Employing Information Operations to Challenge Cartel (Narcocultura) Derived Santa Muerte Propaganda

Criminals involved in narcotic and other illicit economy-based cartels have discovered a super-natural intercessor, Santa Muerte, who will not only refrain from judging them but will also grant their wishes. A few of these criminals have even evolved from offering this entity food, alcohol, and cigarettes to offering human lives (and souls) in order to gain much greater benefits and darker blessings.[1] Santa Muerte emerged in 18th-century Mexico with benign intentions by blending Aztec religious beliefs with Catholic and Spanish iconography,[2] such as the grim reaper icon called the La Parca.[3] She has grown into a type of folk or patron saint offering spiritual solace for people living on the fringes of society: Ex-criminals, inmates, sex workers, members of the LGBTQ community, and similar impoverished, marginalized, and/or desperate people.[4] This is due to her amoral value system—given that she is the personification of death—which does not discriminate against the socio-economic status, misfortunes, or lifestyle choices of her followers.

The vast majority of Santa Muerte devotees are not involved in criminal activities, do not condone violence in her name, and seek instead her intercession on mundane matters like romance. Many members of Mexico’s law enforcement and military branches even venerate Santa Muerte given their professional proximity to death and as a result seek her protection. We are not concerned, though, with Santa Muerte’s mundane and benign uses and peaceful narratives (Figure 1). However, some members of the drug cartels have found Santa Muerte very appealing and have integrated her into their narco culture (narcocultura) that plagues Mexican society.[5] This essay thus focuses on Santa Muerte where she has become appropriated by narco culture and is being utilized as a component of cartel propaganda.

This variant of the Santa Muerte belief system has become something sinister and as a result now represents a powerful narco-propaganda symbol that is enhancing the quality of their information warfare campaigns. Narco-culture is itself a form of propaganda that legitimizes and normalizes the cartel lifestyle,[6] which results in reduced resistance towards criminal and anti-social behavior. The syncretic blending of Santa Muerte with narco culture increases the potency of cartel propaganda by adding a spiritual component that provides an alternative to the traditional Christian culture of Mexico.[7] For law enforcement, military, intelligence agents, and other professionals involved in combatting these cartels, neutralizing cartel propaganda is an essential task. Therefore, dealing with the cartel appropriated Santa Muerte narrative cannot be avoided. This essay aims to review key aspects of this variant of Santa Muerte spirituality, identify vulnerabilities, and offer several general offensive strategies to attack it. The Santa Muerte plays many roles in narcotics cartel propaganda, such as recruiting new members. Physical violence, through maiming and torturing of enemies, is another dimension of narco propaganda meant to scare opponents and pacify resistance from the public. Torture and violence are accepted and expected within some extreme occult groups. Thus, the religious components of Santa Muerte can change the psychological nature of this extreme violence by justifying and glorifying it.[8] For instance, if a murder victim is made to appear as a sacrifice to Santa Muerte, it could serve as a rationalization for people to accept it as legitimate. There are many other ways an appropriated Santa Muerte could super-charge cartel information warfare.

What Santa Muerte is and What She can do

The extreme variant of Santa Muerte is often considered a type of death cult since this deity is a personification of death.[9] She can also be considered as a folk saint, which is a saint of the common people, not recognized by the Catholic Church, but merged with their celebration Catholic religious traditions and venerated.[10] She has the power to influence or grant miracles. Her iconography often borrows heavily from the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who was an apparition of the mother of Jesus, that was left on the cloak of a Christian convert in 1530’s Mexico.[11] The Virgin of Guadalupe is arguably the most powerful symbol of Mexican culture, national identity and ethnicity, thus borrowing symbolic power is prudent. The Church considers the merging of the two spiritual entities—the Virgin and Santa Muerte—as GuadaMuerte to be a type of satanic mockery (Figures 2 & 3). It is important to note that many devotees are syncretic as they embrace some form of Christian belief and practice, integrating Santa Muerte into it.[12] As a symbol she is powerful within Central American culture because she is symbolically tied with the Aztec God of death Mictecacihuatl—though she also possibly draws upon European archetypes.[13] Additionally, she resonates with powerful cultural meanings for death in Mexico, which are fundamentally different than meanings for death in the United States.[14] The Day of the Dead celebration is good example of this. Thus, as a symbolic package Santa Muerte is extremely potent in regions of Latin America, rendering her difficult to challenge.

