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Agree. While pedofilia is obviously not okay, calling other of her kinks “perversions” sounds like someone was writing for a cheap tabloid while clutching their pearls. Alvarosaurus95 (talk) 00:42, 26 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments5 people in discussion
I've had doubts of the reality of this figure for a while, partly because of this poorly cited page, and a bit ago, a friend of mine looked into the books cited on the page - I wouldn't say either of them are reliable, and neither properly source anything about Magdalena either, save for something that leads to a book on the occult, and that therefore is not a reliable source either. Searching up her name yields little of anything reliable either, mostly blog posts. There's nothing of note in the news or newspaper searches provided by the "citations needed" template, and most of the books that actually touch on her specifically in the scholar search are from the 90's or later, recycling the same story with no apparent origin. The ones that aren't from the 90's or later are books on folklore or occultism. JSTOR has nothing on her either. I'm nearly 100% positive this is folklore, and that this person never existed. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I'm pretty skeptical right now. Promestein (talk) 19:54, 31 May 2019 (UTC)Reply
This all seems an urban myth. I would like to see reports from reputable newspapers from the time. My bet is it's all a load of horse droppings. Some creepypasta that has taken on a life of its own. Trigaranus (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
The 1964 "Western Folklore" journal listed in the bibliography DOES mention her, but the details are quite different from those in the article. For instance, she was possessed by Nino Feliciano and her brother by St. Francis. It's barely the same story. 71.169.134.234 (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Most of the sources on the Spanish version are in English... bit of a red flag, that. As well as that the English Wiki page is older than the Spanish. And the photo I keep seeing is Dagmar Overbye, an early-20th Century female serial killer from Denmark (OK, this is devolving into non-Wiki complaints). Wikipedia has a list of online newspaper archives, and a search of El Informador's, which dates from 1917, came up empty--- perhaps it wasn't covered, as the paper is from Guadalajara? Perhaps that year hasn't been digitized? There are at least scans. It certainly hasn't been digitized for HNDM's El Porvenir archive (a Monterrey paper). In fact, the few papers on that site for that year that I can access are blocked with the message Esta publicación es de acceso restringido y sólamente puede ser consultada dentro de las instalaciones de la Hemeroteca Nacional de México (I don't speak Spanish, but it's pretty clear that someone needs to do the search at a facility in Mexico). Considering the sensational nature, there should be something---anything. And if not, it's clear this is a hoax, à la Lucian Staniak, the Red Spider of Communist Poland, who I first read about on Crime Library, the other source for this article's first iteration. 03:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm really glad that some other users finally took notice of the issues with this page. Given that no one else has been able to find any reliable sources on the matter, should we go ahead and propose a deletion? Promestein (talk) 03:15, 22 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
I find it fascinating that this story could be totally bunk. Fantastic long-running, likely misogynistic hoax if so. The true crime fetish ecosystem is still fully behind the story. I did turn up this bit of potential corroboration from what is seemingly a reputable source— https://drtonyzavaleta.com/the-cult-of-yerba-buena/ He also indicates that there was a story in the Brownsville Herald in ‘63-‘64 on the cult, along with the El Bravo article mentioned above. I’ll leave it to those better suited to determine authenticity and/or dig further. JGray (talk) 10:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Unfortunately, El Bravo hasn't scanned its papers from 1963---1964 is as far back as it gets. There's a paper in Monterrey, El Porvenir, that has a scanned archive but you need to be a subscriber to see it. And then, there's this: two articles in The Cuero Record of Cuero, Texas, the first dated June 5, 1963, the second June 13, 1963. Folks, this story may not be entirely a hoax... The second refers to a "Celina Salvana" being a high priestess burned at the stake in Yerbabuena, but if she was: 1. a victim of Solis or 2. the basis of Solis. This UPI story I found (page 6, from a paper in the Marshall Islands) referred to her as the sorceress, but also refers to the Hernandez brothers and other things associated with this story. And thanks to my local library, I discovered an article on the front page of the Chicago Tribune from June 4, 1963, talking about a cult in Mexico led by "Eleasor Solis". Paris1127 (talk) 18:53, 22 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Oh, that's nice! Some actual dependable information. I suppose it'd just be a matter of correcting any issues and inaccuracies on the page, and getting better sources. Promestein (talk) 00:45, 23 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
I've also got as far as the 1964 Western Folklore report which is based on a (6 June 1963, I think) Dallas Herald article that is in turn based on an UPI dispatch. I find it telling that the Western Folklore journal picked it up, basically implying that this is folklore (here meaning: a confabulation that made it into UPI) rather than actual news. The Western Folklore article is available online, but for me (in Switzerland) only through a roundabout route. I can forward the PDF to people who are interested though. Trigaranus (talk) 13:05, 23 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
