When readers step into The Shadow of the Vatican  series, they enter a world shaped not only by supernatural conflict and thriller pacing, but by real prophecies—warnings and visions that have echoed across centuries, cultures, and belief systems. The series is fiction. The prophecies behind it are very real. As I researched The Death Saint , The Lost Wisdom , and The Prophets’ War , I kept encountering the same unsettling pattern: radically different traditions pointing towa

Santa Muerte, Saint Death and Holy Death in English, is now the fastest growing new religious movement in the West. There are no surveys of the number of devotees, but with 15 years of combined research experience, we estimate some 12 million followers, with 70% in Mexico, 15% in the U.S., 10% in Central America, and the remaining 5% mostly in South America. There are also small groups of devotees surfacing in Europe and other parts of the globe. Devotion to the skeleton sain

The Holy Death has grown from the religious diaspora of beliefs in past and present Mexico. While in 2001 the “devotion to death” went public, the growing belief in an incarnation around death has been brewing in Mexico even before the Spanish conquered the Aztecs. However, one ingredient that came along with the Spanish in their fifteenth-century overthrow was an icon from the bubonic plague era, the Grim Reapress. This was believed to be a representation of death’s wife, th

As a Christian, you might ask how any entity other than God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, could be looked to for aid while holding any claim to being a Christian. I mention that because her followers still hold tightly to their Catholic Christian faith. This is where, at least to Christians outside Catholicism, things get a bit sticky. Many in the U.S. protestant Christian population would recognize praying to entities other than God is strictly against the rules. However, p

Belief in the Holy Death I’ve learned there isn’t airtight data on the numbers of Holy Death followers in the U.S. Still, as I’ve mentioned, the worlds leading experts suggest ~ 2 million devotees or 0.6 % of the population as of around seven years ago. According to the same experts, open devotion to the Bony Lady only went public in around 2001 due to new more accepting leadership in Mexico. One can only guess at the numbers in 2023, but based on the writings of Dr. Kate Kin

Be forewarned. In the words of Dr. Joann Scurlock, an expert on folk magic practices around the world: "It's not a matter of whether you believe or disbelieve, nor is it relevant whether magic is real or not, anthropologists and psychologists who have studied these areas have shown that magic works in its own way, and the more you study it the more you can get drawn in to the magical worldview if you are not careful" That said, as a researcher and writer, my passion for knowl

To understand her magic more fully, let's take a peek behind the curtain at the history of the interplay between occult pagan magic and Christianity. But first, let's define magic: Merriam Webster defines magic as: 1: the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces 2: an extraordinary power of influence seemingly from a supernatural source As we will see as we look at magic in the past and present, the word magic isn't defin

In my research, I believe it's fair to say the devotees of the Santa Muerte understand when they pray and use spells to evoke her, they are calling out to a power other than God. As a Christian, that narrows things down considerably. In my post Understanding How Catholic Christians Could Turn to the Santa Muerte we debunked the Holy Death as a Catholic Saint. We discussed how scholars associate her with a folk saint or locally manifested supernatural entity. Which births the