Figures 2 & 3: Comparison of the Virgin of Guadalupe with GuadaMuerte (aka Madre Muerte) Source: Contemporary Adherent Social Media (Many Variations of this Duality Exist).

Some key beliefs about Santa Muerte are that she is fundamentally different from other divine beings in that she adopts a completely non-judgmental attitude towards individual humans. Unlike the deities of the major religions, Santa Muerte doesn’t care about your sins or behavior.[15] She accepts everyone the way they are, from the worst criminals to the saintliest of people. This provides a major reason why cartel members are attracted to her. Because of her non-judgmental morality, she is neutral towards all people who engage with her. According to self-proclaimed Santa Muerte clergy, her neutrality means that she will not discriminate against devotees based on the legality or morality of their desires.[16] This contrasts with traditional religions where the divine will generally reject requests that are not beneficial to you or others—petitions to engage in successful narcotics trafficking endeavors, even engaging in death magic, is unacceptable within those spiritual traditions. Thus, Santa Muerte’s theology inadvertently turns it into a type of magnet for the outcasts of society and the criminal element (including sicarios; assassins) other religions reject.

The primary reason that motivates people to engage with Santa Muerte is that they believe she has the power to grant favors, answer prayers, and perform miracles.[17] Because of her neutrality, she will grant requests ranging from health and love to protection from the police and even success in murder. Scholars have identified that devotee’s will even post-hoc ascribe beneficial life outcomes to Santa Muerte’s intervention despite not having asked for help. Survival during deadly accidents or remissions of fatal diseases are common examples of this. The theology of how this intercession actually works is divergent as there is no single dominant authoritative person or text. Generally, one must ask for assistance through the rendering of prayers. This allows for a contract to be entered into via the execution of a religious ritual.[18]

This has been backed up by a survey of literature from her clergy.[19] Generally, employing magic is an act of co-creation whereby interacts with Santa Muerte to actualize the desired reality. Finally, anecdotal evidence from devotee’s and some of her priests hold Santa Muerte never fails to deliver on your petition, if of course, the offering is commensurate with what is being asked of her.[20] Hence, immense favors, those involving death magic and the achievement of great wealth or power, may take one down the path of dark spirituality and blood sacrifices (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Criminal (Barrio 18) Variant Santa Muerte Altar (Pistols & Bullets ‘Spiritually Recharging’) Source: Policía Nacional Civil de Guatemala; PNC [For Public Distribution] February 2017.

Psycho-social Factors

 There are a number of psychological factors at play in the adoption of people’s beliefs concerning Santa Muerte. A few of the most relevant will be reviewed here. Given that most believers exist on the fringes of society, their lives are more susceptible to instability and chaos, which creates uncertainty. Since uncertainty is psychologically uncomfortable, people are motivated to eliminate or void it. Research shows that uncertainty can contribute to belief in things like the paranormal or conspiracy theories.[21] Thus, Santa Muerte can provide venerators, even worshippers, with a remedy to cope with uncertainty—especially when faced with the prospect of their untimely death. Belief in the Santa Muerte’s ability to intervene to protect you could reduce uncertainty. A related factor is the perception of control over one’s life as a way to manage uncertainty in an unpredictable environment.[22] People with lower levels of perceived control were also shown to be more susceptible to paranormal beliefs.[23] Belief in one’s ability to use petitions to Santa Muerte can improve one’s sense of control.

