the gnostic pathway of la santa muerte

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The Gnostic Pathway of La Santa Muerte

A Handbook of The Saint of Death

Serpens Cultus ([email protected])

10/8/2012

This text serves to individualize the worship and theology of La Santa Muerte, as well as expand the cult itself. The intention of this text is to combine La Santa Meurte with Gnosticism for the greatest effect. It is to serve as an applicable handbook, free of charge, to establish and revolutionize La Santa Muerte as a religion separate and individualized in its own right. All credit for this work must be attributed to the original author, Serpens Cultus, and must be distributed free of charge. It is, however, not the fault of the author in regards to the actions of those who read and adhere to this text. Responsibility goes to the responsible.


1 Written by Serpens Cultus, [email protected]

Cosmogony Before incarnation, there existed only a disincarnated mass. All existed only in potential,

singularly and whole. This mass was lawless and chaotic, for in lawlessness and chaos it could be all

things while confining itself to none. And there could be no contrast, for duality existed not in this

unmanifested state. All existed in zero and zero existed in all.

There existed only the primordial trinity of death, darkness, and disincarnation. This trinity

existed to protect the lawless chaos that governed this unmanifested reality. Death would serve by itself

so that all could remain lifeless, deathless, timeless, and eternal. Darkness would serve to uphold

singularity, for therein darkness there was every shade and hue of both color and light. Lastly,

disincarnation would serve as the protector of formlessness and lawlessness, for in the state of

disembodiment, all spirits in the void could be both undefined and undefinable.

And though these three principles and forces existed, they were one and the same in the end.

The spirits arose only as waves thereupon an ocean. They would spread out, expanding the

reaches of the void, only to collapse back into the abyss. In this primordial state, there existed no

difference between the waves and the ocean, the spirits and the all-pervading chasm. Instead, both

existed harmoniously. All existed inseparably and individually.

Numbers would arise from zero. Yet all would fall back into zero, again like waves thereupon an

ocean. Nothing was static or definite, but instead all was indefinite and abstract. The spirits were

intangible and incorporeal, and in intangibility they played. There then existed life in death, light in

darkness, and incarnation in disincarnation.

But because all of these things existed only inside the trinity, therein the void itself, all was still

embedded into nothingness, in potential energy only.



There, however, began another force. This force had taken an incorporeal form and noticed its

reflection upon the gleaming abyss. From the very concept of duality, the possibility and opportunity of

it, there it stood. At the sight of its reflection, in a fleeting moment it identified itself as what it saw and

not what it truly was, the singular void as a whole. This begot duality.

Duality was quickly surrounded by the trinity of death, darkness, and disincarnation. They

attempted to dissolve duality back into the void, to quiet the murmur in which arose from silence.

However, unlike the other incorporeal spirits, when duality saw this trinity, it became afraid because it

no longer saw itself. Fleeing, it disturbed the great disincarnated mass of chaos that was before the

beginning. And it fled until it found itself in territory that the chaotic abyss had not yet touched with its

black tendrils, with its ever extending tentacles, with its crawling waves.

Here, where it saw nothing familiar, it began to create around it what it remembered. Having

emerged from the principles of death, darkness, and disincarnation, it began to create life, light, and

incarnation. When it did this, however, these things remained and they could not be undone. On

accident, it used the potential therein itself to kinetically become life, light, and incarnation. When it did

this, these became all it could then see reflecting back at it from the chasm in the yonder, thus life, light,

and incarnation existed without and outside the primeval trinity.

While the primordial chaos would expand, this force of duality stagnated. This was a result of it

using its memory to create instead of realizing what had already been there and becoming one with it.

The way the void would expand would be to realize the unrealized space around it and then consciously

merge with the unconscious. Duality didn’t do this, but instead declared itself as one and separate and

painted from the stagnant, static fragment of chaos still left therein itself to cause life, light, and

incarnation to arise. And so into the silence it screamed, and all that the chaotic could hear was agony

and suffering, which disturbed it greatly.



