I have been taking my son out for halloween the last 3 years (this year will be the third), and of course, my church thinks haloween is absolutely evil.
I tell my son; and he understands; that halloween is about going around in a costume getting candy.
Did Halloween actually start out as an “evil” holiday?
Evil, that is, according to christians.
He wants to go as a black cat, which reminds me of the old SNL routine with unsafe halloween costumes (invisible pedestrian).
This is an IIRC.
Halloween didn’t start as an “evil” holiday, but it did start as a pagan one (I believe Celtic, but I could be wrong). All Hallow’s Eve was a night that ghosts of the dead came back and could cause evil/harm to the living. In order to ward off the dead, the living built great bonfires and wore disguises so the dead wouldn’t know who to go after.
As with many pagan holidays, the Christian Church co-opted it, creating All Saint’s Day - essentially making the dead coming back the good saints, rather than the evil ghosts.
Sua
I believe that Halloween was originally celebrated as the autumn equinox, which was pagan in nature (druids and that sort of stuff). Later witches celebrated this night as one of the four witches sabbaths, undoubtedly evolved from pagan culture.
So if this is the case, than that would certainly make it ‘evil’ in nature. I don’t care though, I love Halloween (it’s mee birthday see…).
All Saints Day is November 1, with Hallowe’en being All Hallows Eve. It celebrates saints living and dead.
[hijack]
I thought you couldn’t become a saint until after you were dead? 
[/hijack]
As other posters have mentioned, Halloween has roots in pagan religious practices, which in the eyes of some Christians makes it automatically evil.
Halloween was originally Samhain (“sow-en”; gotta love those crazy Celts…), the Celtic New Year. It is one of the eight sabbats of celts/witches–you’ve got the 2 equinoxes, 2 solstices (Midsummer and Yule), and 4 “cross-quarter” days: Samhain (Halloween, Oct. 31), Imbolc (Candlemas?, otherwise known as Groundhog’s Day, Feb. 2), Beltane (also called Walpurgisnacht, April 30/May 1), and Lughnasa (Aug. 1ish).
So, evil? Depends on your church, I guess. On the one hand, it definitely began as a pagan celebration. On the other hand, you could argue that the Catholic church co-opted it very well, much as they did for all the other pagan holidays, and that All Hallows Eve is just as Christian a holiday as Christmas.
Of course, if your church thinks the Catholic church is evil, you’re stuck.
As an aside, there’s nothing INHERENTLY evil about Halloween. Witches are not devil-worshippers. But, they don’t worship the Christian God, so that may be evil enough for your tastes.
A couple of years ago, Mrs D taught a kids’ RE class at our church about holidays and holydays in different cultures/religions. IIRC, her research showed that while Halloween had all of the pagan roots mentioned above, trick-or-treating was a quite recent invention. The 1950s, i believe. Ask your p’s (or grandp’s) if they trick or treated? Prior to the 50s, kids did mischief – I remember my dad talking about soaping windows. But I don’t think they went door to door expecting candy.
Perhaps this is the origin of the phrase “trick or treat”? It would be interpreted as, “If you don’t have a treat for me, I will cause mischief.”
Seems to me that “trick or treat” might be the only potentially “evil” aspect (always excepting the Christians, of course!) In Scotland, we did go from door to door, but the trick bit wasn’t part of it. It was called “guising” (perhaps because we kids went around in disguise?) and the idea was to sing or dance or in some way entertain our chosen hosts, in return for which stuff like apples, nuts etc. were expected and received.
I suspect, however, that the kids nowadays would call it “trick or treat” becaause of transatlantic T.V./cinema influence.
Just how bad are these tricks anyway?
Maybe you should look for a new church. What kind of message are you sending to your son by telling him that sometimes the church talks crazy?
Remember that Encyclopædia Britannica is now online!
As toadspittle said, the Christian festival of All Hallows’ Eve was celebrated on the same date as Samhain eve, the occasion for a fire festival when huge bonfires were set on hilltops.
As far as the origin of “trick or treat”: Encylopædia Britannica says that USA immigrants (particularly the Irish) introduced “mischief-making” as a custom on Hallloween, e.g. overturning sheds and breaking windows. That has now evolved into the harmess “trick or treat” demand.