A factor that directly contributes to the formation of paranormal and occult beliefs is that the human brain is hardwired to search for and detect patterns. This is a survival mechanism because pattern detection helps us to make sense of the world and improve our ability to predict future outcomes. It is also a way for people to reduce uncertainty and increase a sense of control. However, we can detect illusory patterns that don’t actually exist, and this process is intensified when a person lives in a dangerous environment full of threats.[24] Thus, when a Santa Muerte venerator (or worshiper) credits her for beneficial outcomes they did not request, they are detecting an illusory pattern. A related factor is casual attribution, which is the retrospective process of falsely attributing a cause and effect relationship to some agent.[25] This is a method to create perceptions of predictability, stability and safety by making sense of reality and providing structure in a chaotic world; which reduces uncertainty and facilitates perceptions of control.[26] Some Santa Muerte devotees could explain a perceived cause and effect relationship by attributing it as the source of real world events when more plausible alternatives exist.

Identifying Vulnerabilities

The discussion so far indicates that belief in the appropriated variant of Santa Muerte spirituality would be very difficult to neutralize as a cartel propaganda asset. However, Santa Muerte is a symbolic system, which is defined as: “A symbolic system involves a collection of symbols (like words, numbers, or icons) and a set of rules or conventions that govern how these symbols are combined and interpreted to convey meaning.”[27] Hence, all symbolic systems can be challenged (or evolved), subverted, attacked resulting in the transformation of meanings. Reflect upon how activists have succeeded in transforming societal meanings of gender—from a binary to a non-binary narrative—within the last ten years. Directly attacking a sacred icon like the Santa Muerte, by destroying alters and shrines, can easily boomerang and increase devotion. Furthermore, governmental agencies should refrain from debilitating the normal religious beliefs of common people—our concern is not the benign folk saint variant of her spirituality which has been integrated by her devotees who reside within the Catholic tradition. So, any counter-strategy must be diligently researched and meticulously planned and is more likely to require a subtle and indirect approach. Therefore, we will now examine several of the most critical vulnerabilities within Santa Muerte’s symbolic system.

The most important vulnerability is that Santa Muerte cannot actually grant favors or perform miracles. Answering prayers or magic spells is pure chance, a placebo effect or possibly covert human intervention. However, the real weakness is when requests are not granted, which creates a contradiction with the propositions that she is both neutral and that she never fails to deliver via transactions with the petitioner (assuming the offering is equal to the intercession being asked of her). People have several cognitive methods of rationalizing failure. Some sources specify that requests are withheld for breaking the spiritual contract or lack of proper devotion.[28] The absence of a coherent theology allows for these contradictions to exist. Before we proceed it is important to review the role of cognitive dissonance in order to account for its impact.

A believer who encounters a failed request is likely to experience psychological discomfort caused by inconsistency between beliefs about what should have happened and reality. This is explained by cognitive dissonance theory.[29] Research on failed religious prophecy indicate that a believers rationalization begins by avoiding thoughts they were wrong and reinterpreting Santa Muerte’s failure to fit new circumstances.[30] The process could end here or continue as some believers experience a strengthening of belief by thinking Santa Muerte was somehow testing their faith. If they offer greater devotion—and offerings—then their next requests will be fulfilled. They could also ascribe failure to outside forces, such as enemies, like other cartels, using Santa Muerte to cast spells against them. Cognitive dissonance is not a showstopper for this vulnerability, rather it’s another variable to reconcile. Strategic communicators need to be mindful of their messages structure since communications can trigger it.[31]

Depending upon one’s goals and the nature of the audience, it may be desirable to trigger cognitive dissonance. Exploitation of a person’s hypocritical behavior is one example.[32] Exploitation of this vulnerability doesn’t require a full-scale change of beliefs in order to be successful. Belief in symbolic systems like Santa Muerte exist on a continuum scale that ranges from disbelief to total belief. Eliminating belief is difficult, but reducing it is a more feasible goal. Marketers understand that simply creating doubt is sufficient to achieve some of their goals.[33] For instance, if a certain cartel leader brags about the Santa Muerte protecting him from law enforcement, prioritize his arrest and extradition to an American supermax prison. Then create messages that cause doubt about Santa Muerte’s ability. However, attacks on this vulnerability need to be specifically focused on countering belief in the granting of criminal favors, such as the protection from law enforcement.