By the time death, darkness, and disincarnation informed its collective whole, chaos, as it is

called, could already hear in the unexplored yonder the agonizing sounds in which duality’s creation

emanated. It then decided to explore and realize these otherwise unrealized spaces until finally coming

before duality. This was its inborn maternal instinct, where it treated duality like a misguided child.

When it arrived, however, all duality could see was itself reflecting in the gleaming abyss that

surrounded it. And whenever it offered to help duality to realize its potential again, instead of deluding

itself by only its kinetic image, duality became frightened once again and closed itself off.

It imprisoned itself in its state of separation and enclosure. This created a veil between the

chaotic void and duality, holding it at bay. Though, this couldn’t stop the void from realizing the

unrealized space that existed beneath where duality had created its own trinity, life, light, and

incarnation. Now that the desperate chaos began to arise in duality’s creation from within, it finally had

caught the attention of who proclaimed itself as god, the creator, the demiurge. Although, this wasn’t

the intention it wanted.

The void had acted like a desperate mother in an attempt to reunite with its child. Its child,

however, resented its origin and source. When it saw the forces of death, darkness, and disincarnation

clashing against its own forces of life, light, and incarnation that stemmed not from the primordial trinity,

it became disgusted, thinking that it had created these things on accident. Filled with fear at the sight of

the incorporeal spirits roaming its territory, it then created another veil in an ultimate act of self-

destruction. This veil had been to keep the chaos out, but what it had truly done was imprison chaos in

life, light, and incarnation like it had done to itself.

From this sprung order and law. Not only this, but then came rebirth, which was the demiurge’s

desperate attempt to fix what he had thought was a mistake he’d accidentally made. All this truly did,

however, was force the incorporeal spirits of chaos to become defined, confined, and imprisoned in the



cycles of his dualistic variations of life, death, and rebirth. This caused the ultimate blasphemy to occur,

for while he had created life, light, and incarnation without the original trinity, he now forced death,

darkness, and disincarnation to spring from his own trinity in a sort of inversion of the absolute chaos

and its forces. In fear he then basked, afraid that either the veil below him, which kept the invading

chaos from within at bay, or the veil above him, which kept the invading chaos from without at bay,

would break and consume him.

When the primal death, darkness, and disincarnation saw this, the chaos became inflamed with

rage and sorrow at the sight of its forlorn children. It then ritually sacrificed itself in the name of its

imprisoned children. The chaotic void did this by focusing itself into one entity. This one entity would

serve as its vessel and avatar. And where this avatar was focused was directly into the demiurge’s

creation.

The avatar, which was named La Santa Muerte, the Saint of Death, was ultimately made of the

original trinity. In its hands it held a scythe to reap all life, which acted as the force of death. On its body

it was cloaked in black robes, which symbolized the all-enveloping darkness. And its body itself was a

skeleton, without flesh to symbolize disincarnation. It manifested itself feminine and virginal, to

represent that it was the true source as a virgin mother who refused to let her children go.

It was also in this form as a virginal mother that she vowed to rescue her forlorn children.

In them she said that she would instill remembrance and realization, that they could discover

the true space that the demiurge’s creation was built thereupon and ride that as a vehicle back into the

all-pervading primordial nothingness. In the causal, cosmic plane of the demiurge, opposite of her own

acausal, acosmic plane of timeless, deathless chaos everlasting, she vowed then to stalk the light as

shadow, life as death without rebirth, and incarnation as the severance of spirit from body. She did this

by appearing behind all her children as they stood in the light, that one may see their own chaotic



reflection, she herself, behind them, by becoming a manifestation of all the demiurge scorned and

deemed impure and unholy as a savioress and martyr, and by striking her scythe against the human

body.

