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Santeria: Mis Experiencias Con La Religion
In this raw, emotional account, Migene Gonzalez-Wippler reports her own encounters with Santeria as a researcher and an initiate. You will meet extraordinary people and witness unbelievable occurrences. All are Migene's lifelong experiences with Santeria.
- GenresReligionNonfiction
285 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2014
10 people are currently reading
140 people want to read
About the author
Migene González-Wippler
26 books66 followersMigene González-Wippler es una autora puertorriqueña de temas como la Wicca y una líder experta en la religión afro-caribeña de la santería. González-Wippler nació en Puerto Rico y tiene grados de psicología y antropología de la Universidad de Puerto Rico y de la Universidad de Columbia.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 8, 2007
The author is a white woman who became a Santeria priestess. She was introduced to the religion by her nanny. In this book, she tells her own story and explains Santeria in the process. I was surprised to learn that Babalu Aye is not only a song made famous by Ricky Ricardo, but also an orisha, the god of pestilence!
October 16, 2018
I've read this book numerous times over the past 20 years, still fascinates and feeds me. Always learn something new, always speaks to where I'm at in my stage of life. Author uses own story to make her insight of Santeria accessible. This reading really brought to the forefront the notion of archetypes.
December 13, 2011
I thought that this was a perfect introduction to the Yoruba religion and its New World version in Cuba. It was never boring and a great read from start to finish. Ms. Whippler is a wonderful story teller and I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn about traditional African religions and how they have survived despite the influences of slavery and subjugation.
February 14, 2026
AN ANTHROPOLOGIST AND AN ‘INSIDER’ EXPLORES THE CONTROVERSIAL RELIGION
Migene González-Wippler is a Puerto-Rican cultural Anthropologist; she is an initiate into Santería, as well as a researcher.
She wrote in the Preface to the revised and expanded (1992) edition of this book, “The first edition of [this book] was published in 1982, and received the same critical acclaim enjoyed by my first book on the subject, ‘Santería: African Magic in Latin America.' And yet both books suffered from what I call the Santería Syndrome, errors in fact caused by the traditional reticence of the Santería priesthood to reveal to the uninitiated any of the mysteries of their religion. In order to safeguard these mysteries, the priests and priestesses of Santería (known as santeros and santeras), usually refuse to discuss the secrets of Santería with outsiders. When they feel they must, they often give wrong information to the enquirer.
“My first book… contained many errors. [This book] fared much better because during the intervening years between the two books I had received several of the initiations of Santería and had gained the trust and respect of many members of the Santería priesthood. It was not until I wrote ‘Santería: The Religion’… that I was able to present to the academic world and to the public at large a thoroughly revised and correct treatise on the subject of Santería. By this time I knew the practices and rituals of Santería in some depth and could discern truth from falsehood in the data I received.
“[This book] was and still is a controversial book because it deals openly with one of the most worrisome aspects of Santería: the issue of animal sacrifice. All the major world religions are involved in blood rituals but have found ways to practice these ancient ceremonies without offending public sensitivities… Most of the animals sacrificed in Santería rituals are eaten by the practitioners. The problem they have is that they are not organized and do not have licenses to slaughter the animals. Their insistence on safeguarding the secrets of their religion compounds the problems of the santeros… What the santeros are protecting is their highly complex initiatory system, of which animal sacrifice is only a small part. The initiatory system of Santería deals with ancient earth mysteries and the tapping of awesome cosmic powers. This is what the santeros are trying to protect.” (Pg. xiii-xv)
She continues, “The most important reason for Santería’s popularity is not the powers gained through the initiations and the worship of African deities, but rather the self-knowledge that is acquired through the identification with natural forces and natural rhythms; the wondrous integration of the human soul with the soul of nature; the understanding of ancient mysteries, and the acquiring of a wisdom seemingly lost in the turmoil of our modern societies.” (Pg. xix)
She adds in the Introduction, “I will not waste your time or mine trying to provide a logical explanation for the extraordinary phenomena of Santería. I have done this elsewhere, but it was not really necessary. Santería does not need any form of apologia. It is strong and it is real. Experience it, revel in it, and you will never be the same again.” (Pg. xxvii)
She asked a practitioner named Maria, “how can Changó be St. Barbara? How can a warrior have a lady’s name?” and she was told, “It is all part of a mystery, florecita… We must never question the mysteries of God and the saints. It is part of believing. Remember what the Sisters of Mercy taught you during catechism in Sunday School? There are three persons in the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, They are all God. We don’t know why or how, and we are not supposed to question the mystery. We just accept what we are told. So it is with the orishas.” (Pg. 23)
