The cult of death is on our streets

 

I'm sure many readers are aware of the "Santa Muerte" quasi-religious phenomenon that's growing in popularity in Mexico, particularly among the drug cartels and their foot-soldiers.  The term is usually translated as "Saint Death" or "Holy Death".  The image below, showing a statue of Santa Muerte, is courtesy of Wikipedia.

It's often dismissed as "folk religion" or a hangover from Aztec rituals.  Unfortunately, it's anything but.  It's become a cult among the hard-core narco-criminals of the cartels, and its appearance in a region is usually a sign that they're moving in there.  Indeed, a Santa Muerte shrine was recently found at a traffic rest stop in northern Texas, not far from where I live.  There was blood smeared on the statue and the makeshift walls of the shrine, clear signs of a "faith offering" to the cult.  (Fortunately, the person who found it dismantled it and discarded the remains.  It's not the kind of thing you want your kids to see.)

Ten years ago, the FBI sponsored an overview of the cult.  It remains largely valid today.  It treads warily when it comes to saying outright what many law enforcement professionals already know from personal experience (political correctness prevents that, sad to say), but it offers a very clear warning to those prepared to read between the lines.  Here's an excerpt.

The criminal insurgencies waged by the cartels and gangs, centered on a strategy of securing nongovernmental interference with their illicit narcotics and other criminal economic activities, have received much attention and debate. Far less has focused on some of the darker spiritualistic parts of the drug wars.

One component entails the rise of the cartel and gang narcocultura (drug culture) variant of the Cult of Santa Muerte (literally translated as “Holy Death”). This variant of the cult promotes greater levels of criminality than the more mainstream and older forms of Santa Muerte worship. Sometimes it can be so extreme that it condones morally corrupt behaviors—what many people would consider as resulting from an evil value system that rewards personal gain above all else, promoting the intentional pain and suffering of others, and, even, viewing killing as a pleasurable activity.

While addressing the rise of such dark spirituality requires a balanced perspective (e.g., avoiding a repeat of the Satanism scare of the 1980s), enough ritualistic behaviors, including killings, have occurred in Mexico to leave open the possibility that a spiritual insurgency component of the narcotics wars now exists. Not all of the narcotics leaders, their foot soldiers, and assassins have remained religious or, alternatively, embraced secularism. But, evidence suggests that the numbers of defections to the cults that worship a perverted Christian god (e.g., La Familia Michoacana and Los Caballeros Templarios) and the various unsanctioned saints (e.g., Jesús Malverde, Juan Soldado, and Santa Muerte) have grown for years.

This rise in deviant spirituality has not come as a surprise. Mexico still contains a significant population of persons living in poverty and feeling disenfranchised by a government system perceived as being based on patron-client relationships and the influence of wealthy ruling families. This underclass produces a disproportionate amount of unsanctioned (folk) saint worshipers—though only a small percentage of them end up as killers for gangs and cartels. Still, many of these men and women who brutalize, torture, and kill others need a way to rationalize their activities. If not offered solace via mainstream Catholicism, they will seek comfort elsewhere. While the adherents of a more benign drug saint, such as Jesús Malverde, can engage in nonreligious killing, others who worship Santa Muerte increasingly appear unable to separate their criminality from their spiritual beliefs.

For U.S. law enforcement agencies, the rise of a criminalized and dark variant of Santa Muerte worship holds many negative implications. Of greatest concern, the inspired and ritualistic killings associated with this cult could cross the border and take place in the United States.

There's more at the link.  For "leave open the possibility" read "establish the certainty";  for "could cross the border" read "has crossed the border".

Given the literal millions of illegal aliens crossing our borders in an unchecked flood, you may be absolutely sure that tens of thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of criminals, cartel traffickers and gunmen, etc. are among them.  Just ask the Border Patrol how many convicted criminals (including previously deported felons) are among the influx - and remember that the BP's statistics are only for those they catch.  Tens of thousands more slip through their dragnet (such as it is) without being caught.  They're bringing their devotion to Santa Muerte with them, and seeking to spread it locally.  I'll guarantee that in any Mexican-dominated suburb or area in the USA, you'll find more than one shrine to Santa Muerte (most carefully hidden, but an increasing number openly displayed);  and I also guarantee that many of her devotees will be narco-criminals.  It's like the song says about love and marriage;  you can't have one without the other.

This is of particular importance when it comes to our own safety and security.  The presence of an active population of Santa Muerte devotees in or near your area is a guarantee that crime is on the increase there, and will almost certainly become more violent, predatory and vicious.  Law enforcement professionals with whom I've recently spoken tell me that they can't say this out loud, because it's not politically correct in our "woke" day and age:  but they all agree that they've encountered murders and torture scenes where the crime was specifically committed with reference to Santa Muerte (i.e. invoking her name, including carving it into the bodies of victims;  chanting her praise while raping, torturing and killing victims;  and taking body parts of the victims to decorate her shrines).

Folks, be on the lookout.  This is a real and present danger to our security in our homes and neighborhoods.  Santa Muerte's devotees are violent, vicious and without remorse or compassion.  If you see or hear any evidence that they're active near your home, you should be "upping your game" to cope with that threat;  and, if possible, you should remove yourselves from the danger zone.  That's your choice, of course.  Just remember that if you live in an area controlled by "wokeness", any effort to defend yourself against this cult and its followers may be used against you in a court of law.

I'm sure readers can provide more information about the Santa Muerte cult.  Please do so in Comments.  Meanwhile, please go read that FBI article, and do a search for more materials - and DO NOT believe or trust the "politically correct", mealy-mouthed gloss on the subject found in too many sources.  The reality is pretty grim.

Peter