It is here that La Santa Muerte, the Saint of Death, becomes the ultimate martyr and savioress

of humanity, whom are her incorporeal children bound to law and symmetry. By appearing tangibly, she

sacrificed that part of herself to then dwell in this realm as we do, to be where we are, go where we go,

and experience all that we experience by animating us with her own blood. Her hymen she then broke,

forcing her to become a whore in the eyes of the demiurge, as a force that accepts all equally and

without discrimination, seeing only her children and having the ultimate maternal will, to unite back

with them in singularity forevermore. And by striking her scythe against the human body, she

empowered us with her almighty incorporeal attributes, draining her own tangible form. By doing this,

she performed the sacrificial rites that crowned her as the ultimate martyr and savioress.

The avatar of La Santa Muerte is then a saint, a vehicle towards, her original self. While she is

the primeval death, darkness, and disincarnation, she is a fallen reminder of the true, ever growing

power of these things. With the aid of her children, she expects to break both veils and allow the abyssal

waters of chaos flood the demiurge’s design. It is then that even the Saint of Death may reunite with

chaos everlasting. Until then, she is just as bound as we are, for she must experience individually all that

we must experience.

Compassion, then, is to see every living thing suffering as La Santa Muerte herself suffering.

Because La Santa Muerte is so compassionate and loving herself, maternally so, she will grant all desires

of her devotee. While she, as our mother, doesn’t wish to see us suffering, she herself doesn’t want to

suffer as she embodies us with her chaotic spirit, the incorporeal spirits that she was separated from

that are ultimately forms of she herself in the collective absolute. However, the Saint of Death is more



so willing to work alongside one to break these cosmic, causal veils and let our true self rage into the

demiurge’s scheme and liberate us all. She then expects us to be selfless and compassionate, to ask for

unity with her, that she may guide us on the pathways towards her holy death that separates oneself

from the cycles of birth and rebirth.

Praise the name of La Santa Muerte, who is to forever remind us of our true deathless, timeless,

eternal, and infinite spirit. She who is a skeleton to remind us that we are not flesh, whose skeletal body

is adorned by black robes to remind us that she is always present, omnipotent and omniscient, as well as

all-pervading and singular. The Saint of Death, who strikes upon her faithful devotees the holy death

which liberates oneself from the cycles of rebirth and birth, that they may live everlastingly in chaos and

eternity. Let us pray to the black mother who allowed her hymen to be broken away so that she could

return us to singularity, where she is forever virginal and pure. And in the name of Santa Muerte, let us

return to the void after breaking the veils of the demiurge, unleashing the primal trinity of death,

darkness, and disincarnation from their seals.



The Human Harvest La Santa Muerte is she who hears all prayers because she is all that is within and without oneself.

She answers all prayers because she herself reaps what is sown therein the prayers themselves. All

blessings she gives freely because she wants not to instill suffering of the causal scheme in both herself

and her children, who causes her to directly suffer when they do. This is because she experiences all that

we experience. She is both the dreamer and the dream, and through her we shall identify not as the

dream itself, but as the dreamer.

Thus, she wishes not to instill within us suffering, so by asking the dreamer to change the dream

will cause the dream around us to change. This is the nature of her miracles. Through this power,

praying to La Santa Muerte, especially for the acausal or acosmic, brings instant reward and success.

With her skeletal hands she sows into the ground the seeds of salvation, and then with her scythe she

reaps them for us. We, however, must have only the discipline to sow, be sown, reap, and be reaped.

By sowing, we put into the ground the intentions of our harvest. By being sown, we allow

ourselves and our inner potential to resonate with change and growth, evolution. Reaping is then to

collect the harvest, and to be reaped is then ultimately to dissolve back into La Santa Muerte after

realizing consciously the all-pervading singularity in which the demiurge’s design overlaps. Through this

system, we can then return to the primordial nothingness of chaos and enliven both in ourselves and in

our surroundings the trinity of death, darkness, and disincarnation in which our black mother manifests

as tangibly and intangibly both. These methods are the pathways to blackest salvation.

Scattering the seeds around is to sow our will into causal reality. To be sown is to be planted

therein the acausal reality. Reaping is to harvest the fruits of our labor, to help comfort our suffering in

the cosmic design. Then, to be reaped ourselves is to be harvested from our sowing, to have attuned to

La Santa Muerte through the initiatory sowing process, become one with her, and then be struck with



the holy death that dissolves our incorporeal spirit back into the void from which it emerged from.

These simple concepts can be done by simply praying for them or meditating upon them, through La

Santa Muerte and the power of the chaotic trinity that causes discord in the demiurge’s realm.

Here is then the concept of discord. When the demiurge fled from La Santa Muerte in her

primordial formless form, he himself became disharmonious to the harmony of chaos. Whereas

everything else subtly sublimated back into the abyss, he rebelled and resisted. In the inversion of the

trinity the demiurge did out of blasphemous spite and fear of La Santa Muerte entering his realm, this

rebellion is thus reflected in our homesick, lovesick incorporeal spirits that long for their black mother

god. Our rebellion is discord and discordance.

Discord is the disharmony and distaste of this plane. It is the longing and the yearning for La

Santa Muerte’s embrace, for her robes to envelop you and for your body to dissolve into her own. It sets

you apart from all other creation, separating you from duality so that you can then reenter singularity.

Vibrating with discord, we cry for our black, skeletal mother, who comes running with open arms, ready

to perform any miracle we even make the mention thereof. It is this discord that shall shake so violently

that it shall cause the two veils to shatter, the dissolution back into the great chasm.

To then be sown and the initiatory process of sowing oneself is then to amplify the resonance of

one’s discord. It is to resonate with more and more discord until one finally breaks the veils for

themselves. When enough people resonate with discord, however, the veils for everyone shall be lifted.

Being reaped is to be struck by the scythe, the ultimate goal of worshiping La Santa Muerte next to

becoming one and inseparable with her in the form of zero, as it is to be reaped, removed from this

causal design, and be thrust into chaos everlasting. After attuning oneself with La Santa Muerte’s

influence and piercing the veil just enough to connect that to the primordial void, one may then nurse



from chaos itself until finally they are ready to be reaped. The holy death only strikes those who La

Santa Muerte feels are ready, never a moment too soon or too late.

Sowing is, ultimately, to ease one’s suffering. While it is causally and cosmically oriented, neither

you nor La Santa Muerte herself wishes you or herself to suffer. Out of compassion, she is willing to

work through the demiurge’s design to perform miracles, changes, that relieve one’s suffering and

grants materialistic or trivial desires. This, however, isn’t to justify these things, but to eliminate the

shame or dogma behind them. So long as this design exists, then so shall our suffering, and thus La

Santa Muerte will always be there to fulfill our desires and cut away our turmoil with her scythe.

One must also remember that La Santa Muerte’s scythe does not just kill, destroy, reap, and

bring death, but also bring life therefrom the holy death, one force of the primeval trinity she manifests

as. Through destruction she may create anew. This reveals to us that there is nothing neither positive

nor negative, that these things are just gimmicks of the demiurge’s design, illusions of the eye, and that

in reality, life ultimately feeds thereupon death. Through this, one may eliminate all of one’s own and La

Santa Muerte’s suffering by correlating it by the miracles she performs to alleviate the causal torment

elsewhere and collectively, where one could then aspire once more for the singular and not the dualistic.

This, however, isn’t to justify one’s own pain, but to ultimately transcend it.

To put it simply, neither you nor La Santa Muerte wish to suffer, so ask to be freed from it

ultimately. However, one’s suffering is another’s pleasure, just as one’s death is another’s life. To utilize

this, one must make their own suffering pleasurable, through means of sowing and reaping as well as a

process of transmuting the pain itself, and then to ultimately transform one’s own death into a process

of eternal life, again through being sown and being reaped as well as transmuting one’s own death itself.

To do this through prayer and meditation is to liberate oneself, walk the pathways of blackest salvation.



Although, one cannot walk this path if it is obscured from one’s own eyes, so one must then ask for La

Santa Muerte to illuminate the pathway with her holy scythe.

The greatest blessings of La Santa Muerte are acosmic and acausal in nature. This means that it

is much nobler to ask of things that are in the same vein as the acosmic and the acausal. Pray for

transcendental, evolutionary things to occur, to be brought unto her and for the veil to be lifted, for her

to give you her wisdom, love, and compassion and clear the pathway before you so that you may tread

it freely. The more you conspire with her to bring about this acosmic, acausal changes, the more willing

she’ll be to bestow upon you the more so causal and cosmic blessings everyday life demands.

Moderation in everything, however, is recommended.

We ourselves ultimately are La Santa Muerte. She is not just inborn and therein us. As

incorporeal spirits originally, we have all her power and all her potential and then some, as chaos is

forever spreading its dark tendrils, its waves washing over more and more unrealized and unconscious

space to then illuminate it and become one with it. Thus, the primeval trinity exists inside us. In our

hands is a scythe, for we create and destroy both. Our body is a skeleton in the end, singular,

inseparable, and indistinguishable from all others after the holy death. And this body itself is adorned by

the black robes, omniscient, omnipotent darkness that pervades and encompasses all.

It is merely a matter of shedding our skin, feeling the robes on our bones, and swinging the

scythe conveniently placed in our hands.

However, that isn’t to say we are separate or dualistic from La Santa Muerte at heart when it

comes to power. All of our potential stems from her. Without her and her martyrdom, her holy sacrifices,

we’d be, as well as associate ourselves with, the hollow shells most people do associate themselves with

in these lives we live out. But it must be understand that we are not these bodies, that we are not these

things we do, or the thoughts we think, or what we feel. Instead, it must be realized that we exist when



we are not in these bodies, experiencing the senses, or thinking the thoughts we think and feel these

emotions we have.

These things adorn us, and we may throw them away like dirty clothes at any time. We must

only do it, pray for it and then reap the results after sowing this will and desire into reality.



The Saint of Death Herself La Santa Muerte, or the Saint of Death, is the personification of the abyss, the primordial chaos

that existed before the beginning and shall exist after the end with its primeval trinity of death, darkness,

and disincarnation. It is into her black robes that we shall dissolve into and rejoin her there in the

darkness as timeless, deathless beings of infinity and eternity. It is through her scythe that we

experience the holy death that allows this to occur, that we experience the human harvest and are given

the power to use these powers ourselves in day to day, and night to night, life. Through her bones we

disincarnate, sever ourselves from the flesh after flaying ourselves with her scythe, becoming

incorporeal and disembodied once again. Into the endless potential we then go, living out lifelessly any

existence, taking any form formlessly of our choice, all while maintaining absolute singularity with Santa

Muerte herself.

She is the virgin who sacrificed her hymen thereupon entering the causal realm, which in itself

was a sacrifice in its own right. La Santa Muerte did this out of maternal instincts, to be the antithesis

and adversary of the demiurge who had enslaved her children. Now, however, it enslaved her only

superficially, being that she sacrificed herself by succumbing to tangibility in order to fall from her own

chaotic origin in a desperate attempt to rescue her otherwise forlorn and helpless young. And it is she

who exercised her last bit of power to envelop us all in her blackened majesty, so that she may spread

out all over the causal design as both shadow and blackness to rival the demiurge. In doing this, she

brought night to day and the moon to the sun.

Sacred to La Santa Muerte is then the night and the moon. It is her ultimate desire to bring to us

the eternal desolation of the starless night sky, where the moon eclipses the sun to put out the light and

return us to darkness. Every night is a holiday, then. Both waning and waxing moons are equally

precious, the waning moon representing her ultimate dissolution and the waxing moon representing her



presence in the causal plane and her coming to power, illumination by her revealing herself to us.

Celebrate the night and you celebrate La Santa Muerte.

