Do you feel a change in the air all around you? The breezes are changing from the soft warmth of summer to a crisper, sharper rush against your face. Summer has ended and autumn has arrived. The days are getting shorter and the nights becoming colder, darker and longer and soon it will be October 31st Halloween; the day when the veil between the spirit world and ours, the living, is the thinnest according to the Druids and Celtic ways. The original name, The Feast of Samhain (pronounced Sa-ween) was/is the eve of the Celtic New Year. It is rooted in Druid demon worship and during these pre-Christian times (2500 years ago) the Druids did and practiced horrendous acts. Today, we celebrate this as Halloween. Our shops are filled with costumes for all ages to dress up as something frightening, fun or bizarre and go house-to-house trick or treating or gather for a party, maybe watch some scary movies or do occult like activities like card readings, fortune telling, spirit communication. Pagan religions such as Wicca and other occult practitioners along with Satanic worshipers have claimed this as one of their “most important holidays”.
What is Halloween really about?
About 2500 years ago, in what is present day Ireland, England and France, a people called the Celts and Druid priests lived and ruled. Can you imagine what life was like for those people? 2500 years ago, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no phones or computers, no cars, no grocery stores? Life was hard and they depended on and worshiped Nature, as volatile as she can be, she is all they had and all they knew. The ending of summer was likened to the ending of human life. The bright, sunny, bountiful days of life and fun ended on October 31, and the onset of autumn, with days shortened to long, dark nights of cold and scarcity of food began. What is now Halloween was originally called Samhain (sa-ween) the Celtic new year.
The Celts believed on the day of Samhain the veil between the spirit world and the living world was the thinnest. They believed that the laws of time and space were suspended for a short period, allowing the spirit world to mingle with the living. It was believed that the spirits of the those who had died the previous year were in limbo and that they would come back on this night to roam the land looking for bodies of living people to possess for the next year. Their belief was that by possessing another living, human was their only hope for an afterlife. Of course, the living did not want to be possessed and who would? So, they would extinguish their home fires, which would leave their homes cold and uninviting to roaming spirits. Then they would don various masks and costumes of the ghoulish and frightening type to parade around in and be as destructive as possible to scare away spirits looking for living bodies to possess.
Another tale revolving around the extinguishing of home fires was so that everyone could go and light a fire in unity — the Druidic Fire, which would be kept burning continuously in Usinach as a common source of protection. This night of Samhain was also believed the easiest of evenings for the Druid Priests to make predictions about the future because of the close presence of the otherworldly spirits. For the Celts, a people in a land and time that depended so much on the laws of Mother Nature, these prophecies were most important in providing direction and comfort for the long, cold, dark winter ahead.
For a person thought already to be possessed by evil spirits, this night is when the Celts would burn these people at the stake. Hmmm, now that is a scary thought! This was thought to teach the spirits a lesson about what would happen to them should they decide to possess a living person.
Around 43 A.D., the Romans conquered the Celts, adopted Samhain and then meshed Samhain with their two holidays in October. Feralia, the passing of the dead; and Pomona, to honor the goddess of fruit and trees. The apple, being the symbol for Pomona, is thought to be the reason for the tradition of ‘bobbing for apples” or “apple paring fortune telling”. Another great scary story about bobbing for apples on Halloween revolves around the theory of the Druids offering human sacrifices to their gods. The story goes that the Druids would force villagers to bob for apples from big cauldrons of hot water which would scald their faces or be decapitated and thrown to the burning wicker man if they refused – wow, that sure doesn’t sound like much of a choice. The person who got the apple on the first go around was let free to go albeit with a forever disfigured face. If you didn’t get the apple….well into the fire you went! Yikes!
The word Halloween comes from the Catholic church and is the corruption of All Hallows Eve, November 1, and All Hallows Day or All Saints Day, for the observance of all the saints in heaven. During the rule of the Romans, spirit possession belief on Halloween declined and the holiday became more of a ceremonial day with dressing up still included.
Early American settlers, who were mainly of the Protestant faith, did not condone Halloween. It was more celebrated in the southern New England colonies such as Maryland, where beliefs and customs from various European cultures and the American Indians meshed, and a distinct version of Halloween began to emerge. Halloween was then celebrated by “play parties,” which were community events, to celebrate harvest time with ghost stories, fortune telling and song and dance.
Trick or treating was not part of the Celtic traditions, but rather from 9th century Europeans, originally called “souling”. November 2, All Souls Day, was a day on which early Christians would go from village to village, door to door, begging for “soul cakes,” which were squares of bread and currant berries. The more soul cakes a beggar received, the more prayers they would pray for the donors’ deceased loved ones. The belief being that a soul walked in limbo immediately after death and all prayers, even from strangers, would help the soul into heaven.
The lighting and carving of pumpkins, or jack-o-lantern’s, originated from an Irish folk tale. The tale says a man named Jack, who was a drunkard and trickster, one day tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Once Satan was high in the tree, Jack carved the holy cross on the tree trunk, trapping Satan. He then made a deal with Satan that he would let Satan down if he promised to never tempt him again. Then, when Jack grew old and died, he was not allowed into heaven due to his evil ways, nor was he let into hell because of his trick on Satan. Instead, the devil gave him an ember to light his way in the cold dark. The ember was placed in a hollowed out turnip so that it would burn longer. The Irish used turnips for many years as their jack-o-lanterns. When the Irish began coming to America because of the potato famine in Ireland, they found that pumpkins were more bountiful in the new land than turnips. Thus began the use of hollowed out pumpkins as their jack-o-lanterns, which are still popular today.
Throughout the early 1800’s, American’s celebrated Halloween with singing, dancing, dressing up and parlor games. Young, single women at this time believed that on Halloween they could foretell their future husband’s name and appearance through tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors. Now that is an interesting way to find a man! Compared to online dating and blind dates, there can’t be much more of a margin of error! Something I might have to check out myself this Halloween!
By the late 1800’s, parents were encouraged to remove any ghoulish or frightening Halloween tales that were of superstitious or religious basis. Halloween had its own American ways now. Through the 1920’s and 1930’s, Halloween became a community celebration with parades and local parties; and vandalism started to become the rage instead of pranks. The baby boom during the 1950’s revived trick or treating. Because of the large number of children, this was a way to involve the community with each other. Town leaders got vandalism down to a limit and the holiday became a “children’s” holiday. In theory, tricks or pranks being played on families could be avoided by providing little treats for neighborhood children. A new American tradition was born and continues to grow today. Americans spend about $6.9 million dollars on the Halloween holiday, making it the 2nd largest American holiday.
So there it is, some dark history of Halloween, there is much, much more to know about it and I encourage you to research for yourself. It is a holiday born out of the times and with evil practices. It originated with the Celtic and Druid celebration for New Year’s Eve and medieval prayers and rituals of the Europeans. Modern Halloween in America for most is a day of silly fun and games, costumes and candy. But is it really? The meaning has not changed from it’s original. In the Neo Pagan communities it is still a sacred day.
I am not suggesting you to participate or not n’or to argue if it’s right for Christians to celebrate it. I am giving you a little information and asking you to dig deeper. How you celebrate it or not is your personal choice. As a Christian, I stopped participating in this day many years ago when I was saved by Jesus Christ from a dark place where I practiced “white witchcraft” “spirit communication” among other things. I encourage you to pray and take it to Jesus and ask Him if this pleases Him? We followers of Christ are called to be set-apart from the world.