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To make these wishes come true, they seek out the area's famous "brujos," as they are called in Spanish. For a fee, these shamans and healers perform rituals and call on spirits from the netherworld to influence their clients' fate.

Thanks to this bustling trade in mysticism, Catemaco is Mexico's unofficial capital of all things occult. It also presents a unique challenge for and competition to the Catholic Church.

For decades, the church has waged a campaign against "brujeria," or witchcraft, in Veracruz, a state along the Gulf of Mexico. In recent years the church has issued declarations and even put a cross on the top of White Monkey Peak, a nearby hilltop used by shamans as a ceremonial center.

"People want to resolve their problems with the snap of a finger," said Father Tomas Alonso Martinez of St. John the Baptist Parish in Catemaco. The witches "use psychology with the power of suggestion, which they use very well, to make their clients feel good for a little bit."

The results, he added, are clients who believe they are cured but eventually succumb to illnesses that go untreated. Other people, he said, end up as the victims of extortion scams from shamans and their helpers who extract personal information during their rituals.

He recalled one young local couple that hired a shaman to cast a spell that would boost their business. Later, the shaman demanded more money, claiming the couple's child would drop dead on a specific date if they did not pay.

Despite these scams, the tradition of witchcraft, which predates Catholicism in Mexico, persists. This lush, marshy area of the country, known as the Tuxtla region, was reportedly an important place for magic well before the Spanish conquered Mexico in the 1500s. Today, while tourists are the main customers, many residents still go to shamans for routine cleansings and good-luck amulets.

An even greater challenge is economics: Brujeria means big bucks. The Veracruz government dubbed the region "the Land of Witches" in a recent tourism campaign, and a massive, festive "black mass" is held each first Friday of March. The state governor often attends.

"It's our way of life; there are no companies here," said Norberto Baxin Mantilla, known to customers as "the Black Unicorn." "There are hundreds of witches and shamans. It's a source of income."

Baxin's work space, located in his house, is adorned with posters of skeletons and statues of "La Santa Muerte," the incarnation of death, a skeletal figure that has spawned a growing cult in Mexico in recent years. The hood of his silver Camaro also bears the grim-reaperlike image of Santa Muerte.

For a routine cleansing, Baxin donned silvery robes while a client stood in the middle of a five-pointed star painted on the floor. In the dark and amid flames and smoking incense, Baxin waved garlands of pungent herbs and an egg over the client's body.

"I believe in Santa Muerte and God, no one else," Baxin said. "Thanks to my faith, (Santa Muerte) has helped me solve a lot of problems. ... I cure all types of negative energy."

But for many observers, including locals and scholars, most of the witchcraft is all show and no substance.

"The ancient traditions have been lost," said Salvador Herrera, a local columnist and historian. "All that's left is the reputation, and that's what is now exploited."

He added that today's witchcraft combines traces of ancient local customs with rituals imported from Haiti, Africa and Brazil, along with a recent infusion of Santa Muerte for good measure.

But no matter how much traditions have morphed, certain elements, such as the cleansing concept, remain. They are evident even in local Catholic ceremonies. While shamans ward off evil spirits and bad vibes in spooky, candlelit rooms, Catholic cleansings are also regularly carried out in the town's brightly painted cathedral, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Carmen.

On one recent afternoon, a man brushed pungent wreaths of basil over visitors who knelt before a statue of Mary. The pilgrims left amulets and locks of hair next to the statue, along with letters asking for special requests -- offerings much like those left to the ancient gods on the hillsides and grottoes outside town.

For Philip Arnold, an anthropologist and archaeologist with Jesuit-run Loyola University in Chicago who has been visiting the region for 25 years, the parallels are clear.

"In many ways the Catholic Church is in competition with the brujos," he said. "Here you're supposed to go to the church to get cleansed (and) have yours sins pardoned, whereas with the brujos you're going to them to get cleansed. So there's a little bit of natural tension that's going to occur."

While Father Alonso acknowledges that pre-Hispanic and Catholic beliefs are intertwined in the area, Arnold ...