Through an autoethnographic account that interweaves academic observations, my story of how I came to study Santa Muerte in Mexico and the entangled, emotive tale of Abby, a Santa Muerte devotee whom I grew very close to, I discuss the topic of belief in the ethnography of the occult and the “politics of integration”, derisively referred to “as going native”. I reveal how being an ethnographer of the Mexican female folk saint of death has taught me the necessity of dividuality and embracing belief in both the epistemological worlds of academia and the occult. I argue that slipping fluidly between the realm of science and the cosmos of magic has given me access not only to arcane knowledge and networks of practitioners but also through shared experiences of participatory consciousness with devotees of death during our rituals, proffered unique experiences, and new insights through intersubjectivity and interexperience, allowing me to understand the mystical power of Death Herself.

通过一个将学术观察交织在一起的自民族志叙述，我讲述了我如何来到墨西哥研究死亡圣神的故事，以及与我非常亲近的死亡圣神信徒艾比的纠缠、感人的故事，我讨论了民族志信仰的话题神秘学和“整合政治”，被嘲笑地称为“本土化”。我揭示了作为墨西哥女性民间死亡圣人的民族志学家如何教会了我个体性的必要性以及对学术界和神秘学世界的认识论世界的信仰。我认为，在科学领域和魔法宇宙之间流畅地滑动让我不仅可以接触到神秘的知识和从业者的网络，还可以通过在我们的仪式中与死亡奉献者分享参与意识的经验，