9 August, 2019 Experiences

Santa Muerte's Viral Marketing

Santa Muerte, the patron saint of love and lost objects, lets me in on a her secret why traditional magic so often requires sacrifice- and altars.

In traditional Western magical tradition, it is very, very common to make some kind of deal with an external entity, who will then grant you some kind of power, but usually command a very steep price.

For example, traditional folk magic from Germany has it that you can marry a nymph. First you need to find a nymph, and call out to her, and then you woo her, and when she feels ready you take her down to the forest with actual witnesses and have a wedding ritual, and then you wear the ring, and you don't marry anyone else, and you most certainly don't commit adultery by starting anything informal with a human woman. If you do all these things, of course the nymph will help you with all that is in her power, as any loving life partner would, which in her case means to adjust coincidences so that you achive great success and fortune. Of course, the stories go, eventually the sacred vows are usually broken and great tragedy comes about. Look out for rich old (apparent) bachelors to find people who stuck to the deal.

Now, if you are actually genuinely and intrinsically interested in marrying a nymph, or any other nonphysical being, by all means go for it- I am not here to judge how people are to find happiness. Of course, if you are interested in having children, you will get the same relationship issues that you would get with anyone else with a different view or ability on the subject. And, if you rely on the marriage to the nymph for the wealth, you may well get the same kind of conundrum as you would relying on your marriage for wealth with a physical person. It is just that cheating on a nymph is even worse than cheating on a physical woman, because she immediately knows it, and you can expect to immediately experience her wrath.

I have had very pleasant conversations with nymphs, but I would suggest to keep it within the bounds of friendship unless you are quite serious about what you are doing.

So apart from being rather male centric, this wonderful (for a magic historian) 17th century nymph spell exemplifies wonderfully the trouble with Western magical traditions (at least all I came by so far). It's always some variant of the impossible bargain. Of course the darkest kind is the one with the devil, or some other kind of evil entity, where you hurt someone in order to get the favor. It would appear that that kind of deal was not particularly rare among aristocrats in recent European history looking to move up.

Now, as a Huna practitioner, I don't do deals that require payment. The sixths principle says that all power comes from within, so what I do with my power is mine, and that's that. I'm not saying entity deals don't work- but I am saying that they work because they are a means for tricking yourself into believing in yourself and achieving things with your own power. The nymph spell above was found among the personal items of a 17th century wagon smith who somehow came to wealth as a trader. That is not a particularly normal situation for the time- so it must have worked for him! Maybe he even managed to trick himself somehow into making provisions that would allow him to marry after all, but I don't envy the wife so much, with the nymph always hanging over her head. If enough emotion's involved to change his reality, personally I'd consider it a metaphysical affair and would want it to stop. Of course he could do that- but then he would have to find additional ways to keep up the believing in himself, and to part company with the nymph in a friendly way.

I'm not even saying that entity deals are never worth their price. If it's the easiest way to get yourself to believe you can achieve something, and the price is acceptable, and the entity is genuinely well-meaning and friendly, by all means go for it. Just be wary of long term commitments, they look a lot cheaper when you are making them than when you are fulfilling them- it's essentially the same problem as with loan sharks and cell phone contracts that come with an iPhone. Also, make sure that you know how prices will grow when your wishes grow- Even if it only takes a drop of blood to power a love spell, I still would much rather not poke myself every time I'm in need of a little affection. And what if I want more? By the logic of the drop of blood, I would likely have to up the anty proportionately, so for the biggest favors, I would have to make the biggest sacrifices. You can see that this is not a direction you want to end up going in if you think it through. Here's an alternative.

If you can get yourself to believe in your own power, you're free! And free is a lot cheaper than cheap. When a change in energy is large enough, it changes quality. When you don't have to worry how many rosaries you need to say to get a new lawnmower, you are free to ask for a waterfront property.

The downside is I don't get to use any shortcuts, I need to get myself to believe that I have power on my own. I usually use imaginary experiences to accomplish that, and also accepting the friendly Huna philosophy that says that beliefs are arbitrary and I can pick any I like make them mine, and also that I already have my own higher aspect that powers everything- I am my experience. The combination does the trick fairly well. But it does take effort, and it does take practice- but hey, so do the bargains! So the limiting factor is no longer what some entity demands- it is simply the practical issue of how many contrary limiting beliefs you are willing to dig up and turn around, and how much more energy flow you can tolerate going through you how quickly, because suddenly getting stronger energy flow really can be like a wasp's nest for your fears.

A really interesting example is a story I read online recently of how a woman performed a "hot foot" spell, a plea for someone troublesome to leave your experience, on her co-worker with the help of Santa Muerte. In return, she offered the lady good wine and a nice statue. Now I was initially inclined to distance myself from the whole idea and stop reading, because it sounded a tiny bit too much like black magic for my liking, but I decided to give it a second look- I usually I fare much better when I manage not to be too quick to judge. I realized the co-worker must have been extraordinarily mean-spirited, so it was possible to look at the whole affair as a form of harmonizing. And I have more than once (presumably) caused the departure of quarrelsome people using Huna's pink light for clearing and harmonizing groups. Now I had no direct intention of making anyone leave, I was perfectly open to the idea that things might improve with those people still on board, and that's my normal yardstick for white magic. But leave they did. In this case, I had to admit to myself- in this particular case, is that much of a difference? Should I only be happy for those who like to intellectualize things enough so they can appreciate the fine line between the two, as long as they aren't otherwise up to causing harm? So I decided that I would have done it differently, and it was a bit of a gray area, but in the end it was fine.

So she cast the spell and it worked! Good for her. Now for the cost benefit analysis- that's where, in my humble opinion, the vast majority of traditional magical systems, especially the European ones, fall short. The spells somehow always involve some being who will require who-knows-what in return for favors- the mentioned nymphs who require marriage, spirits helpers that require constant feeding with physical tobacco water, deities that need food (can't they eat the spiritual aspect so we don't have to waste the physical one?), and so on. It can be a very limiting, very expensive business, and almost certainly a rather fearful one. So I couldn't help but wonder- why? Why do so many traditional spirit helpers require payment for their services? When they get their offerings- what are they going to do with them? And you can always get more money, but getting a statue- and presumably dedicating living space and maintaining it for life- that's seriously expensive stuff. So I wondered- what's up with that? Was it kind of a limiting factor, so practitioners don't go overboard? So as I was thinking these thoughts, Santa Muerte picked came around and gave me an answer!

She needed to be asked strong favor so would accept magic from me.

Oh. So it's the old deal that this person needed that perceived sacrifice to make her spell feel important. Like when you pay extra for the premium version of a television that comes from the same assembly line as the cheap one but lasts longer because you take better care of it.

And what is it with the statue?

Is like viral marketing.

Holy smokes. Ms. Muerte knows her stuff.

I'd like to add she struck me as one of the friendliest presences I've came into contact with, very, very loving. She seems to care a great deal about people, especially poorer ones, and she is not above accommodating them in whatever way they need in order so they may give themselves permission to find love and happiness, including spilling wine and setting up skeletony statues. Maybe those needs make us snobbish folks feel queazy, but it's really an act of love.

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