From Pentecostals to tarot card readers, the spiritual side of life is thriving throughout Mexico -- despite, or perhaps because of, a general air of crisis and a bleak view of what is to come. PNS associate editor Ruben Martinez reports on examples from every corner. Martinez is working on a book about life and death in the borderlands for Metropolitan/Holt.

MEXICO CITY-- News accounts of the Chiapas massacre tell us that it began with a child's scream. The villagers of Acteal, gathered in prayer in the chapel, rushed outside to see what was happening. Dozens of ski-masked, heavily-armed men greeted them with a rain of bullets.

For Christians, the promise of peace comes in the form of the Christ Child. In Chiapas, the cry of a child announced death. The atrocity made me think of how and why Mexico's spiritual life is thriving, even as a battered economy, rampant crime, and political violence engulf the country.

One thing has changed. Catholicism no longer has a monopoly on the country's religious affairs. Yes, the Virgin of Guadalupe still "appears" before her faithful, but alternatives to the Church -- among them Pentecostalism, New Age-ism, pre-Columbian animism and Afro-Caribbean Santeria -- have seized the Mexican imagination. An estimated 15 million are evangelical Christians (more than 10 percent of the population), and a few million more could be classed as spiritual "other."

There are "signs of the spirit" everywhere. At the Mercado de Sonora, a Mexico City marketplace, vendors and "spiritual guides" are doing very well indeed.

"Ever since the economy went bad, people have come to us as never before," says Margarita Velasco, who prescribes spells and potions, cleansings and ritualistic sacrifices to one deity or another. "Before, people came usually because of problems in love. Now, they come asking for better luck with money, with jobs, with crossing the border."

In our transnational world, the spirit moves across frontiers as well. An Indian bruja ("witch") in the highlands of rural Michoacan state often gets letters from migrants working 2,000 miles or more away. With only a photograph of the suffering one, she claims to travel to the United States overnight in her dream-state, perform a cure and return home by dawn.

"If you believe, you can cure yourself of anything," says the bruja. "What we need the most of in Mexico right now is faith."

Even among Mexico City's writers, artists, and bohemian 20- and 30-somethings, there is a spiritual search. They have Tarot card readings and herb cleansings administered by Indian brujas -- or by city-dwelling non-Indians who are avid followers of things Indian. They attend meditation conferences, go on pilgrimages to the peyote desert.

"I'll never set foot in a church," says one former Marxist, "but at the very least some of these rituals help calm me down in these chaotic times."

All this can be seen as the beginning of a democratization of Mexico's spiritual life, bringing a measure of religious diversity and tolerance to a famously Catholic land.

But there is also cause for concern. While the massacre at Acteal does not appear to be a direct result of religious tensions, the state of Chiapas, and several other states, have seen their share of conflict between Catholics and the spiritual newcomers.

In Acteal, friction over political allegiances only masks deeper conflicts over who controls the land and its riches -- and Mexico's spiritual wars are fought against the same backdrop. In Indian villages across southern Mexico, Catholic caciques (town bosses) allied with the PRI have persecuted evangelical communities for destroying indigenous cultural unity -- when the real issue is often control over the lucrative contracts for Catholic fiestas. Evangelicals rarely "party" like Catholics and thus threaten the local economy. The conflict has left scores, perhaps hundreds, dead over the last decade.

At one time, the growing interest in Pentecostalism and other spiritual traditions was criticized as a "foreign invasion," but in fact most of the evangelical churches in Mexico are homegrown. A barrio resident fed up with hard times and a Church that seems distant from the problems of the poor (Catholic bishops make more news these days decrying "lax morality" than talking of hardship or how to find God in a world reeling from macro-economic change) can, almost overnight, become a Pentecostal preacher -- as storefront churches in barrios across Mexico City show.

In Mexico, the sacred appears to thrive amid the profane. Perhaps the idea of the sacred thrives precisely because life has been so profaned here, as in Acteal. Mexico's spirituality might seem like a fad, if it weren't for the fact that Mexicans, despite recent, cautiously optimistic economic forecasts, still feel like they're staring at a black hole called the 21st century.

In this land of darkened horizons, of Christmas massacres, it may be that the only thing left to believe in is faith itself.