As a practicing Druid, Samhain (aka Halloween) is the holiday to remember your ancestors and loved ones that passed before you. It went even farther back than the Celts though since the original Night of the Dead (can’t remember the name exactly) was an ancient Egyptian holiday. I don’t remember exactly what the costumes had to do with it but I thought it was originally supposed to show homage to the dead by dressing up as a ghost (spirit), ghoul/zombie (the body of the dead person, goblin (the supernatural being that made it possible for the spirits to come back), etc at least on the most basic level. None of this refers to evil in any way. In the Druidic belief, the line to the otherworld is translucent. One can walk from one side to the other in a very real and physical sense. Personally, I equate this with dreams. Anyway, on a more spiritual level, during Samhain that line is supposedly obscured so much that the manifestation of one’s ancestors are said to make direct contact with their descendants and loved ones who have passed as well. Since the line between Annwn and Earth are translucent and up for anyone to cross over anyway and during Samhain they are transparent, even the most spiritually inept person should be able to make contact with their ancestors and departed loved ones. Some religions may see that as evil but I don’t. Talking to dead loved one in prayer is not seen as evil and this is how I view Samhain the most. I ramble, but that is the basic idea.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Very interesting… I read a fictional re-creation of Samhain in Diana Paxton’s The Serpent’s Tooth, which is re-telling of the story of King Lear (c. 700 BCE Britain). Did she talk to you in researching her book, SqrlCub? Because she seems to have gotten it right.
[slight hijack] I don’t know about other forms of Celtic literature, but the Welsh Mabinogion and Irish sagas reflect the belief that the “lines” between this world and the otherworld (Annwn?) are translucent. Characters move between the worlds readily, sometimes without realizing it; and many Irish stories seem to be set in some quite real yet imaginary part of Eire. [/hijack]
Personally, I don’t find anything inherently evil about Samhain and the same applies to Halloween. I do find Halloween rather silly because it has lost almost all traces of its original meaning. The only thing it seems to communicate is a “gimme free stuff” attitude. Even Christmas, for all of its commercialism, does (or can) have a deeper meaning. So does the Mardi Gras, or Carnival, before Lent. But Halloween…?
*toadspittle: Yes, Imbolc became Candlemas in the Roman Catholic Church; all of the new candles for the year were blessed at this time. Lughnasa became Lammas (a contraction of “Loaf-mass”), when the first wheat from the year’s harvest was made into communion bread, and was celebrated on August 1. Also, in the Catholic Church November 2 is All Soul’s Day, the day on which prayers are offered for all of our dead family, friends and ancestors. This seems more in line with Samhain than even All Saint’s Day.
SqrlCub Thanks for the primer on Samhain. I’d like to learn more if possible…
MJH2, happy to help. I can go on for a while. The Mabinogean is the primary mythological book for Druidic belief. The first story you refer to is the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. I don’t know this Diana Paxton person but am now intrigued. I will have to check it out soon.
If you want to hear more, start a thread in MPSIMS and I will be happy to write into it. You will also get many other Pagans who will be happy to respond there.
HUGS!
Sqrl
SqrlCub is correct, especially within the ‘Druid’ tradition. However, there were also some accompaning folk traditions that went along with all this. In some, Samhain was also personified as a god of death and the harvest, often pictured as an old man in a hooded black robe carrying a Reapin Sickle over his back. That’s the image we now get of Father Time, Death, the Grim Reaper, etc.
The tradition also included Samhain coming down at harvest time to reap the souls of the dead, at the same time that men were harvesting grain. That one night they were free on the earth, and would run from house to house begging to be hidden from Samhain. It was considered better to give them some food and send them on their way. Kids likely started to act this out and it kind of ballooned up. Most of these practices, including the Jack o’ Lantern, came out of Ireland, where these old tradions lingered longest. And read Ray Bradbury’s “The Hallowe’en Tree” for a real good look at this holiday.
The American version of Hallowe’en bloomed around the turn of the century, and although many Christian conservatives would like to squash it out of existance, it’s pretty firmly engrained in our brains and keeps popping out (every culture still needs a death festival!). This is true of almost all our holidays. Most all of them have an older, pre-Christian background, and no matter how much veneer society puts on them, the old bones alway peek through. Christmas, Easter, Hallowe’en … very ancient and still very resonant to almost everybody.
No, I don’t tell my son that the church talks crazy sometimes.
I told him some people don’t like Halloween cause it makes them think its about evil spirits, but to us, its just a candy holiday.