who have been neglected by mainstream society as she herself
has been. Graziano’s analysis of Spanish American folk saints strengthens this
interpretation, as he claims that folk saints by means of their marginalised images
attract people who are similarly marginalised in society.
It is reasonable to assume that Santa Muerte’s status as a counter-normative
outsider contributes to her appeal among LGBT people. Santa Muerte is believed
by both adherents and detractors to be a protectress of the LGBT community, and
David Romo has been officiating same-sex weddings in his church since 2010. 52
According to Howe et al., the skeleton saint is also popular among groups of
transgender sex workers. The authors note that the cult’s lack of formal leadership
and structure, which means that rituals, prayers and customs are often shared
__________________________________________________________________
through word-of-mouth between friends enables Santa Muerte to function as a glue
to keep the community together. The transgender sex workers feel an affinity with
Santa Muerte who, like them, is marginalised and regarded with suspicion by the
Catholic Church. The looming spectre of death in their lives, partly due to the
threat of homophobic and transphobic violence, strengthens their faith in the saint
who is believed to have the power to bestow or withhold death. 53 This
demonstrates how Santa Muerte’s otherness functions both as a source of
identification, and through the non-institutionalised structure of her cult.
One possible explanation for the connection between Santa Muerte and the
LGBT community is that she is believed to accept people as they are, in contrast to
the Catholic Church that only offers conditional salvation. The Church’s
demonization of Santa Muerte contributes to the sense that she is a kindred spirit to
others who have been marginalised by the Church and mainstream society. From
the perspective of gender roles, Santa Muerte is also highly interesting. While in
many ways she is similar to the more conventionally female Virgin of Guadalupe
and embodies characteristics that are traditionally regarded as feminine such as
nurturance and motherly love, she is also regarded as a ruthless provider and brutal
agent of vengeance who can instil fear in the hearts of even the most seasoned
criminals. In this sense, Santa Muerte herself is a queer figure who traverses the
boundaries of divine gender and destabilises established notions of acceptable
womanhood.
While many appear to seek out Santa Muerte due to experiences of poverty,
powerlessness, stigmatisation and marginalisation causing them to feel a sense of
affinity with the controversial saint, others are attracted to her specifically because
of her reputedly non-judgmental nature and sinister image. According to Graziano,
some devotees turn to folk saints because they are often willing to grant favours
that canonised saints would frown upon. Among these favours Graziano mentions
criminal success and cursing enemies as the most common examples. Graziano
explains this by referencing the belief in many folk saint cults that the saint is a
deceased individual, often a criminal. 54 Similar beliefs appear to exist about Santa
Muerte, providing another, albeit somewhat different, example of how the saint’s
position as an ‘Other’ contributes to attracting followers. As noted previously, the
Catholic establishment’s demonization of the Saint and emphasis on her
connection to the drug trade may contribute to strengthening that connection in real
life; by continuing to associate the saint with satanic idolatry and ritual murder, this
discourse helps create a tremendously suitable symbol for cartel members who
wish to boost their fearsome image.
As Graziano notes, folk saints’ existence outside of Church doctrine ensures
their malleable identities, which allow devotees to approach their saint with all
kinds of requests. 55 Santa Muerte’s transition from love sorceress to drug war
patroness is one example of this. Since her cult went public, Santa Muerte’s
subsequent branching out into areas such as health, prosperity, protection,
__________________________________________________________________
education and legal issues further illustrate this point. The skeleton saint’s
reputation as a multi-tasker – and an extremely efficient one at that – is likely to
continue to attract more devotees to her cult.
Another factor that may help boost the rapid growth of the Santa Muerte cult is
political and economic instability. Although the majority of her devotees are not
cartel members, Santa Muerte appears to be strongly connected to marginalised
and desperate groups, and the fear and increasing probability of a violent death for
these people has contributed to her appeal. It is reasonable to infer that the popular
belief that Santa Muerte is mostly venerated by narcos, prostitutes, homosexuals
and members of the underworld becomes self-fulfilling to some extent; the
repeated stigmatisation of these groups as well as the assumption that the skeleton
saint accepts them may contribute to attracting devotees among these groups.
Although media and popular culture may portray Santa Muerte as sinister, this
should therefore not be taken as an indication that her devotees believe themselves
to be identifying with evil. Graziano writes that the narratives surrounding folk
saints often feature ‘corrupt and abusive authorities,’ and that the working classes
who are suffering, political, economic and social injustice are able to identify with
the marginalised folk saints. 56 Chesnut confirms that underworld devotees invoke
