The Conquistadors Did Not Go Far Enough: Human Sacrifices in 2026 — show notes
- “Authorities in the northern Mexican state of Sonora have arrested eight people accused of killing two boys and one woman as human sacrifices for Santa Muerte – the saint of death – officials said Friday.
- The victims, two of whom were age 10, were killed and their blood was offered at an altar to the saint, according to Jose Larrinaga, spokesman for state prosecutors. The accused were asking the saint, who is generally portrayed as a skeleton dressed in a long robe and carrying a scythe, for protection, he said.”
Burned heads were found next to a shrine in Yucatán and a variety of heads and body parts have been left at or near altars in Mexico over the years.
A 2019 Mexico City raid on La Unión Tepito properties found an altar with roughly 40 adult skulls (some with gunshot wounds), other bones, a fetus in a jar, knives, and Santa Muerte/Jesús Malverde imagery. Officials said neighbors described rituals for luck and bullet immunity.
Santa Muerte
Who is Santa Muerte? Is the Saint based on a real person like other saints? Why do peopel worship her? To whom does she appeal?
Santa Muerte is a Mexican folk saint and personification of death, usually shown as a female skeleton in a robe holding a scythe, globe, scales, owl, or other symbols. GREAT.
Not based on some historical woman like Catholic saints.
Her origins are debated because she developed through syncretism: the merging and adaptation of religious traditions over long periods. Scholars trace important influences to:
- European Christian-era images of Death, especially the skeletal “Grim Reaper” imagery that became prominent during and after medieval plague periods.
- Indigenous Mexican and broader Mesoamerican ideas about death, including possible parallels to the Mexica/Aztec death deity Mictēcacihuātl, associated with the underworld alongside Mictlantecuhtli.
- Mexican popular Catholic practices: home altars, petitions, candles, rosaries, novenas, offerings, and promises in exchange for help.
The people who worship her:
- See her as a nonjudgmental protector who can help in urgent or precarious circumstances
- See her to be impartial, as death comes for everyone, no matter how rich, poor, respected, or maligned you are
- So especially for those who feel they have no control in life, she has some appeal
What people ask her for:
- Money
- Protection
- Housing
- Health
- Revenge
- Success
A Harvard-based account notes that women, poor people, and queer people have been central in the movement but were often obscured by media attention to violence and criminality.
WHY WOULD HARVARD THINK THEY’RE GETTING DIVERSITY POINTS FOR POINTING OUT THAT WOMEN AND LGBTQ PEOPLE ARE POPULARIZING AN IDOL THAT’S ENCOURAGING VIOLENT HUMAN SACRIFICE AMONG CRIMINALS WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING GSDFG;I.DJGXS’FDOIHGL/F/XGFDOIXC
Reaction of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is not cool with this.
In the words of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Angelo: “Involvement with Santa Muerte is spiritually dangerous and it is not Catholic in any way. It should be completely avoided. It is a perversion of devotion to the saints.
In 2013, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, denounced the Santa Muerte practice as “sinister and infernal.” He called it a “blasphemy of religion.””
Popularity
Santa Muerte is not only an idol worshipped by cartel workers and occultists; he’s widely popular.
Valeria Márquez, a 23-year-old locally popular tiktok livestreamer and Guadalajaran salon owner—and now world-famous social media influencer—had a shrine to Santa Muerte and was very open about her devotion.
She also was murdered on her livestream in May 2025.
Following Valeria’s murder, people are also convinced that she was the victim of destiny swapping (they think her friend Vivian wanted to steal her life)
Destiny Swapping: Another Example of Occult Culture Taking Over
Destiny swapping is a spiritual and folk-religious idea that one person can steal, exchange, or hijack another person’s intended life path—purpose, success, relationships, “glory,” or blessings—and leave the original person with delay, confusion, or a lesser fate.
There are loads of online posts where people wonder if some jealous friend or colleague has life swapped with them and want advice on breaking destiny swap spells.
There are several different angles to this concept:
- There’s the witchcraft / occult version, involving rituals, curses, evil altars, personal items like hair and clothes, names spoken in ceremonies, or dreams used to exchange destinies.