Another vulnerability is the lack of a coherent foundational narrative and theology within her symbolic system.[34] For example, there is no clear explanation of how Santa Muerte interacts with other super-natural beings, opening the possibility to introduce conflict. Lack of coherence creates ambiguity that believers have to fill with their subjective interpretations. Ambiguity inherently creates opportunities strategic communicators can exploit to create new meanings and revise existing ones.[35] Increasing uncertainty about meanings and reducing the believers’ perceptions of control may offer an effective strategy. Santa Muerte is vulnerable to the  development and insertion of various beliefs and claims that can subvert meanings important to cartel propaganda. For instance, one could create uncertainty about a point of doctrine, which creates discomfort worshippers seek to eliminate, and then offer an alternative point of doctrine with evidence to reduce uncertainty. The key here is to maximize the impact of limited resources by focusing on beliefs that are essential to narco culture and propaganda.

The third vulnerability is Santa Muerte’s relatively weak narrative, which allows for challenges by counter-narratives. It lacks a compelling origin story, which essentially acknowledges the Aztec origins,[36] but there is no explanation of how or why Santa Muerte came into existence. An effective narrative also enhances its effectiveness by facilitating patternicity. A great narrative will offer pieces of evidence that the audience can piece together for themselves to create a pattern. For narratives to be compelling, they must be coherent; ideas must flow logically from each other.[37] For instance, how and why did an Aztec god evolve (or one also pulling from European spiritual death archetypes) and become syncretic with Christian symbols and beliefs?  Narratives must also be consistent as all the plot events push towards resolution of the conflict in a story or to preserve the coherence of the tale. Given that there is no single dominant authority figure in the symbolic system, different groups tell divergent stories. There are a number of academics who specialize in Santa Muerte research, but they more frequently engage in focusing on her more benign and mainstream element. Still, other researchers focus on the cartel variant of her spirituality and under emphasize her more benign manifestations. The danger of course are the potentials for getting too close to the subject matter and underplaying or overplaying the threat she may represent as either an apologist on one extreme or a witch hunter on the other. Thus, overall lack of research consistency undermines our basic understanding of narrative effectiveness.

There are many guides, from groups engaged against extremists, to assist in developing counter-narratives.[38] For example, narratives require conflict between protagonists and antagonists, because conflict makes a narrative interesting and compelling. The Catholic Church already has an effective counter-narrative for Santa Muerte, although the efficacy of their communication strategy to promote it is up for debate.[39] Essentially, the Church holds that Santa Muerte is inherently a demonic entity that is in eternal opposition to the goodness of God.[40] For instance, Jesus conquered death when he was resurrected and therefore, death should never be worshipped. Because the Church has a strong theology, it affords coherent and consistent narratives. However, while targeting the cartel variant of Santa Muerte with such a black (evil) and white (good) duality the vast mass of her benign followers who venerate her as a folk saint (rather than worship her as a death goddess) will be targeted creating a new dilemma.

Santa Muerte’s narrative can be challenged in several ways. First, subversive narratives that challenge and alter certain aspects of belief can be employed. In order to avoid provoking psychological resistance, only anti-social elements that facilitate narco-culture and propaganda should be challenged. For instance, a narrative conflict between normal believers and narcos could undermine the normalization of narco-culture. Narratives that directly challenge Santa Muerte, like asserting that science disproves her existence, can also be employed but with caution. The optimal solution to undermine Santa Muerte’s narco based narrative is to use several counter-narratives that simultaneously work together as a single strategy.

Conclusion

To defeat the narcotics cartels’ information warfare campaigns while employing information operations to disrupt and degrade their operations, their appropriated version of Santa Muerte cannot be ignored. Allowing the cartels to introduce a pseudo-religious component to their cultural belief system will only empower them.[41] Focusing on key elements of Santa Muerte’s symbolic system that are essential to narco culture, like the granting of criminal favors, will enable one to employ social science to understand and change how and why believers engage with it.

