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An interesting article from http://www.gnmagazine.org/ about Halloween's Dark Roots. This follows this post about the influence of mass culture. For a free magazine subscription click HERE! or call 1-888-886-8632.
Halloween's Dark Roots
In recent years eye-opening materials have been published about the questionable background of Halloween. Consider these excerpts:
"Halloween-a holiday that mixes generic religious beliefs with ancient folk customs-is supposed to be fun. But for many conservative Christians, it has become a dark and spiritually dangerous celebration... Many are boycotting the bats, witches, goblins and ghouls that symbolize the holiday because they consider such things to be lures in the satanic struggle for human souls...
"Halloween's pagan roots are real, as are those of Christmas and Easter. Santa Claus comes from an ancient woodland spirit honored by pagans, and Easter's non-Christian ancestry is derived from a Germanic fertility goddess, thus the Easter eggs and Easter bunny... Halloween was called samhain in the pagan world-part harvest festival, partly a day to honor the dead" (Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, Oct. 28, 1993, "Conservative Christians Urge Halloween Alternative").
"The ancient Celtic [Irish, Scottish, Welsh] festival called Samhain is considered by many to be a predecessor of our contemporary Halloween. Samhain was the New Year's Day of the Celts, celebrated on 1 November. It was also a day of the dead, a time when it was believed that the souls of those who had died during the year were allowed access to the land of the dead. It was related to the season: by Samhain, the crops should be harvested and the animals brought in from the distant fields.
"Many traditional beliefs and customs associated with Samhain, most notable that night was the time of the wandering dead, the practice of leaving offerings of food and drink to masked and costumed revelers, and the lighting of bonfires, continued to be practiced on 31 October, known as the Eve of All Saints, the Eve of All Hallows, or Hallow Even. It is the glossing of the name Hallow Even that has given us the name Hallowe'en.
"... The customs associated with Halloween included representations of ghosts and human skeletons-symbols of the dead-and of the devil and other malevolent, evil creatures, such as witches.
"The first week of November is marked in many countries, especially those with a strong Catholic influence, with festivals concerned with death, in a playful but serious way. In Catholic countries we often find some cognate of Halloween associated with All Saints' or All Souls' days.
"... Unlike the American Halloween, in Mexico people build home altars, adorned with religious icons and special breads and other food for the dead. The Day of the Dead incorporates recognition of death as a concept with rituals that remember the deaths of individuals" (Jack Santino, Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, 1994). GN
Related Resources
Is Halloween Harmless?
Every year at Halloween, well-meaning parents dress their children in grotesque and ghoulish costumes. Is Halloween really harmless? Who and what's behind this bizarre holiday?
Halloween's Dark Roots
In recent years eye-opening materials have been published about the questionable background of Halloween
Ghouls, Ghosts and Goblins
It seems like such harmless fun-children dressed as witches, skeletons or Darth Vader ringing the doorbell, enthusiastically announcing, "Trick or treat!" But is this preoccupation with the dead, witches and demons really harmless? And do you realize that Halloween was originally an important religious holiday-and still is in many parts of the world?
Can Halloween Be Christianized?
What should you do in deciding how you will approach this hotly debated issue?
Who's Getting Tricked by Halloween?
Why do witches, goblins, jack-o'-lanterns, cobwebs, graveyards and symbols of the occult surround this holiday? You need to know the real story.
Halloween: A Celebration of Evil
Modern celebrations of Halloween may appear on the surface to be quite harmless, but the spiritual implications of dabbling with the spirit world are extremely serious.
Holidays or Holy Days: Does it Matter Which Days We Celebrate?
It's ironic that so many of today's popular holidays-including major religious celebrations like Christmas and Easter-originated in ancient pagan festivals and customs, while God's Holy Days revealed in the Bible are almost universally ignored. Which should you celebrate and why?
It is pronounced Sow-wen.Samhain comes from the Gaelic 'Samhuin' meaning Summer's end.Samhain bonfires were traditionally lit in Scotland and were called Samhnagan.Samhain is the first day of the Celtic New Year.Other names for Samhain include Shadowfest(Strega) and Martinmas(celtic Scottish)It is the time on the Wheel of the year when the veil between our world and the spirit world is thought to be at it's thinnest.Samhain was traditionally a time for honouring one's ancestors: often food was left out. Originally turnips were carved into lanterns, these later became pumpkins in Halloween traditions.On the Isle of Man Samhain is celebrated as Hop-tu-NaaCostumes and masks were worn to ward off evil spirits, this custom has been absorbed into Halloween traditions of today.Much more in depth information about Samhain traditions can be found here: SamhainSamhain blessings to you, Alison
Origin: mysteryvoodoo.blogspot.com
Halloween originated in ancient Celtic times from a festival called Samhain which the Celts celebrated to see off the end of the harvest season. The pagans would typically slaughter livestock for storage over winter and would take inventory of supplies like wood, fruit and vegetables. The belief was that on the 31st of October the boundary between the living and the dead dissapeared and the deceased had free reign to comit ill doings like damaging crops or causing sickness and illness. Traditional Halloween festivals would involve everyone dressing up in costume and donning Halloween masks to mimic the bad spirits. They would then throw the bones of recently slaughtered cattle onto lit bonfires.
The word Halloween is taken from the phrase "All hallow even", or the eve of All Hallows' Day also referred to as All Saints' Day. Traditionally a Celtic pagan festival, it wasn't until Pope Gregory the Third and King Gregory IV decided to move the Christian feast of All Saints' Day to November 1st (it was originally May 13th).
