Halloween

Posted by Void on 11/01/2005

Halloween, in case you aren’t a history freak, is a remnant of pre-Christian rituals – a night when the spirits came back to walk among us, and a chance to make up for the wrongs we committed against them when they were alive. “All Hallows E’en”. It seems that the urban folks were converted to Christianity but that more isolated country folk – farmers and the like – maintained their pagan rituals in conjunction with the new religion. In some cases, the local church created a festival for some saint to coincide with the Pagan festival in order to try to absorb it. The Christmas tree and the Easter bunny and Easter eggs are prime examples of co-opted Pagan imagery.
We talk about this at our Solstice celebrations.
The point of religion is to give us the illusion of control over a world that we don’t understand. Rituals, magic, prayer, all of them are based on faith rather than on empiricism and an understanding of cause and effect.
Anyway, while you are out having fun, you are also helping to keep the Old Gods alive. Good job!
I highly recommend Sir George Frazer’s “The Golden Bough”. The original 12-volume set is a vast compendium of folk rituals, categorized, compared to similar rituals, and with commentary on their original meanings. The single-volume abridged version omits Frazer’s vast bibliography.

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