Santa Muerte: The Enigmatic Allure of the Beautiful Girl by David Metcalfe, The Revealer, New York University

With an iconography drawn from the 14^th century plague fields of Europe, where she walked behind the name La Parca, and with an ever growing number of devotees drawn from societies marginalized and dispossessed, la Nina Bonita, the Beautiful Girl, has become one of the fastest growing spiritual powers in the 21^st century. To some she is known as la Poderosa Señora, the Powerful Lady, an untiring miracle worker and healer helping them to escape the ravages of poverty, sickness, violence and addiction that have become hallmarks of our time. To others, she is Nuestra Señora de las Sombras, Our Lady of the Shadows, an amoral and unflinching companion in their choice to pursue profits and power in the bloody worlds of drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and murder. For those tied to orthodox religious groups and judiciary organizations she is a satanic usurper, a dark and vicious deceiver leading her millions of devotees down the fast road to hell.

Who is this alluring, conflicted and mysterious woman? If you have been paying attention to the news you might know her by her most common name – la Santa Muerte, Saint Death.

One can find signs of her cult in the Americas from the earliest days of the colonial period, with Inquisition reports mentioning local groups dedicated to Saint Death. Her first 20^th century appearance in 1940’s anthropological reports show that Santa Muerte was largely sought out in issues of love, serving as a patroness of maligned wives and lovers seeking recompense from abusive or unfaithful men. Even today, her role as a love-magician still runs strong, and the red candles associated with Santa Muerte’s love magic remain top sellers in the spiritual supply market.

Like many cults, Santa Muerte’s tradition has never had a central or overarching organization to perpetuate her following.  It is this decentralized and amorphous persona that has allowed her to move through history, taking on the needs of the time for those who seek her favors. Her ability to serve in such varied roles – fostering devotion among mistreated wives alongside kidnappers, gunmen, narco-traffickers and other criminal groups – means that we must be very cautious when asking how and why people use her image…

Read on.

The Way It Is

Keith Nightingale

Killing is a natural extension of being a Grunt.  It is both expected and necessary.  Failure fails the unit, and that is bad. Everyone in the business knows that and honors the event. Organizational comfort is in knowing that everyone can and will kill.

Killing is easy at the instant moment.  It is only later that it is hard.  As Shakespeare said: “That’s the rub.”

Killing usually falls into three categories; at a distance, close, and without emotion.  Of the three, the first is the most common; and the last most effective.  In all cases, remorse may or not be an outcome. 

For those whom remorse never visits, we later identify as sociopaths. At the moment, they are heroes.  For those that experience remorse, we call them Grunts and they live with it always.  In truth, it takes a bit of both to survive on the battlefield.  Surviving the afterlife is another issue.  Unfortunately, the afterlife is experienced as an individual, not as a team where both the impetus and motivation ruled response and was the basic foundation for survival and success.

Killing at a distance is easy.  It is detached from the human aspects other than fear.  It is a participation event with the score not recorded until later if at all.  Simply being part of the unit engaged is sufficient honor for each member and engagement.  The truth and result of each participant’s actions are not recorded other than the end state which is devoid of personal association.  It’s just another day.  Later, it may be all day, all the time.

Killing close is a highly individualistic event played within the context of the unit.  It is kill him or be killed.  It is a clear highly focused moment where training and natural primordial senses take charge within ranges that would be familiar to Caesar’s legions. Each specific incident comes with great clarity and great relief—for a moment.  It is remembered always in the depth of the mind to be resurrected by a stray sound, color or image.  The imprint of the encounter never departs.

Killing without emotion during or after is the best—for the unit.  And the worst for the participant-an action totally unemotional without the slightest hint of rationality or remorse.  The trigger for such a condition is usually assigned to a preceding horrific event that challenges sanity and converts the unit and its members to pure automaton killing machines. Or a moment of supreme desperation where being a non-human is the only potential survival option. Without regard to the normal human survival skills and cautions, this condition insulates the members with a shield of ignoral and a fanatic’s focus on the necessity of the moment—killing absolutely every living thing, man or beast, that is perceived as the enemy.  Only when no more targets exist and mental exhaustion overcomes the physical, does the Grunt return to being a “normal” human being.

Killing is easy.  Living with it later is far harder.