The Western Gate

Santa Muerte and Necromancy
Liber Tenebrae Magna.
Zulqarnayn XIII
Sauroctonos Publishing

Santa Muerte, I have a tattoo of her on my right forearm. I guess I could be accused of appropriation, of grabbing any little trinket to add to a shelf of curios. Let they without guilt cast the first… etc. We’re all guilty. Not least the title of this book. Quite why it’s always deemed correct to have a title in Latin? That demons/Gods et al suddenly after thousands and thousands of years of existence suddenly became enamoured and bound by words of Latin? Makes no sense to me. Well to be fair the author does suggest in some later incantations that Latin, being melodious, is used.
Liber Tenebrae Magna- The Great Book of Darkness is what is so promised.
There are within tables of correspondences showing the similarity or difference between Santa Muerte and “N” .e.g.- Hecate, Iku, Samuel, Azrael and more…I’m not sure it helps really, I’m not sure it’s warranted. But, let’s deal with Santa Muerte. We are introduced to the deity and then explained what she is or isn’t, to the extent we are left ambiguously wondering exactly what Santa Muerte is? There is more discussion about misconceptions and generalisations than given facts about what she actually is. There is an analogy of being a symbol bought over to the new colonies from the mother country ravaged by Black Death, there is also an odd but intriguing story of a poor girl with alabaster skin, eventually consumed by fire, she was accused of being a witch, whose bones did not burn so was then pronounced, probably by the same evil clergy as being …therefore, holy. However still no clear cut definition of Santa Muertas origin, and what she represents is only figured by analysis with other Gods and Goddesses who tend to be dwellers in death and psychopomps (those who escort souls to their afterlife habitat) I have my, let’s say, prejudices at the beginning, my beliefs of what Santa Muerte means to me, even if in my defence it is for my own self-practice my own gnosis that I wouldn’t really impart onto anybody else. The author is Mexican, to let us know therefore that means he knows what he’s talking about …., as only a Christian, Jew or Muslim born in the area of Israel/Palesine can. Everyone else of course are pretend commentators to the throne.
Throughout the book there are illustrations, lurid grayscale pictures depicting perhaps Santa Muerte, but more Death itself, that grim reaper. The artwork wouldn’t look out of place from a bedroom Black-Metal musician’s demo tape cover, the sort of artwork that litters Mark Alan Smith’s God Awful ‘Primal Craft’ series. Im not sure who the artist is, it doesn’t really say, I suspect it’s A.i. being as most of the boney spectres have five fingers and no thumb, it doesn’t matter, it just makes the whole concept seem a bit contrived and amateur.
The book has a nice look on the face of it, a black (of course) cloth cover, a gold print of which is the nemesis of the flesh holding scyth and the globe with a cloak of stars and galaxies, the spine showing the title in a Gothic, (of course) typeface – Liber Tenebrae Magna. The paper is a little thin weight and is a yellowed parchment colour, not a bad thing but could do with a few more grams of paperweight.
There are of course an array of certain spells to cuss and cause, to cross and call as it were, coupled with some invocations to certain other spirits. They seemed to have just slipped in there? one minute the author talks of Santa Muerte and then we’re given a list of other spirits and then Gods of the undines, sylphs, gnomes or salamanders, no idea when these Paracelsus ideas decided to announce themselves, they just seemed to have appeared. There are also, hitherto unknown, names and sigils of secret guardians that the author grants us knowledge to. Don’t bother looking them up, you won’t find them, as like some of the invocations to Santa Muerte etc the only place they have previously appeared or have been researched from is… well ….nowhere, they originated here and here too I suspect they die.
Likewise because the author is Mexican it goes without saying that we have a list and description of Aztec Gods of the underworld, and thus we have summary descriptions of each, for no apparent reason or any logical concern as to what they and Santa Muerte have in common except bones and death.
At times, being as this isn’t exactly a cheap book and one would hope he would stick solely to the path of Santa Muerte, it feel as though we are reading an introduction to ‘someone’s’ belief as a Mexican who gives us notes only, and some mediocre calls and prayers. Most of us with the disposal income to afford these books have done so because we are old and have more disposable, therefore you’d think we know a little of this path we tread, the others of us that afford these books have done so because we’ve made a fortune either fair or foul and likewise, you’d think we know what we’re doing. It’s odd therefore to see a page or two dedicated to telling us the symbolism of colour? For completist sake, I get it, in which case, where is the bibliography and index of contents? The problem is, if this book were something from Llewellyn paperback at 12.99, fair enough, then it’s something you could recommend to someone with a passing and curious thought about the denizens of the afterlife. If you took away all the pages dealing with other gods and goddesses, took away all the correspondence and stuff about who Santa Muerte is like, and why they’re not the same, you are basically left with a fanzine type pamphlet, and if you took away the rituals to secure ‘this, that or another’, you are left with a Wikipedia entry.
I love books, I’ll keep it, I’ll reference it now and then. My wife unknown to me also bought a book the same day, Santa Muerte by Tracey Rollins, how synchronous I thought, and it was ten times cheaper, I flicked through it before typing this review and I feel a bit cheated. But what does T.Rollins know, she’s probably not Mexican eh? (Edit:-She’s actually from New Mexico, which really is cheating, but one chapter in and she rambles on about the ambiguity of Sant muerte’s origin… well at least its honest, and throughout the book she does seem to stick more towards Santa Muerte… ahem))

Afterword; what is Santa Muerte to me then? Why do I have her permanently upon the arm, the right-active-arm no less. She is the nemesis, no matter what I achieve in life none can bypass her. She is the ultimate concern. As Hecate is the three-fold goddess, presiding over as the three mothers of spring (Virgin- Mary the maiden) and summer (Mother- Mother Mary ) and autumn ( Mary in Mourning, Magdalene- from the falling high tower) in the shadow form she illuminated what she is, only by the flame in darkness, and she is as death. She is but bone, that which sustains and withstands the perishability of the depths of the earth, and clothes herself in the cloak of the cosmos, this is her flesh, eternity, all things to her pass. Of course, I could continue and liberally reveal prose of the path of death and resurrection, I could enamour the work with talk of the three principles of iron, of chalk and carbon, work them out yourself, I could give rites to achieve ‘this and that’ but in the face of Santa Muerte it is meaningless, and done in her name, disrespectful at the very least. Wealth and privilege mean nothing, you will not be remembered for what you held aloft but to who you helped afloat. She is the passage of freedom when the cord of Atropos is cut. In the light there are always shadows, in the darkness, there is no light, only death. It matters not who you are and certainly not where you’re from, but where we’re going and ultimately it will be into her arms and laughter. I have tattooed on the forearm, face outwards, no matter what ego or mask I adorn, no matter how great or insignificant I feel, I am powerless to her.

A.I. has its place, I guess, all things begin with struggle to realise momentum, but here are a few A.I. prompts delivering the sort of artwork as displayed in the book, I haven’t scanned or photocopied any from the book as, ironically, these would probably be under copyright, even though like these ‘efforts’ below were generated by text prompts….