Three key vulnerabilities were identified, but many more exist, which provide avenues to use information operations to alter selected meanings that defang it’s narco propaganda potential. This is not a simple or easy task since you must overcome people’s psychological defense mechanisms and symbolic obstacles that protect belief. Thus, by transforming certain dangerous aspects of Santa Muerte as opposed to trying to totally undermine her, her use as cartel propaganda can be mitigated.

There is no silver bullet; one must employ a range of different but inter-related tactics in a synchronized manner so that a synergy of effects can be achieved. This campaign will take time and effort to see results. Luckily, artificial intelligence and the relatively low cost of messaging on social media will empower information warriors engaged against the cartels.[42] This essay offers a starting point for discussion, and possibly, collaboration focused on responding to the use of cartel narratives surrounding their appropriation of Santa Muerte. Any strategy to counter her manifestation as a death goddess and the patron of the cartels still needs to be fully researched, properly designed, and executed efficiently. Finally, there is an ethical component that must be considered, in a free society people have a right to religious belief. Any strategy to counter the Santa Muerte in the context of narco-culture would need to be constructed in a manner that would avoid harming its normal and non-criminal (petty criminal) believers.[43] Let the debate begin.

Endnotes

[1] “Drug gangs in Ecuador turn to ‘death saint’ for protection, some even committing human sacrifices.” CBS News. 5 February 2024, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drug-gangs-ecuador-death-saint-protection-human-sacrifices/.

[2] “Santisima Muerte: History, Meaning, and Worship.” Original Botanica. 20 October 2023,  https://originalbotanica.com/blog/understanding-santisima-muerte.

[3] David Metcalf, “Santa Muerte: The enigmatic allure of the beautiful girl.” The Revealer. 5 October 2016, https://therevealer.org/santa-muerte-the-enigmatic-allure-of-the-beautiful-girl/.

[4] Breda Page Violette, “Making queerness ordinary: Santa Muerte and Queer Religious Leadership.” ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America. 21 November 2023, https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/making-queerness-ordinary-santa-muerte-and-queer-religious-leadership/.

[5] Rolando Ochoa, “Santa Muerte will not save us: Improving understanding of Mexican organized crime.” The Strategist. 13 September 2017, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/santa-muerte-will-not-save-us-improving-understanding-mexican-organised-crime/.

[6] America Y. Guevara, “Propaganda in Mexico’s Drug War.” Journal of Strategic Security. Vol. 6, no. 3, Fall 2013, pp. 131–151, https://www.utep.edu/liberalarts/nssi/_files/docs/publications1/propaganda-in-mexico-guevara.pdf.

[7] Piotr Grzegorz Michalik, “Death with a Bonus Pack: New Age Spirituality, Folk Catholicism, and the Cult of Santa Muerte.” Archives de sciences sociales des religions. Vol. 56, no. 153, January-March 2011, pp. 159–182, https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/server/api/core/bitstreams/39c17643-273f-477e-a92e-6fc9cfdfbd3c/content.

[8] Robert J. Bunker, “Santa Muerte: Inspired and Ritualistic Killings.” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. 5 February 2013, https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/santa-muerte-inspired-and-ritualistic-killings.

[9] Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, “Extreme Barbarism, a Death Cult, and Holy Warriors in Mexico: Societal Warfare South of the Border?” Small Wars Journal. 22 May 2011, https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1273&context=cgu_fac_pub.

[10] Livia Gershon, “Who is Santa Muerte?” JSTOR Daily. 5 October 2020, https://daily.jstor.org/who-is-santa-muerte/.

[11] “Our Lady of Guadalupe: Patron saint of Mexico.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 18 March 2025, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Our-Lady-of-Guadalupe-patron-saint-of-Mexico.

[12] Armando Rubi III, “Santa Muerte: A transnational religious movement in North America.” MA Thesis, University of Miami. 10 December 2014, https://scholarship.miami.edu/esploro/outputs/graduate/Santa-Muerte-A-Transnational-Spiritual-Movement/991031447859602976.

