How did Halloween come to be? The World Wide Web states that Halloween is a day marked for spiritual activity.
Halloween stems from an ancient Celtic festival (Samhain) “when the living and the dead where thought to interact”. The internet also says that, “[this festival] evolved into the Western Christian observance of All Hallows’ Eve, the day before All Saints’ Day (a day to remember saints and the dead). Over time, the religious significance diminished, and the holiday became a secular celebration focused on costumes, trick-or-treating, and spooky themes”.
Behind the costumes. Originally all the costumes scary and grotesque costumes were worn in order to blend in with evil spirits.
Behind the trick-or-treating. It stems from a tradition where less fortunate people would go door to door and ask for food in exchange for prayers of the homeowners dead relatives souls. Or food or treats would be put out to appease the evil spirits.
Behind the spooky themes. Evil spirits are the theme of Halloween. These evil spirits are portrayed in fairies and ghouls, death, graveyards, skeletons, fortune telling, witches, unrest of souls (ghosts). With a famous unrested soul depicted by jack-o-lanterns. Jack-o-lanterns stem from a tale about a man named Jack who outsmarted the devil and was forced to restlessly roam the earth with a spooky lantern to light his way. Apparently, due to his spirit being barred from Heaven and hell.
The Anticipation
Here is my personal experience of this spooky celebration. That Halloween was not too cold but a little rainy. As I made my way to the house the rain would pick up here and there. My dear friend and her mother had been rehearsing a dance for weeks. I had been invited to watch one of their productions. They would be bringing Micheal Jackson’s iconic Thriller dance, a very Halloween appropriate dance, to life with makeup, costumes and flawless choreography.
I, for one, was quite excited about this for many reasons. First of all, I barely remember a year when a wasn’t frantically looking for some Halloween festivities to be a part of. I also loved the fact that it was my friend, who I’d typically felt I needed to motivate to get out and do something, had boldly initiated for both herself and her mother to take this dance class and perform for the masses! And to top of my excitement, I was able to go do something fun on Halloween together with my 12 month old! Because I could not or would not get a babysitter and I wanted my little one to enjoy Halloween.
Navigating through the wet night, I parked my car on the street. The rain had let up completely at this time. My sweet child had on a favorite sleeper – no Halloween motifs though, because well, there would only be a few days for her to wear it so I didn’t think it was worth it.
Placing her in a carrier, I walked up to the house where the dance would be taking place. They would be going to different places to perform. The house was not hard to find. Whoever lived there had gone all out with the decorations. The front lawn was a graveyard complete with a smoke machine that gave it an eerily foggy atmosphere. There was occasional evil outburst of laughter that could be heard randomly projecting plunder than the quieter creepy sounds. The chosen entrance of the house on this day, was the garage which I had to hold my breath to enter.
A larger than life mechanical Jason on the right and a similarly big Grimm reaper with sickle stood on the left of the open garage entrance. There, dim lights and evil sounds paved the way into a dark garage with creepy lights and creepy dolls leading to the kitchen door.
Inside the kitchen was similarly dark. There was some dim light but I’m unsure where it was coming from. The kitchen am was marked with stations for snacks and drinks. I peaked into the adjacent room. From the ceiling hung a chandelier that must have been reclaimed from Dracula’s mansion. It seemed to be the only thing in the room. I didn’t noticed any other furniture, but yet it seemed to be decorated! The lights the sounds were truly giving Halloween.
People continued to arrive at this venue grabbing drinks, chatting, and commenting on how perfect the decor was. My 12 month old was a little angel taking it all in. Then all the dancers arrived my dear friend and her mom included. Their dance leader wanted the dance to be performed in the street perhaps to really make a statement. Or maybe that’s just how they did it. So everyone exited the house and the street. The dancers, about 15 or so people dressed like zombies from head to toe, got in place right in the middle to the street.
The Production
The music filled the night air. Thriller! Thriller night! The zombies were in character moving in perfect synchrony to the beat. It truly was surreal. Just to the side of the street was the very convincing graveyard that the front lawn had been turned into. I stood between the graveyard and the street holding my little one on my hip. The audience from all around yelled out for an encore and the zombies obliged.
Then toward the end of the encore dance apparently the zombies needed a victim to make everything even more convincing. The dance leader ran to grab my child from my hip excitedly and rushed my child into the dance. I couldn’t see what was going on. I lost sight of my child as they had put my little one in the middle of the circle they formed as their victim or something.
My child was given back to me after with a smile. Little one was fine, but it happened so quickly that I didn’t even know how to react. But it was all fun in fun. Everyone was having a good time. As the audience began to dissipate I said my goodbyes to my sweet friend, her mother and the dance leader.
When I went to bed that night. I feel asleep pretty quickly. In the middle of the night, probably in between sleep cycles, I felt something in the room. Like I had company. Of course it was night but it felt even darker. It felt oppressive. I started feeling as if I was being pressed down by the dark visitor. The only thing I could think to do was open my mouth and tell it to leave. It tried to stop me! At first it seemed I couldn’t figure out how to open my mouth, like the sounds were stuffed deep in my throat. I pushed hard and the sounds began to come out. It was a struggle! I spoke out against the evil presence in the name of Jesus. Then the atmosphere changed. The room felt light. I felt peace and I fell soundly back to sleep.
The Attraction
I have never been someone who took Halloween too seriously. I thought the traditions and the scariness and goriness was something that was all in good fun. I had been desensitized to it. In my opinion, Some people were just more lighthearted about Halloween and some were just more intense about it. However, from this experience I know that there truly is an evil spirit behind Halloween.
This evil presents as something harmless and intriguing, but it’s charming and enchanting in a deceptive way. It’s allure comes with the promise of fun, games, tradition and entertainment and once you get involved you open yourself up to the evil spirit behind it. You may get involved innocently but don’t be naive to it. You can see the darkness in it. It’s clearly tied to hellish themes. Don’t ignore it. Don’t desensitize yourself to it because inadvertently you are being a conduit to evil.
In the past, although I really wanted to, I never got the chance to do the trick or treat thing, the costume thing or be actively involved in the festivities. I was just an innocent bystander happy to watch a Thriller dance to enjoy Halloween, however it appears that my acceptance and participation led me into an evil encounter.
The Participation
People, in order to condone participation in the “fun” talk about reclaiming Halloween by alternate celebrations. They keep the day as a dress up and treat day but attempt to spin it towards “good” for example elimination of scary costumes for the kids or making sure the candy and children are safe by trunk or treating.
Clearly this is a gross deception because there is nothing to reclaim. Halloween was not given away to evil. It’s very roots are evil.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that the word Reclaim means to reform, tame or subdue or rescue from an undesirable state.
Wikipedia defines reclaim as “to get something back” inherently implying that that “something” was yours to begin with.
So is Halloween actually Christian? In the 8th or 9th century pope Gregory III of The Catholic Church tried to make this pagan holiday more Christian by creating All Saints Day on November 1st so the night before was marked as All Hallow’s Eve. However, Halloween itself as a holiday has kept its core tradition steeped in the supernatural and unnatural. And not coincidentally at all has been about death, darkness, witchcraft and evil spirits. There’s nothing to reclaim. At its core it is not from light, but of darkness.
In Conclusion
So celebrating Halloween will always start out innocently. It’s now central in popular culture and is marketed as fun. However, it is indeed dark, and not just with the physical representations of death, but also with spiritual symbolism like ghosts. Halloween is a spiritual celebration. It has been from its inception and has not changed from being openly shrouded in evil. It’s just now disguised as a fun time for all, especially for kids. Whether you realize it or not, there are spiritual implications in celebrating Halloween in which through participation, you are willingly given over to evil and darkness. When you choose to celebrate you are choosing to invite evil to your home.