What I'd like to see more than anything is something, anything, from Mexico, from the time of what happened, completely en español for confirmation. News articles or court records (assuming that's even available). These English sources are great to have, but ring of sensationalism and can be inconsistent. The Western Folklore article (which I found on JSTOR), eg, refers to her as "Maria Magdalena Solis" while the UPI dispatch calls her "Celina Salvana", which might actually be the name of a victim? And then the American papers lose interest. Surely there's something better in Mexico? I'd share the Trib article, but I'm not sure how I can do so while not running afoul of Wikipedia/American copyright rules. Paris1127 (talk) 04:44, 24 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
I completely agree. Would we be able to post a beacon somewhere on the Mexico Portal of Wikipedia? I doubt anyone commenting here is Mexico-based. If we had a contributor with access to the UNAM Central Library, that would increase our chances of turning up a contemporary Mexican newspaper source. (Court records are on a different tier of difficulty.) Trigaranus (talk) 10:08, 24 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Which source is that? Most articles about this case refer to the Inca, despite being the wrong continent---the cult leaders had no idea, supposedly. Paris1127 (talk) 17:32, 1 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
The three shitty sources we have for the article are literally evenly spread (if I remember correctly): one talks about Aztecs, one about Incas, the other about Aztecs or Incas. Which is another tick in the "Eh, probably all made-up nonsense that never happened" column. Trigaranus (talk) 07:47, 3 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion
This story is absolutely just an urban legend that's been passed around as fact for a few generations. It's not even a creative story at that, it's the most stereotypical, blood drinking cult that anyone could come up with. The sources are incredibly unreliable, one of the articles cites a bunch of people such as 'Brad Steiger' Who was a conspiracy theorist and someone that wrote a book that features this case, yet every other story featured in that book are urban legends and ghost stories. The article has also claimed since it's creation in 2013 that former members of the cult have spoken out about their experience but the cited source doesn't say that and there's no information on anyone ever speaking out about being a member of the cult. Staying on the topic of the original creation of the article in 2013, nothing has changed about it since then. It's just been reworded over and over again with no additional information outside of the original telling of the story. (I don't even want to mention the silliness that is the way the cult was found out being a random 14 year old boy stumbling across a blood ritual in the mountains and then running for 3 hours across what I can gather from Google Street View seems to be a desert and then going all the way back with one of the police officers) This article doesn't provide anything by existing and right now it's the only place on the internet that gives this story any sort of legitimacy to the average person, thus keeping an obvious piece of fiction alive. Treqrs (talk) 12:00, 23 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
The article should be rewritten, not deleted. A valuable criticism of the Wikipedia entry was posted to YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAY4gFv-2Dc in July 2024. It shows an article from the "Valley Evening Monitor" newspaper (McAllen, TX), dated 13 June 1963, entitled "12 Members of Mexican Sacrifice Cult Are Found Guilty of Murder." However, Wikipedia content should follow the prohibition on original research.
See also "The Cult of Yerba Buena" by Tony Zavelta, retired professor emeritus of Anthropology/Sociology at Univ of Texas. His PhD in anthropology and his academic credentials (C.V.) give greater weight to his account. Thanks to JGray for the citation. EricP (talk) 17:45, 13 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
My hot take: The urban myth is making the rounds on the internet, and has been for a while. The only halfway decent scholarly reference I've found is, tellingly, the one from the 1963 Western Folklore collection. It's clearly folklore, i.e. modern mythology. As far as I know, there are no newspaper articles from the time. (Then again, I do not have good access to Mexican newspaper archives.) But given how popular a myth this is, the article should definitely be kept to give the story context and a reality check. The only problem is: It's written really shoddily, mostly by people who took the story at face value, and would take a long time to rewrite, which I do not have. Trigaranus (talk) 05:37, 16 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Reading that, the tale is a lot more subdued than what the net inflated it to. The siblings are still con artists, there's one sacrifice, of Celina, who is a 30 year old mother, and then one guy runs to the cops. A shootout, then a mass arrest. While this may go into original research, and Kirk - the newspaper article writer there - gives no sources, there's definitely the smell of that a story did happen, then it evolved - someone probably read the Western Folklore Collection, sites and articles in the 90s and 00s popped up, (maybe due to the Matamoros cult of 89 and the death of Mark Kilroy as well?) then the big breakout in the 10s. Definitely needs more looking into - something happened, someone died, but it wasn't some mass blood cult of nightly sacrifices. There's apparently a scan of the Valley Evening Monitor but it's beyond my reach at the moment, and even then, I'll be surprised if it gave a source...:::2600:4808:60BA:2C00:247D:F4BC:43CE:3322 (talk) 23:54, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply