HISTORY of Halloween

HALLOWEEN: The word evokes a number of responses. Every year as October rolls around, there are those that look forward to it with excitement and those that cringe and wish it weren’t there. Some argue violently against it, some yawn because they’ve heard it all before, may just look the other way and go ahead with it. Some view it as an abomination, while many others view it as a harmless tradition. What is Halloween, or Samhain? What does it represent? And, what should the Christian think about it, if anything?

Where did this fast-growing American tradition come from? History provides the answers. Though it was the Roman Catholic church who designated the October 31st date as All Hallow’s Eve, or “eve of the holy one’s day,” in the prelude to their November 1st All Saints’ Day, it was earlier pagan peoples who gave the annual holiday the sinister meaning and traditions it still holds.

“The American celebration rests upon Scottish and Irish fold customs which can be traced in a direct line from pre-Christian times. Although Halloween has become a night of rollicking fun, superstitious spells, and eerie games which people take only half seriously, its beginning was quite otherwise. The earliest Halloween celebrations were held by the Druids in honor of Samhain, Lord of the dead, whose festival fell on November 1st.”

From Apologetics - Church History Series - APOL-21 - Should I Celebrate Halloween?

[tammyhicks]

The born again are not to be conformed to this world and its ways. We must be renewed in the spirit of our minds. Before I was born again I celebrated all the things and traditions of this world. But after I was born of the Spirit, I turned from those ways.

[digitalsublime]

Encyclopedia britanica is not free, you only get a limited version, you have to pay subscription to get the full version.

[Marinanor]

Samhain was a folk hero of Celtic religion, but not a deity. But yes, I agree, Christians should not celebrate Halloween.

[shellyblanchard]

Jesus is the one who has power over death, not satan. Jesus said I have the power to lay my life and the power to take it up again.

[samuelstevens]

Where can we find more complete videos?

[boiledwater]

Samhain (pronounced ‘sow’ as in pig is an Irish word.

[cowboyed]

I'm passing out chick tracts in english and espanol with candy.

[sherrcon]

heard from one viewer that this pastor endorses christmas celebration...is there any truth to that?...

[kavikv.d.hexenholtz]

Part 1 –

In attempting to comment on the complete misunderstandings (due to either lack of research, or being taught incorrectly), and utter absurdities circulating about the supposed origins of both Halloween and its (assumed) predecessor, Samhain, as well as their associated customs, it is honestly difficult to know where to even begin; to encompass it all would quite easily make for a small book.

When you’re simply repeating material that clearly has not been researched just to promote your own (religious) agenda, you only succeed in making your particular religious path seem rather foolish at best, and at worse, somewhat deceitful

It is one thing to present a video/article based on factual data, however the myriad inaccuracies and misinformation that so many sites seem to promulgate and perpetuate year after year is staggering. The attempts of many churches (and/or pastors) promoting a religious agenda often via the control mechanism of fear over their followers, coupled with complete and utter lack of any accurate research, simply bogles the mind.

Modern Halloween as we know it today is just that – a modernly invented ‘holiday’ combining elements of an earlier American (unfortunate) tradition called “Hell Night”, along with a healthy dose of good old “Hollywood” thrown in for good measure. Virtually _all_ American customs associated with Halloween originated right around the 1920’s - 1930’s or so. While there are some vestigial elements from pre-Christian religions in some of the customs (bobbing for apples for example), the modern costumes, the blood, the gore, the reveling in death and destruction, the candy, even ‘trick or treat’ itself, dates no earlier than 1900’s America. In short, it’s a relatively new phenomenon and represents a mix of cultures, capitalism, and accommodation.

It's simply not a holiday that has close ties to the ancient past, nor does it have some ‘pagan’ antecedent, nor is a continuation of several ancient customs, as some would have one believe.

Modern Halloween is no more “pagan” in origin than Labor Day or Columbus Day.

Many people like to associate modern Halloween with three specific things: The old Celtic New Year’s celebration of Samhain (in asserting that most of Halloween’s customs can be traced to Samhain celebrations); Satanism; and All Saints Day (asserting that the early church established the holiday to “Christianize” Samhain). These associations, however, are more wishful thinking than actual fact.

To say that modern Halloween’s connection to Samhain (that’s SAU-win, by the way) is incredibly tenuous at best, would be an overstatement. Despite the horror stories one hears, the truth is that incredibly little is actually known about it. To attempt to connect Samhain to the traditions of modern Halloween is, for the most part, fanciful fallacy. The connection just isn't nearly as strong as some would apparently like it to be, but it seems that this supposed connection is also from where the bulk of the absurdities describing Halloween’s “pagan past” derive. The shift now seems to be away from the erroneous and utterly ludicrous “Samhain as Celtic Lord of the Dead” to the equally erroneous “Samhain as the Celtic Feast of the Dead”.

Samhain - this is a word, from what the aforementioned videos seem to suggest, that is supposed to strike fear and evoke images of secret Satanic gatherings in dark foreboding mist covered forests of evil Devil-worshiping Druid occultists deep in Europe’s shrouded past.

– Okay, let’s step into the world of reality…..

First, let’s look at the actual meaning of the word –

_Sahmain_ is Irish Gaelic, in Scottish Gaelic it’s _Samhuain_, and in Manx Gaelic it’s _Sauin_.

In Irish, it is properly pronounced approximately like “SAU-win”. The word comes from Old Irish, the parent tongue of the three aforementioned modern Gaelic languages, and is a contraction of two words: _samhra_ – ‘summer’ and _fuin_ – ‘end’. The word _‘Samhain’_ means nothing more than “summer’s end”.

Another possible etymology recently proposed is the Old Irish _samana_ meaning “gathering/assembly’, since on that day the people gathered together to celebrate the final harvest of the year. This later etymology, it is argued, makes it cognate to the word for ‘gathering’ in other older Indo-European languages.

Indeed, the Gaelic word may in fact quite neatly incorporate both concepts into one with the idea of “a gathering at summer’s end”.

The month of November in all Goidelic languages when translated is called “the month of Samhain.” So, not only is it the name of a festival and a day (many Gaelic calendars mark the day as such); it’s also the name of an entire month. In Scots Gaelic for example, November is _mìos an t-Samhain_ .

[ndBirth]

Thanks for the valuable information. Lay off the helium next time though :o)

[youtubepreacher]

Halloween is what you make it out to be. It can be evil but can be fun for children. You the parents can control that.

[kavikv.d.hexenholtz]

Part 2 –

And now for something completely different……Samhain as the Druid “Lord of the Dead/Dark” –

Perhaps one of the most mindboggling of all inaccuracies and one of the most perpetuated fallacies about Halloween is the supposed Celtic deity, “Samhain – Lord of the Dead/Dark”. Proponents would have one believe that child sacrifices and sundry heinous acts perpetrated by the Druids were to placate the ‘dread Lord Samhain’ – honestly, if people weren’t so serious in their belief of such utter rubbish and shoddy research, it would almost be comical.

Contrary to what many are led to believe, and this point cannot be stressed enough….there is absolutely zero historical or archeological evidence for any Celtic deity of the dead named ‘Samhain’. We have historical evidence of hundreds of Celtic deities (many of these being local deities specific to a town or region) – a deity named ‘Samhain’ is not found among them.

Indeed, the Gaels did not have a “lord of death” as such. The Brittons (including the Welsh) had a few gods associated with the ‘other/spirit world’ who were known as Gwynn ap Nudd and Arawn, neither of which were seen as inherently evil in any way.

It is not just select religious denominations that perpetuate this fallacy of “Lord Samhain” – even earlier editions of the World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Britannica write about Samhain as being the Celtic Lord of Death. More modern editions seem to have corrected that error.

The Samhain ‘god’ myth dates to about 1770 when a certain Col. Charles Vallency wrote a 6 volume set of books which attempted to prove that the Irish people once came from….. Armenia!! Samhain as a god was later picked up from Valllency by one Godfrey Higgins in an 1827 book. That book attempted to prove that the Irish originally came from….wait for it…. India! The error might have originated in confusion over the name of _Samana_, an ancient Vedic/Hindu deity.

Valencey was a British military surveyor sent to Ireland. Vallency’s work, _even in his own time_ was regarded as some of the shoddiest scholarship ever done.

Jumping back into the world of reality - By most historical accounts, Samhain seems to have been a time to honor ancestors, prepare for winter, and celebrate the final harvest of the year. That sounds a lot like most European holidays from October-January.

Samhain shares a date with Halloween and perhaps a “feeling”, but really nothing more than that.

And, yes, Halloween's association with Satanic worship and practices though real, is a very *modern* phenomena (1960's to present); it's not old at all and, of course, has zero connection to the pre-Christian Celtic holiday Samhain. Most people who today observe Samhain regard Satanists with just as much disgust and disdain, indeed, if not more so, than Christians do - Satanists are responsible for appropriating this day to promulgate their beliefs and completely twist the day into something it simply never was. Satanists are (thankfully) a rather small minority. *Not* to defend them in _any way_, but to be completely fair, it should be noted that most supposed practices of these groups are, again, based upon complete misinformation and supposition; not actual fact. Many of their assumed and supposed practices stem from the so-called “Satanic Panic”, a conspiracy theory that swept across America in the 1980’s and early 90’s. It seems however, that some Christian denominations are doing their darndest to bring it back. Interviews and ‘testimonies’ from ‘Satanic Panic’ holdovers and relative newcomers such as John Ramirez are just one of many examples. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect conducted a study led by University of California psychologist Gail Goodman, which found that among 12, 000 accusations of satanic ritual abuse (SRA), there was no evidence for "a well-organized intergenerational satanic cult, who sexually molested and tortured children", although there was "convincing evidence of lone perpetrators or couples who say they are involved with Satan or used that claim to intimidate victims." There is no notable spike in child kidnappings on 31.October. The sad truth is, a child gets kidnapped something like every 40 seconds in the US. If someone wants to hurt or abduct a child, they won’t be concentrating on Halloween as their only opportunity to do so.

Lastly, All Saint’s Day - no matter how much some people like to promote and honestly believe that just the opposite is true, All Saint’s Day/All Souls Day, Halloween, and Samhain developed _completely independent_ of each other. That’s just historical fact. To put it briefly, the date of 1. November for All Saint's Day was practiced in continental Europe _long_ before the date was formerly fixed by the RCC to November 1st, and _long_ before said change got to what is now the UK & Ireland; which was _centuries_ after the time of Druids and Samhain proper. In addition, most people seem not to realize that Samhain itself is a _movable_ feast day; the exact date varies from year to year depending on when the autumnal equinox falls. This year, Samhain proper falls on 7.Nov. To assert that the establishment of All Saint’s Day (and All Souls Day on 2.NOV) was the early church’s attempt to “Christianize Samhain” just does not stand to reason. Why would the church change a major feast day affecting _all_ of Western Christendom just to accommodate a small group of Christians who lived on, what would be considered at that time, some remote group of islands in the middle of nowhere?

Again, all three holidays, Halloween, All Saint’s Day, and Samhain share a common date and perhaps a “feeling”, but that’s really about it.

Modern Samhain/Halloween is to some people a very spiritual and magickal time of the year; for some it’s a time of fun and candy, perhaps a way to celebrate Fall in general. Still for others, perhaps a time to contemplate their own mortality since the modern holiday mocks death. Some perhaps are not quite sure what to make of it and prefer to steer clear of it, but however you wish to celebrate it….or not – Halloween, in and of itself, is only ‘evil’ if one chooses to make it so.