An Eclectic Approach to Healing

Smiling sweetly, a customer pauses on the threshold of Botanica CB, a narrow shop tucked into the corner of a Santa Ana mini-mall. Glancing inside at a twinkling shrine of St. Lazarus surrounded by Snickers bars and loose change, she crosses herself and enters.

She passes rows of spray cans containing potions to attract good luck or ward off evil; black, cobra-shaped candles; and racks of medicinal herbs. Then the woman greets and fondly hugs shop owner Carmen de la Cruz James.

Once, the 30-year-old native of Mexico said, she was treated unsuccessfully in a hospital for “nerves.” Now, after coming to see de la Cruz James, she is “ todo mejor. Ella .” All better. Because of her.

Proliferating in the Latino neighborhoods of North Orange County, botanicas--a sort of religious pharmacy--offer an eclectic blend of centuries-old Catholic, Buddhist, African and European products and techniques to solve nearly every problem from stomachaches and colds to unfaithful spouses, hexes or lawsuits.

While physicians and police warn that some botanicas’ practices can be dangerous and exploitative, others say their services fill a need for poor immigrants, Latinos and even wealthy clients who frequent them . Moreover, researchers say cures offered by healers at the botanicas frequently work.

There are about 10 botanicas like Botanica CB in Orange County. The shop operates as a combination church/herbal pharmacy/counseling office for a largely Latino clientele. De la Cruz James stocks something for almost everyone: posters, statues, Catholic holy water, candles and ritual articles for devotees of Santeria, a Cuban-based religion that uses animal sacrifices.

Botanicas are “definitely growing,” said Jose Vargas, Hispanic affairs officer for the Santa Ana Police Department, which has investigated complaints about folk healers.

“Medical help is getting hard to find, it is expensive, and people who cannot afford a regular MD go to whoever they feel can do them some good,” Vargas said.

“In the Mexican culture, almost every little village has a curandero, somebody who knows how to heal people, usually a peasant born and raised in that little village.

“Some people come to the United States with this idea in mind: There has got to be a curandero, a healer someplace who can take care of us.”

But some have found a different sort of curandero here. Five unhappy customers filed complaints last year with the Santa Ana Police.

One man who said he was impotent went to a botanica and was referred to a santero --a priest in the Santeria religion, Vargas said.

The man eventually paid $1,200 and was subjected to bizarre rituals--one that involved the sacrifice of a live goat and another in which he claimed the santero tried to rape his wife in a bathtub filled with mysterious powders.

In physical examinations given in back rooms of some botanicas, the curandero may pass live doves over the customer’s nude body to detect illness, Vargas said.

“At some time or another, when they pass over the portion of body where there is sickness, the dove dies. . . . The curandero would say, ‘I found your sickness. I can cure you, but it costs so many dollars.’ ”

While the reports indicate the practice of medicine without a license, police have made no arrests, Vargas said. So far, he said, too little is known.

Botanica healers are known to be pragmatic, using whatever works. De la Cruz James, for instance, was raised in a Catholic convent, has taken lessons in Buddhism and attends Melodyland, a Pentecostal congregation in Anaheim. Her back room contains a crystal ball (“for concentration”), a crucifix in holy water from a nearby Catholic church, a black Santa Muerte, or Saint of Death, and a shrine with the Virgin Mary, St. Lazarus and St. Jude.

“My church is here,” she said. “People respect my little church.”

De la Cruz James, friendly but wary of outsiders, said, “I don’t do anything my people don’t believe in.” She said she refers medical problems to a local clinic and tells her patients, “I’m not a doctor. I’m not a god.”

On a recent morning, her telephone rang continually as two women awaited their consultations. De la Cruz James put one customer on hold while giving advice to another, switching smoothly from topics of sickness to prayer to job counseling.

A pregnant woman covered with a rash called asking for yerba el manzo , a root she had taken in Mexico. A man called to make an appointment for de la Cruz James to pray over his court documents.

In the botanica’s back room, separated from the shop by a flowered fabric door, de la Cruz James prayed in Spanish while holding the trembling knees of a former mental patient. She swabbed her arm with rubbing alcohol and massaged her legs.

Among botanicas, which are unregulated, the most abuses occur in cases of the mentally ill, said Dr. Lino Valdivia, director of the Clinic Nueva Esperanza, a mental health center serving the Latino community in Santa Ana. “It’s very dangerous in my opinion. A professional that starts doing unorthodox practices without proper scientific backing is using this for his own aggrandizement and exploiting the patient.”

But Margarita Banuelos, counseling psychologist at the UCI Counseling Center, said that the advice offered in botanicas fills a genuine need and that it may be as good as that found in psychologists’ offices.

“In botanicas, they are given advice, not psychological help,” she said. “These people have waiting lines.

“The people go in and pay $10, $15 as an honorarium, and they say you need to buy this soap, this oil or this article to bring you good luck. So the person coming in may pay $35, the equivalent for a low-cost counseling fee.”

Further, researchers said there is solid evidence that some of the Mexican herbs prescribed in botanicas are effective. For example, cilantro has been shown to improve earaches; yerba buena (mint), stomach pain; and rue or cinnamon, menstrual pain, said Carol Browner, associate professor of anthropology at UCLA.

The rituals found in botanicas also have a placebo effect for those who believe in them--not unlike churches or doctor’s offices, said Eloy Rodriguez, professor of plant chemistry and cell biology at UCI.

“It’s like walking into a doctor’s office, and the doctor is dressed in a white coat, and there’s Muzak playing, and you think, ‘I’m going to be cured.’ ”

He said some traditional people have been persuaded by their children to see a physician for serious medical conditions like diabetes.

“Their son or daughter says this is modern medicine,” Rodriguez said. “They will be given medication to treat their condition. And they will not take it. They will go back to their botanicas.”

Times staff writer Maria Newman contributed to this article.