Halloween Masks
Traditionally masks were worn when famine or drought happened. The belief was that the demons and evil spirits of the deceased realm were present at Halloween and that wearing hideous masks in their likeness would frighten them off. Though many of the other Celtic and Pagan traditions of Halloween declined, Christians and others still felt unease at this time of year and the tradition of wearing the Halloween mask is still alive to this day.
Witches and Broomsticks
Witches are a well known icon of Halloween. The Saxon word wica, which means wise one, gave origin to the idea of Witches. On the Sabbath witches would set out and travel and while most witches rode on horseback, those who travelled by foot commonly carried a pole or broomstick to carry their belongings and to vault over streams.
Jack O Lanterns
Children in Ireland would carve out turnips and potatos and place a small candle in them them for the Halloween festival. This was in memory of Jack, a shadey villain who was so evil that both God and the Devil rejected and damned him to walk the earth endlessly looking for a place to rest.
By: Sean Bluestone
Sean Bluestone is fascinated by the use of masks in history and culture and writes more on the subject at www.my-masks.com
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By Nancy Bilyeau
I carry a dedication for 16th century England. My friends and relations, not to move up my agent and editors, are accustomed to my obsession with the Tudorverse. Namely, that for me, all roads lead back to the relations that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. May perhaps it be within reach that Halloween, one of my dear days of the day, is any allied to the Tudors?
Yes, it turns out, it may possibly.
The near the beginning recorded use of the word "HALLOWEEN" was in mid-16th century England. It is a condensed call up of "ALL-HALLOWS-EVEN" ("EARLY EVENING"), the night former All Hallows Day, brand new name for the Christian supper that honors saints on the near the beginning of November.
But it's not fine a discontinue membership. To me, there's a corporeal spirit of Halloween that harkens back to the Tudor era as well. Not the jack o' lanterns, apple-bobs and shadowy houses (AND NOT THE SUPERB CHRISTOPHER LEE "DRACULA" movies that I direct on TCM pattern every October, two in a row if I can). It's that attitude, overwhelming and mysterious and absorbing too, of ghosts flitting unswerving the trees; of charms that fine forte bring you your heart's desire; of a standoffish inspiration speckled in the forest; of a crone's futile sight.
In pre-Reformation England, the Catholic Cathedral co-existed with belief in astrology and magic. It was to a certain extent ordinary to do Push evenly "AND" to slang astrologers. "THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH APPEARED AS A VOLUMINOUS RESERVE OF MAGICAL POWER," writes Keith Thomas in his sparkly 1971 book "HOLINESS AND THE DRIP OF SPIRITUAL". Incessant Catholics tolerated the traditions of the centuries-old Celtic festival of Samhain ("SUMMER'S END"), such as those lit bonfires and put on costumes to scare impossible the spirits of the abruptly dead. In fact, an Eighth Century pope named November 1st as the day to compliment all Catholic saints and martyrs with an eye on the way to Samhain.
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Arrange Cakes
Not any shows the merger of Celtic and Christian beliefs improved than "CREATURE CAKES." These feeble, crowd cakes, infested with nutmeg or cinnamon or currants, were complete for All Saints' Day on November 1st. The cakes were vacant as a way to say prayers for the silent (YOU CAN PICTURE THE SETTLEMENT PRIEST TIRED IN APPROVE) but they were any unlimited impossible to protect those on the day of the day that the wall was thinnest together with the living and the dead, a Celtic if not Druid belief. I am entranced by creature cakes, and I worked them arrived my near the beginning new, The Crown", a mystery set in 1537-1538 England. Arrange cakes even end up to the same degree a clue!
In the into the future 16th century, Halloween on October 31st, All Saints' Day (OR ALL HALLOWS DAY) on November 1st and All Souls' Day on November 2nd were a obscure party of traditions and observances. Vim and vigor revolved sphere-shaped the usual praise, the holidays and the supper days that constituted the liturgy. As the incalculable Eamon Duffy wrote: "For within that incalculable wandering racing bike of fast and festival, of ritual custody and characteristic activity, lay Christians found the paradigms and the stories which bent their harmony of the world and their place in it."
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Sculptures smashed at Worcester Church.
Henry VIII unusual the perceptions of the acquire once and for all such as he indigent from Rome. A guiding get behind in his reform of the Catholic Cathedral was the separate of what he and his information ecclesiastic Thomas Cromwell scorned as "SUPERSTITION." Saints' statues were removed; murals recounting mystical stories were highlighted over; shrines were pillaged; the send out of supper days was wisely underprivileged so that exclusive work may possibly be done popular the promising toughen. "THE PROTESTANT REFORMERS REJECTED THE MAGICAL POWERS AND PARANORMAL SANCTIONS WHICH HAD BEEN SO IN ABUNDANCE INVOKED BY THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH," writes Keith Thomas. The story in The Crown" is told from the viewpoint of a ecologically aware Catholic for children who struggles to administer with these aggressive changes.
Yet in some way Halloween, the day former All Saints' Day, survived the government's anti-superstition action, to put on and coarsen have a yen at the back the Tudors were followed by the Stuarts. It's now a human holiday that children praise (BY WAY OF PIT, WHO ARE TESTING ON COSTUMES FOUR DAYS INTO THE FUTURE). As for me, I appreciate the chocolate handouts, costumes and spine-tingling movies-and I any admire our society's fixed honey for bonfires and charms and ghosts and well-proportioned cakes, for in them can be found echoes of life in the age of the Tudors.
"The Crown" is on sale in North America, the United Ceremony, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Australia. To learn exclusive go to www.nancybilyeau.com