Santa Muerte to avoid persecution by corrupt police officers. Thus, turning to
Santa Muerte for protection and aid may be caused by a feeling of having been
wronged by an unjust society, in which justice is not available through established
channels but must be created for oneself. Parallels can be drawn to Plozonja’s
analysis of Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, in which the author constructs the vilified
Baba Yaga as a symbol of resistance and vindication for those whom society has
silenced. For some of her disenfranchised devotees, the figure of Santa Muerte
seems to serve a similar function. Thus, the representation of such figures as evil
may to some extent produce the opposite effect from that which was intended. To
some extent, demonising symbols such as Baba Yaga and Santa Muerte breathe
more power into them.
Thus, while popular religion can function as a forum for combating
marginalisation in religious practice, it has also been observed that unofficial
religion can sometimes be more prone to the legitimisation of violence and
oppression, lacking the controlling and tempering forces of official institutions
with recognised authorities. 57 This also seems applicable to aspects of the Santa
Muerte cult, as there are indications that veneration of the skeleton saint can
provide a spiritual framework for coping with and justifying acts of brutality within
Mexico’s criminal underworld. The cult’s lack of formal structure and the
consequently highly flexible image of the saint, who, as seen above, can function
as a subversive force to increase the power and autonomy of underprivileged
groups, can in this case be co-opted to legitimise the exertion of violence and
oppression.
__________________________________________________________________
5. Conclusion
In this chapter, I did not set out to describe evil, but rather to deconstruct it; to
problematize it and highlight the ways in which this category is often used as a
way of silencing the Others of society. Since she first came to the attention of the
wider public in the late 1980s, Santa Muerte has been increasingly associated with
the Mexican drug war in the public imagination. This connection is not wholly
unfounded, as countless drug busts have uncovered evidence of Santa Muerte
worship among known drug traffickers. Furthermore, the saint’s image as morally
ambivalent, a miracle worker of unrivalled power and as the one who can bestow
or withhold death is likely to make her increasingly attractive in the escalating
Mexican drug war, in which death is a real possibility and the need for protection,
as well as a competitive edge against one’s enemies, is dire.
However, as I have demonstrated above, it is important to note that Santa
Muerte’s position as an Other is also discursively constructed, and that the image
of her cult as sinister, irrational and superstitious is largely affected by religious
power struggles, notions of gender, social class, sexual orientation and ethnicity.
Moreover, it is interesting to observe that Santa Muerte’s constructed otherness
appears to contribute to her appeal. By existing outside of Catholic doctrine, Santa
Muerte maintains a flexible identity that has allowed her to be appropriated for a
multitude of purposes. As a result of its dislocation from established hierarchies in
the Church and secular society, the cult of Santa Muerte also appears to be
attractive to disenfranchised groups who are barred from positions of religious or
secular authority in Mexico. The saint’s otherness can function as a source of
identification for those who feel wronged, disenfranchised and misunderstood by
society, and her cult can provide both forum in which silenced voices can be
empowered and heard and a framework that legitimises brutality through
spirituality. By destabilising gender boundaries and combining aspects of
traditional masculinity and femininity, Santa Muerte provides an alternative to
traditional femininity that may have unexpected implications. Put together, these
aspects of the saint and her cult indicate how supposedly evil female figures are
constructed through a complex process of power struggles, identity formation and
cultural negotiation, and how these factors intersect to create something new and
powerful.
Notes
1
R. Andrew Chesnut, Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 63.
2
For examples of the attitude of Catholic authorities and institutions, see e.g.
Carrie Marcarelli O’Connor, ‘Unholy Devotion: The Cult of Santa Muerte in
Mexico,’ Catholic Exchange, July 13, 2009, last viewed 5 January 2014,
__________________________________________________________________
http://catholicexchange.com/unholy-devotion-the-cult-of-santa-muerte-in-mexico;
‘Vatican Declares Mexican Death Saint Blasphemous,’ BBC News, May 9, 2013,
last viewed 15 November 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-
22462181; ‘Aclaraciones sobre el culto a la ‘Santa Muerte,’’ Notiodiócesis.com,
October 28, 2013, last viewed 15 November 2013,
http://notidiocesis.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1951:ac
laraciones-sobre-el-culto-a-la-santa-muerte&catid=47:-general-&Itemid=76;
‘Church Warns against “Holy War” Called for by Followers of “St. Death”,’
Catholic News Agency, last viewed 5 January 2014,
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/church_warns_against_holy_war_calle
d_for_by_followers_of_st._death/; For other media coverage, see e.g. Paul
Milligan, ‘Eight people from ‘Holy Death’ cult arrested in Mexico over ritual
