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Making Sense of Halloween

 

Introduction

Halloween falls annually on October 31st. It marks one of two great seasonal turning points of the year. It is largely a northern hemisphere festival, so it celebrates the changing of summer to winter. The other significant turning point is May Day, where the promise of summer is enjoyed.

In recognizing the return of winter Halloween marks a time of darkness, death and chaos.

 

Origins

Originally Halloween was an ancient Celtic fire festival of the dead. There were four of these fire festivals annually. 

  1. Imbolc - January 31st
  2. Beltane - May 1st
  3. Lugnasad - August 1st and
  4. Samhain - October 31st

These fire festivals began with bone-fires, where bones where used as kindling. Hence the term bonfire. From the bonfire a torch was lit and taken to each home to burn continuously for a year. At year's end the old one was extinguished and a new one lit to mark the New Year.

Beltane and Samhain were two parallel festivals. Beltane signified the beginning of summer and Samhain the start of winter. It was also the advent of the Celtic New Year. Curiously Samhain was the brightest and most energetic of the four annual fire festivals. Dancing around the flames and leaping through them were to guarantee a good harvest.

Christians renamed Samhain as Halloween in 837 AD, literally it is All Hallows Eve with November 1st being All Saints Day and November 2nd being All Souls day. Halloween was the attempted Christianizing of a pagan festival where the Celts believed that at Samhain their dead ancestors would come inside their house to warm themselves at the hearth.

 

What happens?

Central to Halloween was the celebration of the dead (hence so many ghost-like and skeleton costumes still these days). Halloween was the New Year's festival to the Celtic Lord of the Dead - Samhain. The Celts would use the fire festivals to execute convicted criminals. At the feast of the dead, the dead are honored and so too the supremacy of dark over light. (Remember summer has gone and winter arrives.)

Pagan belief holds that crucial joints between the seasons opened cracks/gaps in the space/time fabric, thus permitting brief and deliberate contact between the ghost world and the mortal one. These two worlds would join on the night between the old and new years.

Consequently such thinking led to the belief that the dead could return to their homes for a night. Rituals were then developed for hospitality to the dead. This included the lighting of bone-fires to guide the spirits home.

The Celts would put out food and drink for the dead with great ceremony. Homes were left open so the dead had unhindered access as swarms of spirits flowed into the world on October 31st. Even the Celts knew that not all spirits were friendly, so they carved images of guardian spirits into vegetables and placed them on their doors to ward evil spirits off. This really is an 'inverted passover.'

At Samhain, the Lord of the Dead calls together all the wicked souls who died within the previous year that were destined to inhabit animals. Hospitality to the spirits would placate them from doing evil. Prosperity was promised to generous donors and tricks to those who refused - hence trick or treat. This then led to the practise of souling. This began as a custom that begged special cakes for the dead. Under Christian influence this changed to wealthy people giving soul cakes to the poor.

 

Our Christian response

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further Biblical witness

Deuteronomy 18:19-14

Isaiah 8:19-20

1 Corinthians 10:20-22

Galatians 5:19-21

Revelation 21:8, 22:15

 

(NB ... These are simply reproduced sermon notes and some of this was prepared nearly a decade ago from web based sources I can no longer identify.)

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