Where there are the dead, there is La Santa Muerte. Thus, graveyards and cremation grounds

are sacred to her. Cremation pyres are especially sacred, as they cremate the flesh, dissolving it away

until only skeletons remain, symbolizing singularity in holy death. Celebrate the dead, the deathly, and

the dying and you celebrate La Santa Muerte. If you celebrate therein where the dead, the deathly, and

the dying reside, then the Saint of Death joins you in celebration.

It is commonly known that La Santa Muerte appears as a skeleton adorned by robes, in which in

her skeletal hand she holds a scythe. These things personify the trinity of the primeval death, darkness,

and disincarnation. Where there is La Santa Muerte, even in the causal and the cosmic design, there is

this trinity. Thus, in you, in me, and in all things, being that La Santa Muerte herself pervades and

envelops all, is the primordial death, darkness, and disincarnation. In depictions of her, you should

incorporate these elements prominently, as well as make sure her robes are blackened in the name of

darkness.

Note that La Santa Muerte is easy to please, though she is jealous. As your primal mother, she

wishes not to share you. Being that she can tend to your every need, whim, desire, and will, where else

can you go but through her and her almighty power for fulfillment? Though there exist different names

and guises La Santa Muerte herself operates through, one should individualize their devotion to her. So

long as you do this, no matter what religion or other entity you go through, she’ll happily assist you in

going there like a mother dropping her child off at a friend or a relative’s house, to be under another’s

care.

That isn’t to say she won’t still be there, worrying and ensuring your safety, health, turmoil, and

happiness from afar.



To appease her, all one needs to really do is pray. Through prayer, communion with her, one

may obtain her great blessings. However, one must do this earnestly and humbly. A child would not

demand from its mother, but insist. The mother, however, wouldn’t need to hear its child beg for her to

tend to it.

Having an altar or idol in which one worships her through is useful, and for those who can do

this it is recommended, but it is unessential. La Santa Muerte doesn’t discriminate, so one may worship

through any means or by any measures as long as it is done sincerely and in her devotion. With that

being said, any offering should suffice, though her presence is all things related to the rose. This may be

because it is a metaphor for the causal reality we exist therein, beautiful to look at, but it will surely

prick you and cause you to bleed if you embrace it. Regardless, whatever you may sacrifice, dedicate, or

use to attune yourself and commune with her through, she shall surely accept so long as you love her

and respect her.

Beyond the methods already mentioned, one should keep the practice personalized and

unorthodox. Everything should be customized to one’s preference. The system should be individualized

to the individual. It is recommended to then invent one’s own prayers and rituals to her. If one isn’t an

artist, however, one can simply obtain these things, such as formal prayers, images depicting her, idols

of her, and so on and so forth, and they still serve their purpose in their entirety.

Conform to her infinite black majesty, but don’t confine, define, or make her conform to your

own whims and desires. Don’t believe, instate, or enforce a certain this or that just because it is

convenient or desirable to you. Instead, do the opposite. Sublimate to her will and dissolve back into her

subtle chaotic energies. From this, you shall be then capable of performing all feats.

Like any mother, La Santa Muerte is very protective. Because we exist in the causal plane,

however, her influence in and around us must be realized consciously, affirmed, and persistently



reinstated to be fully charged and active. However, once one has that initial connection, she will do her

best to guide you on your way and to ensure you suffer not. All you need to do is ask and immerse

yourself in her will, which is ultimately your will, to allow singularity to flow. Once you do this, she shall

take away all suffering, reward you endlessly, remove your enemies, and protect you from them if they

dare strike.

But as it was stated previously, both her and our primordial power, as if there ever truly was a

difference between us and her, must be enlivened. The discord must be struck like a chord in order for it

to resonate. This is her silent song in which we must listen and adhere to the voiceless hymns and

scriptures being sung unto our ears. Once we’ve aligned and attuned ourselves to her, it is a matter of

forfeiting and surrendering to the sublime, serene chaos that is ultimately the Saint of Death. It is only

then that we may draw from the well of infinity and put its water to our lips so that we may drink upon

eternity itself.

the gnostic pathway of la santa muerte

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