Friday October 22, 2004

Annual Halloween Rant

Every year, a few weeks before Halloween, I talk to the church school kids -- really, to their parents -- about the meaning of Halloween, and what it means to "celebrate" it. I try to time it before they go out and buy "Vlad the Impaler" costumes for their kids.

This year, I went out and Googled "history of halloween", and found a couple of useful summaries.

From the History Channel's short summary of Holiday Origins,

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

I thought it was interesting that while we celebrate the Nativity of Christ on December 25, as the light begins to emerge from the darkness (the days start to become longer following the Winter Solstice on December 21), and we celebrate Pascha (Easter), the Resurrection of Christ, just after the Spring Equinox (when the days are finally longer than the nights), Halloween marks the triumph of darkness over light. In the words of the History Channel, "This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death." One could almost describe this day, then, which falls roughly "opposite" Pascha in the calendar, as an anti-Pascha. Rather than a celebration of life triumphing over death, Halloween is, in fact, a celebration of death triumphing over life.

It is also interesting to compare our ritual of carrying light from the Paschal Vigil to our homes with the pagan practice of lighting their hearth fires from the sacred bonfire of Samhain. We sing "Come, receive the Light from the Light that is never overtaken by night; Come, and glorify Christ, Who is risen from dead!" I can only imagine what the corresponding Halloween hymn would say or depict.

To better understand this, I went to neopagan.net and read Isaac Bonewits' The Real Origins of Halloween. Interestingly, the author seems to have some familiarity with Orthodox Christian practices, including our use of candles (fire) and our timing for the Feast of All Saints (which for us is the first Sunday after Pentecost, instead of... the day after Halloween).

The author writes that "Being 'between' seasons or years, Samhain was (and is) considered a very magical time, when the dead walk among the living and the veils between past, present and future may be lifted in prophecy and divination." And he quotes Philip Carr-Gomm, Chosen Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids:

Samhuinn, from 31 October to 2 November was a time of no-time. Celtic society, like all early societies, was highly structured and organised, everyone knew their place. But to allow that order to be psychologically comfortable, the Celts knew that there had to be a time when order and structure were abolished, when chaos could reign. And Samhuinn, was such a time. Time was abolished for the three days of this festival and people did crazy things, men dressed as women and women as men. Farmers' gates were unhinged and left in ditches, peoples' horses were moved to different fields, and children would knock on neighbours' doors for food and treats in a way that we still find today, in a watered-down way, in the custom of trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en.

But behind this apparent lunacy, lay a deeper meaning. The Druids knew that these three days had a special quality about them. The veil between this world and the World of the Ancestors was drawn aside on these nights, and for those who were prepared, journeys could be made in safety to the 'other side'. The Druid rites, therefore, were concerned with making contact with the spirits of the departed, who were seen as sources of guidance and inspiration rather than as sources of dread. The dark moon, the time when no moon can be seen in the sky, was the phase of the moon which ruled this time, because it represents a time in which our mortal sight needs to be obscured in order for us to see into the other worlds.

Prophecy and divination, the reign of chaos over order, attempted journeys to 'the other side', attempted conversations with the dead: one does not have to be much of a biblical scholar to know that these are practices abhorrent to Israel and to the Church, under the Old and New Covenants, banned by law givers and (true) prophets.

It was one passage from Bonewits' article, however, which crystallized my problem with Halloween. Like me, it seems, he talks to his "church school kids", and the difference between his faith and mine is rather stark. He writes:

A student sent me an email asking me to sum up in more personal terms what Halloween means to me and other Neopagans. Here is what I told her:

- Halloween is the modern name for Samhain, an ancient Celtic holy day which many Neopagans -- especially Wiccans, Druids and Celtic Reconstructionists -- celebrate as a spiritual beginning of a new year.
- Halloween is a time to confront our personal and cultural attitudes towards death and those who have passed on before us.
- Halloween is a time to lift the veil between the many material and spiritual worlds in divination, so as to gain spiritual insight about the pasts and futures.
- Halloween is a time to deepen our connection to the cycles of the seasons, to the generations that have come before us and those that will follow, and to the Gods and Goddesses we worship.

Halloween is no holiday/holy day for Christians to celebrate. And to participate in it, however Hallmark the occasion or Ringling Brothers the costume, is to keep it as a holy day.

At the least, as I tell the parents each year, if you can't avoid it altogether (which is my preferred approach!), be sure not to dress your holy and pure children, God's gifts to you, like the devils which they are not.

If you have to dress them up, dress them as the angels they are.

The Roman Catholic Church made a valiant effort to "baptise" Samhain as the universal church had, earlier, baptised the late-December Roman feast of the Invincible Sun. Christmas won. (Or maybe not, but that's another sermon!) Halloween lost. The baptism didn't take. So if you feel that you must give in, at least, please!, don't give up.

(2004-10-22 12:40:21.0) Permalink Comments [8]