Whole Life Times: The Powerful Healing of Botánicas

June 2005 | Feature

The Powerful Healing of Botánicas

Mystical Latin Remedies and Rituals

by Taina Cuevas

In the botánica El Congo Manuel, past the life-sized statue of the African king that beckons visitors inside, thick glass-encased candles in vibrant reds, yellows, blues and oranges line the walls. Altars draped in white lace are adorned with candles, incense and statues of traditional Catholic saints and a multitude of other religion’s deities. The panoply of color and light lends a decided cheeriness and provides a serene respite from the noisy Hollywood street right outside.

Ubiquitous throughout Latin America, botánicas—part religious supply emporiums, part holistic healthcare and spiritual counseling centers—were first brought to the US in the 1950s during the massive migration of Cubans to Florida and Puerto Ricans to New York. But Los Angeles is now unequivocally the number one city in America for botánicas—there are close to one thousand of these traditional healing shops scattered throughout the city.

Like many botánicas, El Congo Manuel on Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood maintains a very low profile, remaining oddly invisible in the busy neighborhood. Botánicas often occupy small, run-down buildings in densely populated urban areas, disregarded by most passersby until they’re sought out. These spiritual shops never advertise, yet no one is surprised that business keeps growing.

For many immigrants, botánicas colorful, welcoming atmosphere represents a familiar and beloved piece of home, while Americans find the spiritual shops a refreshing break from city life as usual. No matter their backgrounds, most visitors are drawn to the shops in hopes of healing their bodies and minds through the soul.

But above all, explains Dr. Ysamur Flores-Peña, a folklorist from Puerto Rico who participated in the recent Fowler Museum exhibit Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in the City of Angels, “Botánicas provide a way of looking at religion and spirituality that is not right or wrong, it’s just there. You can find Chinese iconography, alongside Native American, alongside Catholic, alongside Hindu… all the heavens coexist together in very democratic way.” This philosophy, he believes, has provided a respite for spiritual seekers feeling the pressure of an increasingly conservative and spiritually divided society.

El Congo Manuel’s owner, Charles Guelperin, a laid-back man with closely cropped silver hair, concurs. Since he started the shop 16 years ago, Guelperin has seen the clientele shift from exclusively Latino to about 50 percent American. “We accept everybody here, gay, straight, white or black. Clients [include] judges, movie stars, prostitutes and drug addicts,” says Guelperin, earnestly adding, “…here, everyone’s welcome. I’m not a judge, I’m a healer…and everybody deserves healing.”

Although they offer supplies for all religions and are generally supportive of all beliefs, botánicas are usually closely affiliated with Santería, an Afro-Caribbean religion prevalent in former slave-owning countries like Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Brazil. Modern day Santería still retains, in some form or another, many of the original belief systems, religious rituals and folk remedies practiced by the African slaves. As the Santería traditions moved across Latin America to countries that historically did not have much contact with African culture, other folk beliefs were stirred into the mix.

All botánicas carry medicinal herbs, as well as statues of favorite saints, special oils and candles for everything from attracting love to solving immigration problems. But the more traditional ones still revolve around the services of a santero, a priest of Santería, who serves as its healer and counselor. Santeros consult the spirits for advice and relay their divine feedback to the seeker. Such is the case with Guelperin who, like other santeros, is expected to act as an intermediary between the spirit and human worlds.

After entering a trance, Guelperin channels a 500-year-old African spirit named Manuel who then dispenses advice to clients. The popularity of the rum-swilling, cigar-smoking spirit is undeniable—Donald Cosentino, a professor of cultural studies at UCLA, was recently awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to aid his work in researching and compiling Manuel’s wisdom for an upcoming book. But neither the interest nor skepticism of outsiders is anything new to Guelperin, who was born to santero parents and has been conversing with spirits since he was seven. Despite the talking spirits and less-than-church-sanctioned rituals, his family considered themselves Catholic, as Guelperin still does. “I always loved the Church; the Church is the one that didn’t want me,” he laughs.

As diverse as the clients of botánicas are the problems they seek to resolve. Physical ailments, heartbreak, marital discord and drug addiction can be brought before the santero who, following the guidance received from the spirit world, is expected to provide answers. The advice usually combines the sacred with the pragmatic. Guelperin, for example, has advised many clients struggling with drug addiction and/or alcoholism. He works with them spiritually, he explains, and then sends them to a nearby Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Immigration problems—a predicament LA santeros encounter regularly—also fall under the spiritual-practical category. “I do the ritual, I do everything that’s needed for the spiritual part and then I give them [the names of] some immigration lawyers that I know,” says Guelperin.

Remedies never compete with the legal or medical establishment, adds Dr. Flores-Peña who, in addition to being a santero, is also a lecturer at UCLA and the Otis College of Art and Design.

Flores remembers his mother, also a santera, teaching him the symbiotic relationship between spiritual remedies and medicine at a very young age: “My mother would give me a ritual bath before going to the doctor and it wouldn’t make sense to me because we were going to the doctor anyway. So I remember asking her, ‘Why do you do that, if we’re going to the hospital?’ And she responded ‘Ah, but machines don’t see the spirit.’”

Botánicas satisfy needs unaddressed by Western medicine’s exclusive focus on the physical body. “We heal in another way,” Flores explains. “Doctors are not trained to see spirits and we [santeros] can’t perform operations. Maybe the bath with the special oils doesn’t do anything physically, but it empowers you and you have prepared the path for the doctor to heal the body… you have helped him or her by healing the soul.”

The healing that botánicas provide is not limited to the santero, the rituals and the magic. As in Latin America, the stores are slowly taking over the position formerly occupied by village doctors, as a meeting place for the community to connect and to share pain, gossip and remedies that have worked for them. Through word-of-mouth and knowledge passed down through generations, many clients have learned to treat themselves and only come for supplies and conversation. One life-long customer of botánicas, who declined to give her name, explained that, “I already know which kind of special water I need to purify the house for New Year’s and special occasions, or the type of candle to get for when I’m low on money, but you can also come here and just chat, [or] ask the employees for recommendations.”

Oftentimes, botánicas are seen as a sort of folk psychiatrist’s office. “I’ve had girls come in here, pregnant and afraid to tell their parents; I get the whole family in here and we talk about it until we get to an agreement,” says Guelperin.

Like their Latin American forebears, American botánicas are developing into places where misery is alleviated by company, and everybody’s misery, both judges’ and prostitutes’, is heard and treated equally. That’s where botánicas really make the magic happen, Guelperin explains.

“Sometimes it’s just a matter of being heard…of being accepted and respected. We live in a world where everybody talks but nobody listens. I listen, we listen, and sometimes that’s enough,” says Guelperin.

It is hard to dispute that there is a certain magic to that.

Taina Cuevas, who is originally from Puerto Rico, has written and edited for various publications in both the US and Latin America. She’s an avid traveler and is fascinated by world religions, culture and languages.

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