THE HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN

Why We Should Not Participate as Christians

"Mom, can I dress up like Casper this year? Dad, can we carve a jack-o-lantern and put it on the porch?"

Halloween...costume-clad children happily skipping from door to door shouting "trick or treat," expecting to fill their bags with candy, gum, and other goodies...houses decorated with jack-o-lanterns, pumpkins, witches with broomsticks, and black cats. These are the most common of the celebration of Halloween. They are all make-believe...or are they?

Each year at Halloween, parents are faced with the dilemma of what the world calls harmless fun and their own concerns about the spiritual significance of this holiday. While we all have to hear God for ourselves concerning these decisions, we thought the following history might be helpful to you and your family.

Halloween, which directly stems from Irish, Scottish, and British folk customs, was celebrated as the Druids' autumn festival. The Druids were an order of priests who worshipped nature. This holiday was originally celebrated to honor Samhain, lord of the dead, on October 31 (the end of the summer). The Druids believed that on this date, Sambain called all the wicked souls that had been condemned within the last year to live in animal bodies. He was believed to have released them in the form of spirits, ghosts, fairies, witches, and elves.

According to Druidic tradition, these souls of the dead roamed the city on Halloween night and returned to haunt the homes where they once lived. The only way the current house occupants could free themselves from being haunted was to lay out food and give shelter to the spirit during the night. If they did not, the spirit would cast a spell on them. That is where the phrase "trick or treat" comes from: They would be tricked if they did not lay out a treat.

The jack-o-lantern was also a part of this belief system. The carved pumpkin symbolized a damned soul named Jack. According to the tale, Jack was not allowed into heaven or hell. So, he wandered around in the darkness with his lantern until Judgement Day. Fearful people hollowed out turnips (and later pumpkins in the United States), carved an evil face on them, and lit a candle inside to scare him and the other evil spirits away.

The Druids had other outlandish beliefs which have also turned into tradition. For example, they feared black cats because they believed that when a person committed evil, he would be turned into a cat. Cats were thus considered to be evil. To scare them away, the Druids decorated their homes with witches, ghosts, and the like. They were also adorned with cornstalks, pumpkins, and other goods of thanks and praise to their false gods.

In addition to Halloween, October 31 was the New Year's Eve of the Celts and Anglo-Saxons. To celebrate, they built huge bonfires on hilltops to frighten away evil spirits. They often offered their crops and animals to the evil ones as sacrifices - sometimes, they even provided themselves.

Some people believe that the only significant part of Halloween is All Hallow's Eve, the evening before All Saint's Day. The Catholic Church initially celebrated All Saint's Day in May. About A.D. 83-4, the Romans conquered the Celts and moved All Saints' Day to November 1. The celebration remained the same, except for minor additions. The Roman Harvest Festival was then held in honor of the goddess Pamona, the goddess of fruit and trees (the practice of bobbing for apples derived from this). They also wanted to honor the newly overpowered descendants of the Druids in Germany and Scandinavia. Therefore, All Saint's Day and Halloween became unified because of the same ties to reverencing the dead.

The combination of these customs eventually became the traditional celebration we call Halloween.

Traci Morin
Touch of God International Ministries - a Christian Healing and Deliverance Ministry - Setting the Captives Free