sacrifices of woman and two 10-year-old boys,’ Daily Mail, March 31, 2012, last
viewed 5 January 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123207/Eight-
people-Holy-Death-cult-arrested-Mexico-ritual-sacrifices-woman-10-year-old-
boys.html; Victor Lopez, ‘Special Report: Santa Muerte, Part I,’ NewsWest9,
November 1, 2013, last viewed 5 January 2014,
http://www.newswest9.com/story/23846216/newswest-9-special-report-santa-
muerte-part-i.
3
Chesnut, Devoted to Death, 16-17.
4
Ibid., 27-49.
5
Ibid, 30.
6
Ibid., 30-31.
7
Ibid., 31.
8
Ibid., 33-34.
9
Ibid., 97-98.
10
Ibid., 96.
11
See e.g. Ibid, 98; ‘11 Arrested in 3 Separate Drug Busts,’ KSL, May 29, 2009,
last viewed 5 January 2014,
http://www.ksl.com/index.php? nid=148&sid=6645690; John Nova Lomax, ‘Santa
Muerte: Patron Saint of the Drug War,’ Houston Press, September 13, 2009, last
viewed 5 January 2014, http://www.houstonpress.com/2012-09-13/news/santa-
muerte/; ‘Santa Muerte Spreading to Other Parts of Country,’ KRGV, March 16,
2012, last viewed 5 January 2014, http://www.krgv.com/news/santa-muerte-
spreading-to-other-parts-of-country/; Robert Holguin, ‘Drug Traffickers Devoted
to ‘Saint Death,’’ ABC Local, May 2, 2011, last viewed 5 January 2014,
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=8108582.
12
Chesnut, Devoted to Death, 36, 98-99.
13
Ibid., 121-124.
14
Ibid., 99-100.
__________________________________________________________________
15
Ibid., 101-102.
16
Ibid. 37-4; Saint Death. Short documentary. March 15, 2009. SBS/Journeyman
Pictures.
17
Chesnut, Devoted to Death, 54-55. See also Claudio Lommitz, Death and the
Idea of Mexico (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
18
Frank Graziano, Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 9.
19
Ibid., 9.
20
21
Ibid., 61-62.
22
Ibid., 51-59
23
24
Ibid, 50-95.
25
Ibid., 5-6.
26
Ibid., 56-59.
27
Ibid., 15, 16; Saint Death.
28
29
Ibid., 52-53.
30
Saint Death.
31
Graziano, Cultures of Devotion, 14.
32
33
‘Vatican Declares Mexican Death Saint Blasphemous,’ BBC News, May 9, 2013,
last viewed 15 November 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-
22462181.
34
Ibid.
35
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in
Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2012).
36
37
‘Aclaraciones sobre el culto a la Santa Muerte,’ Notiodiócesis.com, October 28,
2013, Last viewed 15 November 2013,
http://notidiocesis.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1951:ac
laraciones-sobre-el-culto-a-la-santa-muerte&catid=47:-general-&Itemid=76.
38
Chesnut, Devoted to Death, 113.
39
Ibid., 113-114.
40
R. Andrew Chesnut, ‘Vatican Official Denounces Santa Muerte as Sinister and
Infernal,’ Huffington Post, April 22, 2013, last viewed 15 November 2013,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/r-andrew-chesnut/vatican-official-denounces-
santa-muerte-as-sinister-and-infernal_b_3128619.html.
__________________________________________________________________
41
Although parallels can be seen in Catholic authorities’ attempts to minimise the
influence of Pentecostalism, an in-depth discussion of these strategies exceeds the
scope of this chapter.
42
See e.g. Meredith McGuire, Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life
(Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Lena Gemzö, Feminine
Matters: Women’s Religious Practices in a Portuguese Town (Stockholm: Dept. of
Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, 2000).
43
44
McGuire, Lived Religion, 42-43.
45
McGuire, Lived Religion, 167-168.
46
Gemzö, Feminine Matters, 15-16.
47
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in
Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2012).
48
Ibid.
49
See Dunja Plazonja, ‘The Evil Witch of Slavic Mythology: Reading Myth,
Gender and Narrative in ’s Novel Baba Yaga Laid an Egg,’ in
this volume.
50
McGuire, Lived Religion, 161, 167-170.
51
Gemzö, Feminine Matters, 194-196, 203, 210.
52
Chesnut, Devoted to Death, 8, 214.
53
Cymene Howe, Suzanna Zaraysky and Lois Ann Lorentzen, ‘Devotional
Crossings. Transgender Sex Workers, Santisima Muerte, and Spiritual Solidarity in
Guadalajara and San Francisco,’ in Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana.
Politics, Identity, and Faith in New Migrant Communities, ed. Lois Ann Lorentzen,
Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III, Kevin M. Chun and Hien Doc Du (Durham; London:
Duke University Press, 2009).
54
55
56
57
McGuire, Lived Religion, 89.
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__________________________________________________________________
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York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
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Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2012.
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Crossings: Transgender Sex Workers, Santisima Muerte, and Spiritual Solidarity in
Guadalajara and San Francisco’. In Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana:
Politics, Identity, and Faith in New Migrant Communities, edited by Lois Ann
Lorentzen, Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III, Kevin M. Chun and Hien Doc Du. Durham;
London: Duke University Press, 2009.
Lommitz, Claudio. Death and the Idea of Mexico. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
2005.
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http://www.newswest9.com/story/23846216/newswest-9-special-report-santa-
muerte-part-i.
__________________________________________________________________
Marcarelli O’Connor, Carrie. ‘Unholy Devotion: The Cult of Santa Muerte in

