Joseph Laycock, scholar and author of\u00a0\u201cVampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism,\u201d<\/a> examines media coverage<\/a> of the killing of two boys and one woman over the span of four years in Mexico, allegedly the work of Santa Muerte cultists. Laycock\u2019s Religion Dispatches <\/em>piece argues that \u201cthese murders will likely have lasting consequences for alternative religion in North America,\u201d<\/a><\/em> that they are a \u201cManson moment\u201d<\/em> that will have potentially harmful reverberations in the years to come.<\/p>\n \u201cIt goes without saying these murders are unconscionable, and a tragedy. But attempting to find a grand pattern, or a reason, in a connection to so-called ritualistic violence brings authorities no closer to preventing such crimes\u2014while greatly increasing the likelihood that innocent people will be persecuted.<\/em><\/p>\n It is almost a certainty that at some point in the future the events that have unfolded in Nacozari will be presented as \u201cproof\u201d that Santa Muerte is an inherently violent tradition.<\/strong> As Saint Death\u2019s popularity spreads and the Latino American population continues to grow, this is not a theory we can afford to entertain.<\/em><\/p>\n If we can accept that not all Beatles fans are Charles Manson, we must also have faith that not all who pray to Santa Muerte are Silvia Meraz.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Will these incidents provide the tinder necessary to fuel a new moral panic in the United States? We\u2019ve already seen some declare that illegal immigration wasn\u2019t simply a problem of policy, economics, or laws, but a religious war between antidemocratic religious \u201cfanatics\u201d and Western Christendom<\/a>. Nor is Santa Muerte isolated in this rhetoric, as Santeria has also been invoked in the increasingly polarizing debate over immigration policy<\/a> in America. These tensions seem likely to increase as the religious landscape in Mexico becomes increasingly diverse (and the diversity continues to filter north). \u00a0R. Andrew Chesnut, author of\u00a0\u201cDevoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint,\u201d<\/a> notes that the once-dominant Catholic church faces \u201csignificant competition from Pentecostals, neo-Christians, such as Mormons<\/a> and Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, and even \u201cheretical\u201d folks saints, such as Santa Muerte and Jesus Malverde.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAmong two of the most dynamic religious practices in the Mexican megalopolis [of Mexico City] are the cults of Saint Jude, patron of lost causes, and Santa Muerte. Centered in the notorious barrio of Tepito, devotion to Saint Death takes place beyond the pale of the Church. Just a few miles away, the Church of Saint Hippolyte draws tens of thousands of devotees to its monthly celebrations of Saint Jude, who shares Santa Muerte\u2019s devotional base of marginalized youth.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Mix growing outsider faiths, increasingly inflamed rhetoric over the issue of illegal immigration, and reliably bad journalism on often misunderstood religions like Santeria and Palo<\/a>, with an incident that seems to validate the worst fears of those who are already negatively disposed towards non-Christian or syncretic\u00a0traditions and you have a potential powder keg. Isolated criminal actions can be, and have been, used to prove the existence of a widespread malefic network. In\u00a0\u201cSatanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend,\u201d<\/a> Jeffrey Victor talks about how Charles Manson and Jim Jones were used to create a stereotype of criminal Satanism.<\/p>\n The stereotype of criminal Satanism merged imagery of fanatical religious cults with that of psychopathic criminals like Reverend Jim Jones and Charles Manson. This dramaic imagery had great mass media appeal. Satanic cult stories were first able to find a channel to a national audience when they appeared in small town newspaper reports as a possible explanation for an epidemic of spurious claims about cattle mutilations. Later, small town newspaper reports about a wide variety of crimes, from a cemetary vandalism to serial murder, began to attribute the crimes to \u201cSatanists.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Replace \u201cSatanism\u201d with \u201cSanteria\u201d and you can see the pattern emerging once again<\/a>. \u201cSanteria Panic,\u201d fueled by fear, bad journalism, and extreme events like these \u201csacrifices\u201d to Santa Muerte. In fact, back in 2010\u00a0Kenneth Ross, the law enforcement chief for the Westchester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,\u00a0made explicit\u00a0the link between the old panic, and the one that seems ready to emerge.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI think what happens is you have different cultures coming into the United States, and when the cultures come in they bring their traditions and they bring whatever they practice,\u201d <\/strong>said Ross, the SPCA police chief.\u00a0\u201cIf you look back in the \u201970s \u2026 Satanism was the big thing and everybody was dabbling in Satanism. I\u2019m sure it happens and that\u2019s how different sects are created within Santeria,\u201d<\/strong> Ross said.\u00a0\u201cBut I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the dabblers or is it just the influx of different nationalities that bring their own traditions?\u201d<\/strong> the SPCA police chief added.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So if this is the new \u201cManson moment,\u201d<\/em> the thing that will spark a new moral panic that could have \u201clasting consequences for alternative religion in North America,\u201d<\/a> <\/em>it raises two practical questions for modern Pagans. How do we derail this trend, stopping it before it ruins thousands of lives as it did during the Satanic Panics of the 1980s and early 90s<\/a>, and how do we form a workable political coalition with practitioners of Santeria, Palo, Vodou, and other groups that will no doubt inhabit the eye of such a storm?<\/p>\n