CULTURE : Florida’s Caribbean Immigrants Are Putting Their Faith in Santeria : The religion has flourished since a favorable 1993 Supreme Court ruling. But growth has bred controversy in ranks of believers.

Worried about her son, Julie Quijano stopped by the Botanica Ochun on a recent Friday seeking help. “He’s 16 years old, and a little wild,” she explains. “I just want to calm him down.”

The man behind the counter of the tiny shop crammed with religious statuettes, potions and amulets recommends a balsamo tranquilo , a calming balm. For $1, he hands her a small bottle of greenish liquid and gives these instructions: Write the boy’s full name in pencil on a piece of brown paper bag, put the paper in a glass, add a capful of the oil, fill with water, ask the boy’s guardian angel to intervene and then let the mixture sit in the house for a week.

“Yelling at a 16-year-old is no good, and it is hard to punish,” says Quijano as she leaves the botanica. “So I try everything.”

Like most in the Cuban majority of this blue-collar city on Miami’s northern boundary, Quijano considers herself a Catholic. But Quijano’s religious beliefs, like those of many of her neighbors, extend well beyond Christianity to embrace a mix of Afro-Cuban santeria and spiritualism that is as mystical as it is everyday.

Two years after a landmark ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down this city’s ban on animal sacrifices associated with santeria, the pantheistic religious life practiced by many Caribbean immigrants in South Florida is flourishing as never before. From Miami’s Little Havana and Little Haiti neighborhoods to the western suburbs that stretch to the Everglades, botanicas are thriving and babalawos, or priests, are booked solid performing secret rituals and offering private consultations.

Tony Pena, 28, worked as an air-conditioning repairman for a couple years after coming from Cuba in 1991. But since his initiation into the santeria faith, Pena has made a comfortable life for his wife, Zoraya, and their 2-year-old son by running a Hialeah botanica and conducting ceremonies and consultations for a growing roster of believers. “People feel freer now, less afraid of breaking some law,” he said. “The image of santeria is improving.”

Ernesto Pichardo is the santero whose 1987 lawsuit on behalf of his Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye led to the high court’s decision calling the Hialeah statutes a violation of the American constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. Since that 1993 ruling, he says, “There is less hostility from some Christian denominations, fewer reports of discrimination against practitioners, and people are not as paranoid about seeking priests.”

Santeria has long been controversial, chiefly because of the animal sacrifices. Brought by slaves to Cuba from Yoruba, now Nigeria, santeria recognizes one supreme being and several lower ranking deities, called orishas, who can be appealed to for protection or favors through offerings of blood drawn from chickens, goats, ducks and turtles.

Although an estimated 70,000 South Floridians practice santeria, it is viewed as occult and primitive by outsiders, according to sociologist Teresita Pedraza, who teaches a course in Afro-Cuban religions at Florida International University.

Yet the hottest controversy dogging the religion now seems to be within the ranks of believers.

Days after the Supreme Court ruling, santero Rigoberto Zamora invited television cameras into his Miami Beach apartment for the ritual slaughter of 15 animals in a rite designed as a tribute to the god Chango and as a demonstration of the humaneness of blood sacrifice. But with a dull knife, Zamora butchered the first animal on the block, and ultimately killed the goat by twisting its head off.

After that, Pichardo and several other santeros accused Zamora of making a mockery of sacred ritual, questioned his credentials, and announced plans to certify priests. To date, Pichardo says, 45 local santeros have paid a onetime fee of $250 to gain certification by his church.

Regulation is necessary, says Pichardo, to protect santeria’s image and its practitioners. “Over the years,” he says, “people misrepresenting themselves have been ripping people off. After all, you’re putting your valuable psyche in someone’s hands, along with your money.” Many santeros charge for private consultations, and initiation into the santeria priesthood can cost up to $10,000, followers say.

Zamora has responded to Pichardo’s licensing plans with a press release denouncing Pichardo as a would-be santeria pope who “obviously wants to assume the role of the owner, director and founder of the Yoruba religion.” He and at least one other santero have vowed to resist Pichardo’s organizing efforts.

Although few people outside the santeria faith know much about its rites and tenets, evidence of the religion’s place in the social fabric of greater Miami is hard to miss. In many commercial zones, botanicas are as common as drug stores or 10-table restaurants serving frijoles negros. In residential neighborhoods, the overnight arrival of several dozen cars at an ordinary three-bedroom house may mark the start of a two-day drumming ceremony, or a santero’s initiation.

Animals with their throats slit do turn up in public.

After the court ruling, says Pedraza, “people laughed that there would be chickens all over the place. Well, they are killing the same number of chickens.”

Most are either eaten or disposed of properly. But, says Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, “From time to time we find animal carcasses next to palm trees. We pick it up and discard it, and that’s that.”

Perhaps the best place for the casual observer to see signs of the influence of unconventional religious practice here is at the bustling Dade County Courthouse, which sits between a freeway intersection and the Miami River.

On any given morning at a site where dozens face criminal charges and hundreds more are jailed nearby, so many dead animals and other offerings to higher powers are left by believers that building manager Elizabeth Timpson has set up a so-called “voodoo squad” to police the area.

“For whatever reason, the incidents are increasing,” says Timpson. “Mainly what we see are dead animals--chickens, roosters. They are left in the hollow of a tree in front of the jail, or sometimes in a semi-circle in the grass on the southwest side of the courthouse, which is known as ‘chicken corner.’ ”

Also common are eggs, smashed on the sidewalk near the courthouse in an attempt to make a criminal case collapse.

Inside the courthouse, the “voodoo squad” regularly sweeps up white hexing powder sprinkled on the chairs of judges and lawyers, kernels of corn, believed to speed up a trial date, and black pepper, to keep someone jailed.

“At first we thought this happened in courthouses everywhere,” says Timpson. “But no. We’ve checked around, and we’re the only place. I’m not a believer myself, but there is religious significance. And if people believe in it, it works, I’m sure.”