Mexico.’ Catholic Exchange, July 13, 2009. Last viewed 5 January 2014.
http://catholicexchange.com/unholy-devotion-the-cult-of-santa-muerte-in-mexico.
McGuire, Meredith. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. Oxford;
New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Milligan, Paul. ‘Eight People From “Holy Death” Cult Arrested in Mexico over
Ritual Sacrifices of Woman and Two 10-Year-Old Boys.’ Daily Mail, March 31,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123207/Eight-people-Holy-Death-cult-
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Manon Hedenborg-White is a PhD candidate in History of Religion at Uppsala

University, Sweden. Her dissertation explores notions of gender in relation to the
divine in modern Western esotericism. Her other research interests include issues
of gender, power and sexuality in relation to modern occultism, Paganism, and
other forms of antinomian spirituality.

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Death as a Woman: Santa Muerte and Religious ‘Othering’

2. History, Beliefs and Practices

3. Evil Religion/ Non-Religion: Santa Muerte and the Catholic Church

4. Power Struggles and Popular Religion

Chesnut, Andrew. ‘Vatican Official Denounces Santa Muerte as Sinister and

Gemzö, Lena. Feminine Matters: Women’s Religious Practices in a Portuguese

Graziano, Frank. Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America. New

Hanegraaff, Wouter J., Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in

Howe, Cymene, Suzanna Zaraysky and Lois Ann Lorentzen, ‘Devotional

Marcarelli O’Connor, Carrie. ‘Unholy Devotion: The Cult of Santa Muerte in

Manon Hedenborg-White is a PhD candidate in History of Religion at Uppsala

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