[13] William A. Calvo-Quirós, “Chapter 4: La Santa Muerte: The Patrona of the Death-Worlds” in Undocumented Saints: The Politics of Migrating Devotions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 216–269, https://academic.oup.com/book/44914/chapter/384763831.

[14] Isabel T. Gutiérrez et al, “Embracing Death: Mexican Parent and Child Perspectives on death.” Child Development. Vol. 91, no. 2, pp. e491–e511, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6883122/.

[15] David G. Bromley, “Santa Muerte as Emerging Dangerous Religion?” Religions. Vol. 7, no. 6, 3 June 2016, https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/7/6/65.

[16] “An Interview with Tomás Prower.” Llewellyn Worldwide. 23 April 2018, https://www.llewellyn.com/author_interview.php?author_id=5781&interview_id=156&srsltid=AfmBOooC0Q_BeGc71K5xJgqzpv8clD8fb9j-D99g8aISTTL_MXb-vCh2.

[17] Stefano Bigliardi, “La Santa Muerte and Her Interventions in Human Affairs: A Theological Discussion.” Sophia – International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions. Vol. 55, no. 3, 2016, pp. 303–323, https://www.academia.edu/17933498/_La_Santa_Muerte_and_Her_Interventions_in_Human_Affairs_A_Theological_Discussion_Sophia_International_Journal_of_Philosophy_and_Traditions_55_3_2016_303_323.

[18] This is explained in R. Andrew Chestnut, Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. This is the most authoritative work on the subject.

[19] Tomás Prower, La Santa Muerte: Unearthing the Magic & Mysticism of Death. Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications, 2015.

[20] R. Andrew Chesnut, Death and Roses: Santa Muerte, the Love Sorceress. nd,https://www.academia.edu/38022710/Death_and_Roses_Santa_Muerte_the_Love_Sorceress.

[21] R. Thomas Dudley, “The relationship between negative affect and paranormal belief.” Personality and Individual Differences. Vol. 28, no. 2, February 2000, pp. 315–321,  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222810551_The_relationship_between_negative_affect_and_paranormal_belief.

[22] Lauren A. Leotti, Sheena S. Iyengar, and Kevin N. Ochsner. “Born to choose: The origins and value of the need for control.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Vol. 14, no. 10, pp. 457–463, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20817592/.

[23] Mark P. Mattson, “Superior pattern processing is the essence of the evolved human brain.” Frontiers in Neuroscience. Vol. 8, no. 265, 21 August 2014,  https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2014.00265/full.

[24] Jan‐Willem van Prooijen, Karen M Douglas, and Clara De Inocencio, “Connecting the dots: Illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural.” European Journal of Social Psychology. Vol. 48, no. 3, 25 September 2017, pp. 320–335, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5900972/.

[25] “Causal attribution.” ScienceDirect. Accessed 2 April 2025, https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/nursing-and-health-professions/causal-attribution. Sourced to Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference (Second Edition), 2017.

[26] Eva-Maria Seidel et al., “Who is to blame? Neural correlates of causal attribution in social situations.” Social Neuroscience. Vol. 5, no. 4, 15 February 2009, pp. 335–350, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8019091/.

[27] Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973  https://cdn.angkordatabase.asia/libs/docs/clifford-geertz-the-interpretation-of-cultures.pdf. See also Md Fakiruddin Ahmed, “Culture and Symbolic Transformations: Understanding the Dynamics of Societal Change.” International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science. Vol. 5, no. 8, August 2023, pp. 234–240, https://www.irjmets.com/uploadedfiles/paper/issue_8_august_2023/43824/final/fin_irjmets1691284905.pdf.

[28] Cressida Stone, “Secrets of Santa Muerte.” Musing Mystical. nd, https://musingmystical.com/secrets-of-santa-muerte-by-cressida-stone/.