She explains that reincarnation is “a belief central to Santería, as well as to some of the world’s major religions. The Yorubas, like those of Nordic mythology, die mythical deaths and return to life in new bodies to replenish the earth. To the Yorubas in the New World, the Catholic saints were the ‘new bodies,’ or reincarnations, of their orishas.” (Pg. 25-26)
She reportsm “Santería, according to Maria, ‘was the name given in Spanish to the Yoruba religion. The orishas… were emanations from Olofi, Papa Dios. The worship of the orishas as santos gave birth to Santería, which means literally the worship of saints… It’s not pure Yoruba… It’s a kind of mixture of the Yoruba faith and the Catholic faith.’ Because she took such great care to uphold the beliefs of the church, Maria’s teachings never interfered with my Catholic upbringing… Therefore I embrace both with equal fervor.” (Pg. 29)
She asserts, “In an animal sacrifice there is something primeval, deeply connected with the collective unconscious of the race. It’s all so simple. A quick twist of the hand, the chicken’s head is gone, and a thick stream of dark-red, hot blood is streaming from the severed neck. But it is not the beheading that is so earth-shaking. It is the giving of the blood… that is being returned to the divine source from where it came.” (Pg. 67-68) Later, she adds, “Perhaps it was all a coincidence… But I believe, quite strongly, that
Eleggua [a practitioner] and the blood of a chicken saved me and more than 300 people from almost certain death.” (Pg. 70)
She asks anther practitioner about whether it was cruel to deprive a chicken of its life, and was told, “Do you believe in reincarnation and spiritual evolution?… think that its sacrifice for a spiritual cause will vastly advance this chicken’s spiritual evolution. Do you think it would have advanced as much---or suffered less---if it had died to grace your table and satisfy your hunger?” (Pg. 171) She is then told, “Those same people who cry out because the santeros sacrifice a few animals to the orishas don’t shed any tears over their roast lamb or chicken cacciatore.” (Pg. 179)
Wippler notes, “Like the original Yoruba religion, Santería is a mixture of animism, pantheism, and ancestor worship. One of the first lessons one learns in Santería is that the dead always come first.” (Pg. 187)
She summarizes, “Perhaps the greatest importance of Santería as a religious experience is that it acknowledges the blood of the sacrificial animal as the orishas’---and therefore God’s---divine right, the ‘sweet savor unto the Lord’ spoken of in the scriptures. To accept the validity of ceremonial blood sacrifices to God is not the same as condoning the senseless slaying of an animal by someone who lacks both the training and the psychological balance that is received through the proper initiatory rites. The ritual offer of blood to an orisha is not a wanton bloodletting, on the part of the santeros, but a religious ceremony conducted with utmost gravity and respect.” (Pg. 307-308)
She continues, “Santería, an earth religion, worships God and the orishas in the forces of nature. The santeros do not believe that God is nature, but rather that nature is a manifestation of God’s will. Like most natural religions, Santería practices a type of sympathetic magic, based on the old law of similarity that ‘like produces like.’” (Pg. 308)
She concludes, “It has not been my intention to make a case for Santería. Obviously, Santería is not for everyone. It is for me, and for people who, like myself, are searching for an identification with the forces of nature and a deeper understanding of the inner self. Many systems offer the same powers, but few with such a degree of purity and total surrender to the divine will.” (Pg. 317)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Santería.
Migene González-Wippler is a Puerto-Rican cultural Anthropologist; she is an initiate into Santería, as well as a researcher.
She wrote in the Preface to the revised and expanded (1992) edition of this book, “The first edition of [this book] was published in 1982, and received the same critical acclaim enjoyed by my first book on the subject, ‘Santería: African Magic in Latin America.' And yet both books suffered from what I call the Santería Syndrome, errors in fact caused by the traditional reticence of the Santería priesthood to reveal to the uninitiated any of the mysteries of their religion. In order to safeguard these mysteries, the priests and priestesses of Santería (known as santeros and santeras), usually refuse to discuss the secrets of Santería with outsiders. When they feel they must, they often give wrong information to the enquirer.
“My first book… contained many errors. [This book] fared much better because during the intervening years between the two books I had received several of the initiations of Santería and had gained the trust and respect of many members of the Santería priesthood. It was not until I wrote ‘Santería: The Religion’… that I was able to present to the academic world and to the public at large a thoroughly revised and correct treatise on the subject of Santería. By this time I knew the practices and rituals of Santería in some depth and could discern truth from falsehood in the data I received.
