THE sharp smell of incense wafts through the air in the cramped backroom of a South Bronx religious shop as Santeria priestess Juanita Gonzalez prepares a secret ritual designed to literally “drive someone crazy.” “This is to make the person go mad, go loco,” Gonzalez explains as she cuts open a hole in the soft eye of a coconut. On a piece of brown paper, she writes the name of the targeted individual and stuffs it into the coconut, which is meant to represent the target’s brain.
She pours a variety of powders in and drizzles a gelatin capsule of metallic mercury into the hole. She blows cigar smoke into the opening and reseals the hole with a piece of brown paper. Gonzalez lays the coconut before a picture of a saint in the Santeria religion, turns a black candle upside down and whittles out the wick. She lights it and intones the spirit of the saint to bring madness to the mind of the intended.
To be sure, the exotic ritual holds the allure of the unknown to an outsider, but what Gonzalez and other practitioners of Santeria don’t know, or refuse to believe, is they are systematically poisoning themselves and their followers.
Metallic mercury – an essential ingredient in rituals performed by followers of Santeria, who believe that metals like mercury, copper and sulphur possess supernatural powers – is a highly-toxic chemical with severe short- and long-term health consequences. They include brain and kidney damage, tremors, memory loss and, in some cases, death.
Most New Yorkers, obviously, are safe, but surprisingly, so many followers of Santeria use the poisonous potion in religious ceremonies that the city’s Health Department earlier this month began mailing mercury alerts to thousands of health-care professionals and residents in neighborhoods with large Caribbean and Hispanic populations – including Sunset Park and lower Park Slope in Brooklyn, Washington Heights and much of the South Bronx.
“Mercury is very heavy stuff, so even in small amounts it’s dangerous,” said Edward Olmstead, an industrial hygienist and safety consultant for government and private agencies.
“It seeps right through your skin when you handle it,” he said. “If you’re around it, you’ll breathe it in and it gets absorbed into your lungs.”
Like lead and methyl mercury, a common contaminant in fish, metallic mercury is a stealthy toxin causing ailments with common symptoms – like coughing, chest pain, nausea, diarrhea and fever – that are often misdiagnosed, or don’t appear for years. It is particularly dangerous to children.
The Health Department advisory notes that mercury “vapor particles will stick to almost anything: jewelry, carpets, draperies, clothing, furniture and cracks in the floors.”
Metallic mercury, dangerous in any form, is widely available in botanicas – the hundreds of small mom-and-pop shops throughout the city that sell religious knick-knacks, oils and perfumes, many in crudely labeled containers with names like “Ghost Chaser” and “Evil Cologne.” And while it’s legal to sell metallic mercury if it contains proper warnings, a 1996 Environmental Protection Agency study found that 144 of 163 Upper Manhattan botanicas surveyed were selling unlabeled vials of the substance.
But the alerts have not reached, or convinced, Gonzalez yet.
Mercury, considered the most supernaturally powerful of natural metals, is a key ingredient in ceremonies aimed at everything from driving someone insane to bringing them good luck and lovers. “We put in our houses for good luck, or mix it in our perfume, or we mix it with cinnamon and jasmine and put it in a bath,” she told The Post recently. “If we don’t like someone, we throw it in their stores to make them go away.” Mercury is also placed in floor washes to cleanse and protect the home; it’s placed in oil lamps for protection and to increase good fortune; and kept inside a vial or charm bag for protection and luck.
Gonzalez and Bronx priestess Rosa Ruiz (not her real name) gave The Post in a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the secret mercury rituals of this mysterious religion – a derivative of Catholicism practiced by descendants of West African Yoruban people brought to Cuba as slaves centuries ago.
In a ritual to bring good luck to one of the faithful, Ruiz prays to a Santeria saint as she places a capsule of metallic mercury, a tiny, gold-plated key, pink coral, magnetic rocks, black onyx and amber into a silk pouch the size of a pack of cigarettes. Ruiz, who insists that she only uses mercury for good, not evil, rituals, blesses the pouch and presents it to a Post reporter for good luck.
“You must carry this on you at all times,” she said, suggesting that men carry the pouches in their pockets and women safeguard them in their purses.
In another ritual designed to bring a follower his or her desired lover, Gonzalez takes two stick-figure dolls, one shaped like a man and one shaped like a woman. The doll is known among followers as “munequita de amor” – little doll of love. “Suppose you want a woman,” Gonzalez tells a male Post reporter. “I take her picture, and cut out the head and stick it inside the woman doll, with her name written on a piece of paper.
“Then,” she said, demonstrating, “I tie [the two dolls] together,” facing each other, with red, green and pink ribbons.
Gonzalez then submerges the bound dolls in a jar of honey, sprinkles more exotic powders, and another vial of mercury into the mix, again blowing cigar smoke into the jar before sealing it, and blessing it.
The single ritual that both priestesses refused to demonstrate for The Post involves the drinking of mercury. Both explained that it was too private and too sacred to be shown to outsiders.
Health officials say it’s hard to gauge how many people in the city suffer from metallic mercury poisoning – and how many homes have been contaminated. “It took a long time for the medical community to become aware of lead poisoning, and the same thing is happening here,” said Arnold Wendroff, a Brooklyn College research associate who has been beating the drum about mercury poisoning for nearly a decade.
But studies suggest it’s a problem. In a 1996 doctors at Montefiore Medical Center checked 35 botanicas – just of handful of the hundreds in the city – and found that together they sold 157 mercury capsules a day, which amounts to 900 pounds of metallic mercury a year.
Ruiz herself pedals such mercury capsules for $2 a pill and says she performs a variety of common rituals – easing misfortune and pain, bringing good luck and health, psychic predictions – for as many as 10 people a day using the deadly substance.
If the mercury contamination is as bad as Wendroff and others claim, cleanup could entail the demolition and removal of contaminated wood using trained hazardous waste material workers, said safety consultant Olmstead. “It’s going to be an expensive ordeal.”
But even when told that the mercury they’re using and selling is toxic and highly dangerous, both women dismissed the information with a wave of the hand. Ruiz, who’s worked with mercury for years, said, “I know more about mercury than you do.”
Dr. Robert Berchman of Long Island’s Dowling College, an expert in witchcraft and ancient religions like Santeria, said he holds little hope that the Health Department advisory will have much effect on the sale and use of mercury for religious purposes.
“They’re more afraid of the evil demon that might hurt them than the consequences of playing with a deadly metal,” he said.
For information about health effects from metallic mercury or cleanup procedures, contact the city’s Health Department at 212-788-4290.
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Love potion:
1. Take one male- and one female-stick doll (available in botanicas).
2. Cut out the head from a picture of desired lover. Stick the cut-out and a piece of paper with the person’s name written on it inside the doll that corresponds with the sex of the desired.
3. Tie the two dolls together, facing each other, with red, green and pink ribbons
4. Submerge the bound dolls in a jar of honey. Add a vial of metallic mercury, blow cigar smoke into the jar, bless it, and then seal it to attract the one you desire.
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Craziness spell:
1. Cut open a coconut.
2. On brown paper, write the name of your target.
3. Stuff the paper into the coconut (which represents the person’s brain), add a capsule of metallic mercury, and blow cigar smoke into the opening. Reseal the hole with more paper.
4. Turn a black candle upside down, then light it. Invoke the spirit of the saint to bring madness to the mind of the intended.
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Good-luck charm:
1. Place capsule of metallic mercury, tiny gold-plated key, pink coral, magnetic rocks, black onyx and amber into a silk pouch the size of a pack of cigarettes.
2. Bless the pouch, then place it in your purse or pocket and carry at all times to bring luck.