[29] Joel Cooper, “Cognitive Dissonance: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going.” International Review of Social Psychology. Vol. 32, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1–11, https://rips-irsp.com/articles/277/files/submission/proof/277-1-1862-1-10-20190503.pdf.

[30] Lorene L. Dawson, “When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists: A Theoretical Overview.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. Vol. 3, no. 1, October 1999, pp 60–82, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/nr.1999.3.1.60.

[31] “Cognitive Dissonance Theory | Navigating Conflicting Messages.” MediaTheory. 10 August 2023, https://mediatheory.net/cognitive-dissonance/.

[32] Thomas Grden, “Embrace hypocrisy: Leveraging cognitive dissonance as a mechanism for change.” Michigan Bar Journal. April 2024, https://www.michbar.org/journal/Details/Embrace-hypocrisy-Leveraging-cognitive-dissonance-as-a-mechanism-for-change?ArticleID=4860.

[33] Kirk Willams, “Using questions to create doubt in PPC ads.” Zato Marketing Blog. 2023, https://zatomarketing.com/blog/using-questions-create-doubt-ppc-ads.

[34] Santa Muerte spirituality is highly syncretic with no centralized religious body or official theology. Even the rituals are in variance with various spell books attributing different outcomes (petitions) to the same-colored prayer candles. Further, Santa Muerte has for some time now increasingly become of interest to the occult milieu. See Manon Hedenborg-White and Manon Hedenborg-White, “The Scythe and the Pentagram: Santa Muerte from Folk Catholicism to Occultism.” Religions. Vol. 8, no. 1, 2017, https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/8/1/1.

[35] Willem E. Frankenhuis, Karthik Panchanathan, and Paul E. Smaldino, “Strategic Ambiguity in the Social Sciences.” Social Psychological Bulletin. Vol. 18, 17 November 2023, pp. 1–25, https://www.psycharchives.org/en/item/3ca28bd8-6458-41d1-94db-50d7a81054c6.

[36] “Santisima Muerte: History, Meaning, and Worship.” Original Botanica. 20 October 2023, https://originalbotanica.com/blog/understanding-santisima-muerte?srsltid=AfmBOor4Zv_pNu49uu4699ZDdDc3z29Dn9IGs1bboSmyr5TzgBVt2Ix-.

[37] Anna Harvey et al., “Assessing ‘coherence’ in the spoken narrative accounts of autistic people: A systematic scoping review.” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Vol. 102, April 2023,  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946723000077.

[38] US Department of Homeland Security, “Developing Effective Counter-Narrative Frameworks for Countering Violent Extremism.” Meeting Note. September 2014, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Developing%20Effective%20Counter-Narrative%20Frameworks_1.pdf and Henry Tuck and Tanya Silverman, “The Counter-Narrative Handbook.” Institute for Strategic Dialogue. June 2016, https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/the-counter-narrative-handbook/.

[39] Kate Kingsbury and Andrew Chestnut, “The Church’s life-and-death struggle with Santa Muerte.” The Catholic Herald. 11 April 2019, https://thecatholicherald.com/the-churchs-life-and-death-struggle-with-santa-muerte/.

[40] Mary Farrow, “Have you heard of Saint Death? Don’t pray to her.” Catholic News Agency. 4 November 2017, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/34832/have-you-heard-of-saint-death-dont-pray-to-her.

[41] John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, “Rethinking insurgency: criminality, spirituality, and societal warfare in the Americas.” Small Wars & Insurgencies. Vol. 22, no. 11, 2011, pp. 742–763, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2011.625720.

[42] Such an approach could be supported by computer models. See Rafael Pérez y Pérez, “Computer models as tools for the reflection on ideas: A model for evaluating the thematic consistency of a narrative.” Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’24). 2024, https://computationalcreativity.net/iccc24/papers/ICCC24_paper_26.pdf.

[43] A continuum of belief exists concerning Santa Muerte veneration and worship. A component of petty criminality along that continuum should not be targeted—such as sex workers within the folk saint tradition asking her for protection from harm. The targeting schema would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis with second order effects also taken in consideration.