“[This book] was and still is a controversial book because it deals openly with one of the most worrisome aspects of Santería: the issue of animal sacrifice. All the major world religions are involved in blood rituals but have found ways to practice these ancient ceremonies without offending public sensitivities… Most of the animals sacrificed in Santería rituals are eaten by the practitioners. The problem they have is that they are not organized and do not have licenses to slaughter the animals. Their insistence on safeguarding the secrets of their religion compounds the problems of the santeros… What the santeros are protecting is their highly complex initiatory system, of which animal sacrifice is only a small part. The initiatory system of Santería deals with ancient earth mysteries and the tapping of awesome cosmic powers. This is what the santeros are trying to protect.” (Pg. xiii-xv)
She continues, “The most important reason for Santería’s popularity is not the powers gained through the initiations and the worship of African deities, but rather the self-knowledge that is acquired through the identification with natural forces and natural rhythms; the wondrous integration of the human soul with the soul of nature; the understanding of ancient mysteries, and the acquiring of a wisdom seemingly lost in the turmoil of our modern societies.” (Pg. xix)
She adds in the Introduction, “I will not waste your time or mine trying to provide a logical explanation for the extraordinary phenomena of Santería. I have done this elsewhere, but it was not really necessary. Santería does not need any form of apologia. It is strong and it is real. Experience it, revel in it, and you will never be the same again.” (Pg. xxvii)
She asked a practitioner named Maria, “how can Changó be St. Barbara? How can a warrior have a lady’s name?” and she was told, “It is all part of a mystery, florecita… We must never question the mysteries of God and the saints. It is part of believing. Remember what the Sisters of Mercy taught you during catechism in Sunday School? There are three persons in the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, They are all God. We don’t know why or how, and we are not supposed to question the mystery. We just accept what we are told. So it is with the orishas.” (Pg. 23)
She explains that reincarnation is “a belief central to Santería, as well as to some of the world’s major religions. The Yorubas, like those of Nordic mythology, die mythical deaths and return to life in new bodies to replenish the earth. To the Yorubas in the New World, the Catholic saints were the ‘new bodies,’ or reincarnations, of their orishas.” (Pg. 25-26)
She reportsm “Santería, according to Maria, ‘was the name given in Spanish to the Yoruba religion. The orishas… were emanations from Olofi, Papa Dios. The worship of the orishas as santos gave birth to Santería, which means literally the worship of saints… It’s not pure Yoruba… It’s a kind of mixture of the Yoruba faith and the Catholic faith.’ Because she took such great care to uphold the beliefs of the church, Maria’s teachings never interfered with my Catholic upbringing… Therefore I embrace both with equal fervor.” (Pg. 29)
She asserts, “In an animal sacrifice there is something primeval, deeply connected with the collective unconscious of the race. It’s all so simple. A quick twist of the hand, the chicken’s head is gone, and a thick stream of dark-red, hot blood is streaming from the severed neck. But it is not the beheading that is so earth-shaking. It is the giving of the blood… that is being returned to the divine source from where it came.” (Pg. 67-68) Later, she adds, “Perhaps it was all a coincidence… But I believe, quite strongly, that
Eleggua [a practitioner] and the blood of a chicken saved me and more than 300 people from almost certain death.” (Pg. 70)
She asks anther practitioner about whether it was cruel to deprive a chicken of its life, and was told, “Do you believe in reincarnation and spiritual evolution?… think that its sacrifice for a spiritual cause will vastly advance this chicken’s spiritual evolution. Do you think it would have advanced as much---or suffered less---if it had died to grace your table and satisfy your hunger?” (Pg. 171) She is then told, “Those same people who cry out because the santeros sacrifice a few animals to the orishas don’t shed any tears over their roast lamb or chicken cacciatore.” (Pg. 179)
Wippler notes, “Like the original Yoruba religion, Santería is a mixture of animism, pantheism, and ancestor worship. One of the first lessons one learns in Santería is that the dead always come first.” (Pg. 187)
She summarizes, “Perhaps the greatest importance of Santería as a religious experience is that it acknowledges the blood of the sacrificial animal as the orishas’---and therefore God’s---divine right, the ‘sweet savor unto the Lord’ spoken of in the scriptures. To accept the validity of ceremonial blood sacrifices to God is not the same as condoning the senseless slaying of an animal by someone who lacks both the training and the psychological balance that is received through the proper initiatory rites. The ritual offer of blood to an orisha is not a wanton bloodletting, on the part of the santeros, but a religious ceremony conducted with utmost gravity and respect.” (Pg. 307-308)
She continues, “Santería, an earth religion, worships God and the orishas in the forces of nature. The santeros do not believe that God is nature, but rather that nature is a manifestation of God’s will. Like most natural religions, Santería practices a type of sympathetic magic, based on the old law of similarity that ‘like produces like.’” (Pg. 308)
She concludes, “It has not been my intention to make a case for Santería. Obviously, Santería is not for everyone. It is for me, and for people who, like myself, are searching for an identification with the forces of nature and a deeper understanding of the inner self. Many systems offer the same powers, but few with such a degree of purity and total surrender to the divine will.” (Pg. 317)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Santería.
July 2, 2010
I can recommend this book if you're at all interested in alternative religious movements of Latin America. The truth is, it's an easy read, more like a memoir than an exploration of the actual religion. Very detailed though.
July 17, 2008
Fascinating insight into a culture with which I wasn't previously familiar
December 15, 2025
DNF @ 168/251. A la verga con Santería. Cualquier religión que requiere el sacrificio de animales es una religión egoísta y vana, ya sea santería o cristianismo. No me importa si se comen después. El simbolismo de sacrificar a un animal es basado en una falacia. Si sus dioses poderosos necesitan un sacrificio para darte bendiciones no son dioses reales. Ningún dios necesita la sangre, además que los dioses que los humanos inventan y ahora quieren apaciguar.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews