# Halloween: religious or secular holiday?



## Everness

Is Halloween a gateway to Satanism and occultism or does it mark a sacred event for a growing community of Wiccans and modern-day pagans? Or is it a secular holiday? If Halloween is a religious or spiritual holiday, what does this say about the the First Amendment aspects? If a government cannot display a Christian nativity scene at public expense during Christmas, what about comparable Halloween-themed motifs and decorations? Why is Halloween celebrated in public schools? Could it be that the government is showing favoritism toward certain religions?


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## cuchuflete

If this is a serious set of questions—which I very much doubt—then the answer is exceedingly simple.  It's secular.

The history may have had some religious influences, but today it is not religious in any way.

If this is a trollish attempt to lead a conversation into twenty other directions, in the interest of attempting to make some point or other, why not just come out and honestly tell us what's on your mind?  
*
"Or is it a secular holiday?" *  YES.


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## GenJen54

Everness said:


> Is Halloween a gateway to Satanism and occultism or does it mark a sacred event for a growing community of Wiccans and modern-day pagans? *None of the above.  *
> 
> Or is it a secular holiday? *Last time I checked, it was.   However, that's not to say that certain groups don't view Halloween as a sacred time for them, including many occult follwers.  They are in the VAST minority last time I checked.
> 
> *If Halloween is a religious or spiritual holiday, what does this say about the the First Amendment aspects? If a government cannot display a Christian nativity scene at public expense during Christmas, what about comparable Halloween-themed motifs and decorations? *Didn't know that Count Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy were religious icons.  They aren't even associated with Satanism or Wicca.
> 
> *Why is Halloween celebrated in public schools? *In my city, it's not.  It has been replaced by "Fall Festival."  Kids can still dress in costume, but they cannot come as ghosts, ghouls, witches or other perceived "religious" persona.
> 
> *Could it be that the government is showing favoritism toward certain religions? *Pu-leese.  You really have to ask this?  You haven't been to a Federal Court room where one has to swear on the bible, or go to my local State House and stand in front of the Ten Commandments.*



I'm not quite sure of your point here, assuming you have one.


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## cuchuflete

GenJen54 said:


> I'm not quite sure of your point here, assuming you have one.



It's a trick or treat thread.  If we give him enough high fructose corn syrup for answers, he won't frighten us.


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## mplsray

Everness said:


> Is Halloween a gateway to Satanism and occultism or does it mark a sacred event for a growing community of Wiccans and modern-day pagans? Or is it a secular holiday? If Halloween is a religious or spiritual holiday, what does this say about the the First Amendment aspects? If a government cannot display a Christian nativity scene at public expense during Christmas, what about comparable Halloween-themed motifs and decorations? Why is Halloween celebrated in public schools? Could it be that the government is showing favoritism toward certain religions?


 
In the US, it's a secular holiday _and_ a religious holiday. But the vast majority of what Americans associate with Halloween was the result of people celebrating a secular holiday. Anything which government schools and buildings could display before modern Satanic and Wicca groups--emphasis on _modern_--took an interest in the holiday should be fine for displaying now.


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## maxiogee

When I was a child we spent much of Nov 1st going to the Church, and praying for the souls of our deceased loved ones. As children, we didn't haqve many deceased loved ones so we were expected to pray for 'the souls in Purgatory'. There were indulgences to be gained by doing this. I can't recall the exact details, but you couldn't just go in and pray for them all in one visit - there was some element of having to leave and go back again.
All Souls and All Saints were just another example of the Church keeping its members' minds focussed on death. The whole of November was dedicated to the dead.
Hallowe'en was totally secular when I was a child, and has become even more so since


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## LouisaB

In the UK, it's almost entirely a secular holiday, although All Saints' Eve is still celebrated in the Churches, especially the Catholic ones. Yes, it's a big number for Satanists (second only to Walpurgisnacht in April) and our police go on stand-by near known trouble-areas, especially where there's livestock, but JamesM is right, the old pagan festival of _Samhain _was around long before either Christians or Satanists seized on it, and a government display of traditional Halloween trimmings is hardly endorsing a particular religion. 

Over here, it's fine to display secular trimmings for _any_ festival. The government can have a Christmas tree (just not a Nativity scene), just as libraries or whatever can show Easter eggs or Easter bunnies, but nothing to do with the Resurrection. I think it's perfectly fair.


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## cuchuflete

Fasten your seatbelts. I'm about to weave an intricate, if boring, tale of a large warehouse, between San Diego, California, and the Mexican border town of Tijuana.  In the Everness tradition, I should digress here to ask if the "juana" in Tijuana was Sor Juana Inés, thus lending a spiritual tone to the elusive question, but that would be too much of a good thing, even for a polemical, if convoluted, thread starter.  This is a good moment to pause and have a sharp cheddar cheese sandwich with mayonaise.  Is mayonaise part of a government plot to favor one religion at the expense of another?  

Back to the story.  It was 1995, and we were doing a warehouse software installation, customizing some sub-routines for barcode printing, and tying shipment data back to the order status and inventory databases. Now everyone knows that barcodes are encrypted, so who knows what secret propaganda they may contain.  The very word encryption can, in some minds, evoke notions of dark conspiracy and mausoleums.  So there I was in a warehouse of some five hundred thousand square feet, packed with millions of items of interest to children of all ages: halloween costumes!  Some local developer, a capitalist no doubt, had invested in that new warehouse structure, while the location, very near a major entry point for immigrants, legal and other, suggested an interest in a labor pool willing to work the graveyard shift for low wages. Did San Diego County, when not nurturing corrupt politicians by the bucketload, subsidize the construction with tax benefits?  The Boston newspapers surely have something to say about this, and I don't doubt that there are academic studies with seventeen letter words for sweat, but let's leave those aside for a moment and address the societal need for a single halloween costume warehouse with racking to a height of twenty-five feet, and an area of five hundred thousand square feet.  That's a lot of cubic dimension devoted to a lot of masked youth soliciting candy.  

"Could it be that the government is showing favoritism toward certain religions?"  It seems that some conservative interests were then and are now importing masks and other parephernalia from low wage factories in China, and redistributing said items, at a profit, to innocent egg throwers questing after instant gratification.  They could all be doing homework or be in church, but no, they are roaming in mobs, extorting gleefully, all in support of the new religion of material excess.  Government tax revenues flow from this blatant example of the new religion, known to the insiders as secularism.





Or, is is just kids having fun?


Legal disclaimer:  Any resemblance between this post and a properly pius contribution to any thread topic, from among those listed in the first post, is purely accidental. Writer specifically rejects any responsibility for injuries, accidental, coincidental, material, or spiritual claimed to arise from reading this post.


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## Etcetera

cuchuflete said:


> Or, is is just kids having fun?


In Russia, Halloween is often used by teachers of English in order to make kids more interested in the culture of English-speaking countries (mailnly the USA, I guess). When I was at school, Halloween was the first American holiday we learnt about, long before even Independence Day. 
And today we're going to have a real Halloween party at the school I'm working for. I think it can really help the kids to understand that learning English can be funny and fascinating.


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## Luke Warm

When I was in second grade in Catholic school (8 years old), we were expected to dress up for All Saints Day (Nov 1st) as our "favorite saint"-- perhaps the school's attempt to compete with Halloween which they must have seen as Wicca's equivalent of Christmas, indoctrinating all good Catholic children to the dark side. There may have been a prize for the best costume, I can't really remember, but the point is that, as I recall, most every Catholic kid dressed up quite elaborately as a saint. While my school was extremely mixed ethnically, one of our many non-Catholic immigrant classmates or maybe his parents apparently misunderstood the event. I don't remember which kids wore one of the many elegant vestments borrowed from the rectory or carried a gold-painted wooden broom staff, nor who had a white cotton beard, angel wings, a nun's habit, a long brown robe, or a wire-hanger hallow. But I'll never forget, nor will I ever fail to tear up at the image of that poor kid's green, bulging Incredible Hulk biceps among such pious company. I wonder if he's still traumatized.


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## Alxmrphi

Excuse me? American holiday?


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## Luke Warm

That's true.  It originates in Ireland, doesn't it?  I believe it's an old Celtic tradition.


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## Alxmrphi

It's way further back than the Celtics, I think it started somewhere in the U.K, although even in credible internet sources I have no doubt there will be vastly different theories so no point looking on there.

Traditionally, when the viel between the "two worlds" is the thinnest. The druids also celebrated it (and yes I know there is an arguement the druids didn't build stonehenge but I am on the other side of the arguement) which can date back to 5,000 years ago.

It's not a "tradition" in the sense I think you described it, It's something that was made use of by many pagans (in the general sense) and since then became a right of passage.

Then to be demonised by our beloved Catholic church into everything evil, satanic and demonic, and hence we have the Haloween we will see tonight.


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## Alxmrphi

Clarification (my edit button is non-existant, sorry):

When I am refering to Haloween/Samhain, going back as far, I don't mean the traditional one that came about in the U.K, rather the thoughts and practices it is based on, that existed for thousands of years beforehand. Didn't make that clear in the other post.


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## Etcetera

Samhain has become very popular among young people in Russia who enjoy traditional Celtic music. In my opinion, celebrating of Samhain in Russia is more like a musical festival.


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## Alxmrphi

A music festival, interesting, well among the bonfire at Stonehenge there will be tonight, there is traditionaly music and dancing, so maybe it does make sense.


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## Luke Warm

Interesting. I once thought when walking through a dark wood at night that religion must have originated from not being able to explain what was lurking in the darkness and the vilification of all the fantasies one might conjure. In that way, it makes sense that the basis for Holloween is likely the same source from which today's major religions were inspired. Or maybe it isn't. Just thinking out loud.


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## Alxmrphi

The tradition of Haloween once had nothing to do with any "lurking" evil things, it was a positive celebration.


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## djchak

It's a secular holiday.

I will have to watch my scary DVD sets of Buffy tonight, and mix a little vodka in with the spiced apple cider. 

Should be busy answering the door all night. Lots of kiddies in the neighboorhood.


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## Luke Warm

Alex_Murphy said:


> The tradition of Haloween once had nothing to do with any "lurking" evil things, it was a positive celebration.


 
So much for my theory!


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## hlafor

Halloween: Bien qu’elle soit considérée, au Canada par exemple, comme une fête chrétienne, Halloween (la veille de la Toussaint) a sa source dans des cérémonies préchrétiennes qui portaient l’empreinte de conceptions erronées sur la vie dans l’au-delà. Notons cette remarque révélatrice: “Après la Réforme, les protestants rejetèrent cette fête ainsi que d’autres solennités importantes, comme Noël et Pâques. Mais cela n’empêcha pas les coutumes folkloriques d’origine païenne de se répandre.” — Encyclopédie britannique (1959), tome XI, page 107.

La Toussaint: “Le paganisme primitif a laissé des traces profondes (...). Le 1er mai commémore le renouveau du soleil et de la vie. Six mois plus tard (1er novembre), le culte de la nuit et des morts s’est christianisé pour célébrer l’immortalité des âmes des trépassés; l’Église en a fait la Toussaint (fête de tous les saints). (...) L’Église a, dans de nombreux cas, superposé une interprétation chrétienne à une pratique d’origine païenne.” — Mythologie générale Larousse (1935), publiée sous la direction de Félix Guirand, page 208.

What it is in fact and what it is being celebrated as could be different.
But a rose by any other name is a ....


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## cuchuflete

From a BBC news article on the decline of Halloween in France:



> *Halloween is said to be dying in France after a short-lived bonanza, according to media reports.*  It seems the festival, which came to prominence in the late 1990s, is in decline because it is perceived as "too American".
> ...
> "Halloween was a marketing gimmick aimed mainly at children. *It's a big festival of consumption* selling outfits, masks, gadgets and it couldn't last forever," he added.
> 
> Opposition to the festival is especially strong in French religious quarters, with the Catholic church seeking to promote All Saints' Day as the celebration of choice at this time of year.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm


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## Hutschi

I live in Dresden, Saxony, here we have the strange situation, that it is a statutory holyday, but not halloween - it is Reformation day (Martin Luther started the reformation of the church). (We have this also in the most parts of the east of Germany.) 

The representants of the church say, halloween is not connected in any way to the church. 

Halloween was (almost) unknown here until the unification of Germany. Now it is known, mostly from American films, and many members of the youth now celebrate halloween. It is not a big festival of consumption yet. But I suppose, it will be.

In the West part of Germany, they celebrate "Allerheiligen" (All Saints' Day) as stat. holiday. 

As you know, Halloween is the day before All Saints' Day. (Originally "Allhallows Eve")

Even if Halloween is not a religious holiday, it has religious roots, as well to the Christian religion as to religion before Christianity.

Many are not aware of it. Many do not know much about religion here at all.


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## Kajjo

Hutschi said:


> Halloween was (almost) unknown here until the unification of Germany. Now it is known, mostly from American films


That is the same in West Germany. Halloween is an American-influenced acitivity that in Germany was mainly promoted by industry (flower, candies, costumes, and so on) but is not deeply felt by anyone. 

Halloween is absolutely un-German in the sense that it has no tradition at all.



> Even if Halloween is not a religious holiday, it has religious roots, as well to the Christian religion as to religion before Christianity.


Halloween has mostly pagan roots -- this is religious but surely not Christian.

Kajjo


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## Hutschi

Exactly, but it was not asked: does it have Christian roots?

The christian roots, I mentioned, are following: The people in old times used the pagan roots and reinterpreted them partly during the christianisation. They changed the original name (I read that was "Samhain" - en: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain) to "Halloween" to adopt it to the Christian, as far as I understand.)

This is similar to Christmas, Easter and other holidays.


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## LouisaB

Hutschi said:


> The christian roots, I mentioned, are following: The people in old times used the pagan roots and reinterpreted them partly during the christianisation. They changed the original name (I read that was "Samhain" - en: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain) to "Halloween" to adopt it to the Christian, as far as I understand.)
> 
> This is similar to Christmas, Easter and other holidays.


 
This is correct. Interestingly, though, it was the Christian religion that gave the festival its links to the dead (as opposed to witches et al). In (I think) the 11th century, the Pope of the time selected the period of _Samhain_ to celebrate the Christian days of the dead (All Saints and All Souls). During this period it was believed the souls in purgatory themselves enjoyed a 48 hour holiday in which to roam the earth, visit loved ones etc. It was only after this that Satanists began to become interested, for obvious reasons... The veil between the living and the dead was lifted....

All very yesterday, isn't it?


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## hlafor

_One last note 
_
_La_ _Civiltà_ _Cattolica_ explained this :   (I am paraphrasing)
<< All theologians know that certain customs and religious observances of so-called first Christians were closely linked to pagan practices and habits.  Certain practices were so dear to the people’s hearts.  The mother church , at the time, did not deem it necessary to root them out. They gave it a Christian meaning and a new life..etc..>>
So, due to the church’s desire to win over pagan hearts, the church failed to obey the truth.  She justified the practice of syncretism, i.e the absorption of beliefs and pagan practices “dear to the people”.  The result was: a hybrid and apostate church, far removed from the teachings of true christianism


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## LouisaB

And one very last P.S. to answer Everness' original question:

The UK news reported yesterday that our prisons now make Hallowe'en a day off for pagan prisoners - because to do otherwise would be to show their religion less respect than those of others. Christians get Christmas and Easter days off, and Muslims have a record 28 (!!)

Perhaps we could say that atheists are the most discriminated against, because they're not given any exclusive holidays of their own? On the other hand, I've yet to meet an atheist who doesn't either take Christmas off or insist the double pay required to work on it....


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## Kajjo

LouisaB said:


> On the other hand, I've yet to meet an atheist who doesn't either take Christmas off or insist the double pay required to work on it...


Of course, you are right. I believe this is because Christmas is experienced and felt as the main "family celebration". Here in Germany, it always used to be the time of gifts, abundant decoration, illuminated fir trees, nice smells, the luxury of sweets and cakes of every kind, being with family, a time of happiness -- I do not feel a lot of Christianity here, but I feel pure happiness, peace and relaxation. No other celebration or holiday comes even close. And be aware of the pagan roots of fire and trees. I guess, Christmas unites atheists and Christians and lot more than anything else in our culture.

For Christians, this is probably the best holiday, too, because while many other holidays have the touch of sins, feeling bad and responsible or of commemoration, Christmas is usually pure joy and peace.

Kajjo


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## Markus

cuchuflete said:


> From a BBC news article on the decline of Halloween in France:
> 
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm



The general French impression of Halloween is definitely that it's an American consumerist holiday. Someone at work asked me if we celebrate Halloween in Canada, and when I said yes he accused us of being the 52nd American state.


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## cuchuflete

Markus said:


> The general French impression of Halloween is definitely that it's an American consumerist holiday. Someone at work asked me if we celebrate Halloween in Canada, and when I said yes he accused us of being the 52nd American state.



Do we dare ask the identity of the 51st?


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## Rodolphe

hi,

I should say it's a commercial holiday in France.
That's the way the shops have found for us to spend more money before the end of the year.
Little part of us knows it's a religious holiday from ireland.
A drift of our consuming society.

Rod.


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## mplsray

Rodolphe said:


> hi,
> 
> I should say it's a commercial holiday in France.
> That's the way the shops have found for us to spend more money before the end of the year.
> Little part of us knows it's a religious holiday from ireland.
> A drift of our consuming society.
> 
> Rod.


 
Halloween is very much a commercial holiday here, as well. It's only a religious holiday for a minority of people belonging to _new_ religions, none of which can be said to have passed down to the present in an unbroken tradition in the same way, for example, as Christianity and Judaism. So it's questionable to identify the secular holiday of Halloween with the holiday celebrated in those religions, even if their members make the connection.

But Halloween was once undoubtedly a _Christian_ holiday, because it was the evening of All Saints' Day (All Hallows' Even), back when the evening occurred at the beginning of the day rather than the end (similarly, December 25 once began at sunset, making Christmas Eve a literal part of Christmas Day). As in the case of Christmas and December 25, pagan festivities around the first of November were mixed in with Christian practices.

We should also note that the division we now recognize between religion and everyday life was unthinkable among the ancient pagans of the British Isles. It doesn't really make sense to think of the holidays of those people as "religious" or "secular": Samhain, for example, was the beginning of the year and also an occasion to make sacrifices to the gods.


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## Fleurs263

Halloween .. is just about the one occasion when children can knock on doors (dressed innapropriately to my mind!) and receive sweets and money ... and probably scare a few adults too .. it's for the kids really.  If anything more sinister is attached to it, it's by adults just using the original pagan celebration. (I've tried that whole "turn you into a frog thing" and it doesn't work!)


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