You do not have permission to delete messages in this group
Copy link
Report message
Show original message
Either email addresses are anonymous for this group or you need the view member email addresses permission to view the original message
to Bible-Pro...@googlegroups.com
Perilous
Times, Witchcraft and the Occult
Facts about Halloween
Each year Christians are faced with the social pressure of this
event we call "Halloween." Our children are exposed to it at
school and through commercial advertising, displays, and items to
be sold, and they find it hard to resist being a part of all the
festivities. Many Christians find it harmless "fun" and see no
reason to oppose it. Other churches and believers attempt to
"compete" with it by having special "harvest festivals" (or
similar such events) at the church facilities so that families can
have an alternative for their children. For information's sake,
here are a few facts:
Halloween had its beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic
festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, who were once found all
over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to
their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November
1st on our present calendar. The date marked the beginning of
winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle
and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had
to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and
stored. The date marked both an ending and a beginning in an
eternal cycle.
The festival observed at this time was called Samhain (pronounced
Sah-ween). It was the biggest and most significant holiday of the
Celtic year. The Celts believed that at the time of Samhain, more
so than any other time of the year, the ghosts of the dead were
able to mingle with the living, because at Samhain the souls of
those who had died during the year traveled into the otherworld.
People gathered to sacrifice animals, fruits, and vegetables. They
also lit bonfires in honor of the dead, to aid them on their
journey, and to keep them away from the living. On that day all
manner of beings were abroad: ghosts, fairies, and demons-all part
of the dark and dread.
Samhain became the Halloween we are familiar with when Christian
missionaries attempted to change the religious practices of the
Celtic people. In the early centuries of the first millennium
A.D., before missionaries such as St. Patrick and St. Columcille
converted them to Christianity, the Celts practiced an elaborate
religion through their priestly caste, the Druids, who were
priests, poets, scientists and scholars all at once. As religious
leaders, ritual specialists, and bearers of learning, the Druids
were not unlike the very missionaries and monks who were to
Christianize their people and brand them evil devil worshippers.
As a result of their efforts to wipe out "pagan" holidays, such as
Samhain, the Christians succeeded in effecting major
transformations in it. In 601 A.D. Pope Gregory the First issued a
now famous edict to his missionaries concerning the native beliefs
and customs of the peoples he hoped to convert. Rather than try to
obliterate native peoples' customs and beliefs, the pope
instructed his missionaries to use them: if a group of people
worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, he advised them to
consecrate it to Christ and allow its continued worship.
In terms of spreading Christianity, this was a brilliant concept
and it became a basic approach used in Catholic missionary work.
Church holy days were purposely set to coincide with native holy
days. Christmas, for instance, was assigned the arbitrary date of
December 25th because it corresponded with the mid-winter
celebration of many peoples. Likewise, St. John's Day was set on
the summer solstice.
Samhain, with its emphasis on the supernatural, was decidedly
pagan. While missionaries identified their holy days with those
observed by the Celts, they branded the earlier religion's
supernatural deities as evil, and associated them with the devil.
As representatives of the rival religion, Druids were considered
evil worshippers of devilish or demonic gods and spirits. The
Celtic underworld inevitably became identified with the Christian
Hell.
The effects of this policy were to diminish but not totally
eradicate the beliefs in the traditional gods. Celtic belief in
supernatural creatures persisted, while the church made deliberate
attempts to define them as being not merely dangerous, but
malicious. Followers of the old religion went into hiding and were
branded as witches.
The Christian feast of All Saints was assigned to November 1st.
The day honored every Christian saint, especially those that did
not otherwise have a special day devoted to them. This feast day
was meant to substitute for Samhain, to draw the devotion of the
Celtic peoples, and, finally, to replace it forever. That did not
happen, but the traditional Celtic deities diminished in status,
becoming fairies or leprechauns of more recent traditions.
The old beliefs associated with Samhain never died out entirely.
The powerful symbolism of the traveling dead was too strong, and
perhaps too basic to the human psyche, to be satisfied with the
new, more abstract Catholic feast honoring saints. Recognizing
that something that would subsume the original energy of Samhain
was necessary, the church tried again to supplant it with a
Christian feast day in the 9th century. This time it established
November 2nd as All Souls Day-a day when the living prayed for the
souls of all the dead. But, once again, the practice of retaining
traditional customs while attempting to redefine them had a
sustaining effect: the traditional beliefs and customs lived on,
in new guises.
All Saints Day, otherwise known as All Hallows (hallowed means
sanctified or holy), continued the ancient Celtic traditions. The
evening prior to the day was the time of the most intense
activity, both human and supernatural. People continued to
celebrate All Hallows Eve as a time of the wandering dead, but the
supernatural beings were now thought to be evil. The folk
continued to propitiate those spirits (and their masked
impersonators) by setting out gifts of food and drink.
Subsequently, All Hallows Eve became Hallow Evening, which became
Hallowe'en-an ancient Celtic, pre-Christian New Year's Day in
contemporary dress.
Virtually all present Halloween traditions can be traced to the
ancient Celtic day of the dead. Halloween is a holiday of many
mysterious customs, but each one has a history, or at least a
story behind it. The wearing of costumes, for instance, and
roaming from door to door demanding treats can be traced to the
Celtic period and the first few centuries of the Christian era,
when it was thought that the souls of the dead were out and
around, along with fairies, witches, and demons. Offerings of food
and drink were left out to placate them. As the centuries wore on,
people began dressing like these dreadful creatures, performing
antics in exchange for food and drink. This practice is called
mumming, from which the practice of trick-or-treating evolved. To
this day, witches, ghosts, and skeleton figures of the dead are
among the favorite disguises. Halloween also retains some features
that harken back to the original harvest holiday of Samhain, such
as the customs of bobbing for apples and carving vegetables, as
well as the fruits, nuts, and spices cider associated with the
day.
Today Halloween is becoming once again an adult holiday or
masquerade, like Mardi Gras. Men and women in every disguise
imaginable are taking to the streets of big American cities and
parading past grinningly carved, candlelit jack o'lanterns, re-
enacting customs with a lengthy pedigree. Their masked antics
challenge, mock, tease, and appease the dread forces of the night,
of the soul, and of the otherworld that becomes our world on this
night of reversible possibilities, inverted roles, and
transcendency. In so doing, they are reaffirming death and its
place as a part of life in an exhilarating celebration of a holy
and magic evening.
(The above article was written by Jack Santino and comes from the
Library of Congress.)
OUR CONCLUSION: Believers ought not to have anything to do with
the celebration of Halloween - it is pagan and its emphasis and
glorification of Satan, demons, and death, is a far cry from what
true believers should celebrate!