- There’s also version more focused on perceived relational closeness or energy involving so-called soul ties (especially via sex), close friendship, imitation, or “energy harvesting” so one person absorbs another’s opportunities and style.
- There’s a Biblical angle, with Jacob and Esau being the most-cited example in which birthright was sold for stew. Some also mention Saul/David or other “exchange” stories.
- Finally there’s the everyday TikTok version: Copying someone’s look, circle, or career moves until they “take” the life that “should have been yours.” Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton are the stock celebrity example.
Destiny swapping discourse is most popular on Spiritual Tiktok, Witchtok, and in celebrity conspiracy videos.
To be clear, it’s not a particularly Mexican thing; it actually appears to be most popular in African Pentecostal, charismatic, and deliverance-ministry circles
- The language of destiny, glory, witchcraft, and spiritual exchange is longstanding in many West African churches (Nigeria, Ghana, and diaspora congregations).
- Nigerian and other African pastors and evangelists produce a large share of the YouTube teaching on “destiny swap,” recovery prayers, and warfare against altars.
But anyway, as a small aside, this is another example of religion NOT taking.
Offerings to Santa Muerte
With the more violent cases, I’ll pull from a broad time range to show just how longstanding this is.
More Typical
Home altars for Santa Muerte typically include a statue of the idol (tons of Amazon and Etsy options!) with:
- A glass of fresh water
- Candles
- Fresh flowers
- And sometimes
- Apples
- Brea
- Cany
- Alcohol in a small glass
- A cigarette or cigar
- Toys, coins, written petitions or thank yous, photos of deceased relatives,
More Violent
- In 2024 the FBI described Michelle Angelica Pineda (“La Chely”), tied to a Juárez crew, as removing hearts from dismembered victims and placing them in front of Santa Muerte statues/altars.
- Chihuahua authorities linked the crew to more than 20 dismemberment killings.
- In a 2016 prison interview, a man named Edgar, who served with a Juárez Cartel said:
- “I actually sacrifice people for my Santa Muerte… I kill for ordering, but I talk to her and say, ‘Hey, I go to a job. Just make me hit, I am gonna give you that life, it is for you.’”
- He claimed roughly 60 murders
- Father Ernesto Caro, a prominent Catholic priest and exorcist based in Monterrey, Mexico, told the BBC about one cartel disposal man who sought exorcism from him
- This man described cutting up bodies and burning people alive while devoted to Santa Muerte
- In 2010, A decapitated head was left by the tomb of Arturo Beltrán Leyva (whose apartment contained Santa Muerte items) in Culiacán investigators treated it as a possible offering.
- Various Ciudad Juárez cases across 2009 and 2010 included altar remnants, “Santa Muerte” and “cuídanos flakita” (“take care of us, skinny one”) spray-painted, and a victim burned behind a house that contained a statue.
- Neighbors said the Hillside 13 group wanted “something big.”
- Stacked headless bodies have been inferred (not always proven) as ritual staging.
- In 2008 in Nuevo Laredo, Gulf Cartel members captured Sinaloa Cartel members, took them to public Santa Muerte shrines, and shot them.
- A U.S. law-enforcement analysis treated this as offerings.
- In South Texas, in the mid 2000s, intercepted Zetas conversations described slashing teenagers, collecting blood in a cup, and toasting Santa Muerte.
- A Zetas member was reported as boasting of slitting rivals’ bellies and spilling blood as an offering.
- Other intercepted Zetas chatter referenced blood toasts to “Santisima Muerte.”
- The 1989 Matamoros “narcosatánicos” ranch belonging to Adolfo Constanzo involved ritual killings, including Mark Kilroy, with a cauldron containing a boiled brain and other remains.
- Santa Muerte was among the idols worshipped, along with with Palo Mayombe
- Note re: Palo Mayombe: Palo Mayombe is a Cuban religion of Central African (Kongo/Bantu) origin, also called Palo Monte or part of Las Reglas de Congo.
- Traditional Palo offerings are ANIMAL offering (like roosters, hens, and goats) whose blood feed the spirit
Can This Be Fixed?
- Is this evidence that domineering cultures fail?
- Domineering versus symbiotic culture
- Domineering: Everyone must be converted
- Symbiotic: We’re not going to “save” you; you’re going to have to “save” yourself