What does Halloween mean to us Wiccans

HALLOWEEN CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS. CLICK ON A PICTURE TO ENTER A SCARY SITE

Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a
celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some
claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient
pagan ritual?

The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic
Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. All Hallows
Day, or All Saint's Day, November 1, is a Catholic day of observance in honor of
saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended
on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year. One
story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died
throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to
possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the
afterlife, (Panati). The Celts believed all laws of space and time were
suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the
living, (Gahagan).

Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of
October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them
cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish
costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as
possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess, (Panati).

Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not
to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight
their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the
Middle of Ireland, at Usinach, (Gahagan).

Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was
thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits, (Panati).
Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth, (Gahagan).

The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century
AD, they abandoned any practice of sacrificing of humans in favor of burning
effigies.

The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As
belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins,
ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.

The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants
fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New
England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates, (Panati).

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish
Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2,
All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for
"soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The
more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise
to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was
believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that
prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.


The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is
told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked
Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's
trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if
he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.

According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven
because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had
tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way
through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip
to keep it glowing longer.

The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when
the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful
than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit
with an ember.


So, although some cults and devil worshippers may have adopted Halloween as
their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil
practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out
of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, it is only as evil as one
cares to make it.