A Post Samhein Primer

The Mad Monk, Boaz; points out on his blog that in our fair city the religious radio station spent the entire festival of Halloween praying for the city to survive the evil of the night. I wonder if they succeeded? But I digress...

The problem I have with this comes from the speed at which we jump to beleiving that everything that is different is wrong. We are talking about the type of exclusivism that says 'my understanding of faith is the only understanding of faith' and then superimposes it on the rest of the world. This, I would argue, is the real sin.

Second, there is a failure to understand that pagan is not a swear word.

I suggest reading Plutarch's Lives, Life of Numa, in particular. The original usage meant "parish", as a division of the country side under authority of an official. Basically we are talking about being from the countryside. Numa founded the original state religion of Rome, c. mid 1st century after the founding of the City. Many of the terms for Christian clergy and functions were borrowed from Numa's statutes. And so Pagan might actually be translated as 'that old time country religion' (but don't tell anyone.)

Third - do they really stop and think about where Halloween comes from? Some 2,000 years ago the Celts, crazy purple people that they were, celebrated the New Year on November 1st. The day marked the end of the warm, growing, harvesting season; and the beginning of the cold, dark, dying season. They also believed that on the night before the changing of the seasons the veil between the two worlds - physical and spiritual - was weakened. This made it easier to see the future and to determine where fate was leading you. So they built bonfires, wore animal skins, danced, prayed, sang and celebrated.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the Eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

NOW and FINALLY to the point. Even if the fact that the ancient celebrations make a whole lot of sense especially to an agrarian culture does not convince you; and even if the fact that every single one of our Christian festivals is stolen from its pagan antecedant still doesn't inch its way into your consciousness... Consider the greatest fault with the narrow viewpoint. It ignores the reality of the human being.

Humans have certain innate qualities - for better and for worse. The Right Wing crowd of Christians want you to believe that humans are basically evil despite all that "it was good" nonsense from the opening monologue of Genesis. Therefore, if it is human to be happy; being happy is bad... if it is human to be afraid, then being afraid is bad. (fear, by the way, seems to be one of those things we are born with - babies develop a sense of fear around 7 months whether they have anything to be afraid of or not)

According to Leon Rappoport, professor of psychology at Kansas State University, we need to be afraid for the same reason we all want to go to amusement parks to ride roller coasters.

"It goes all the way back to sitting around the camp fire telling ghost stories and folk tales," Rappoport said. "It's a very prevalent, deep-seated, human characteristic to explore the boundaries where they can tolerate fear and anxiety, and then master that fear and anxiety by working through it."

Rappoport says that Freudians and analytical thinkers believe that the more we develop and progress as a civilization, the more repressed problems we have. "The more civilized we get the more we repress our sort of uncivilized nature," Rappoport said. "And one way to release that is through festival occasions, vicariously enjoying horror movies and all sorts of related things."

So, I would like to argue that it is necessary to indulge in a little fantasizing about the dark side every now and again. It helps us to recognize ourselves for what we really are and to not push everything below the surface. Witness the recent news report about Ted Haggard, head of the National Association of Evangelicals. (or google something like 'evangelical scandal massage' I got 192,000 hits).

Halloween is Evil! Yeah, sure... and perhaps some people take it as an excuse to anonymously do things they would never otherwise do. But it is also a very real way to let out some of the demons that this stressful world forces us to keep locked inside. When we start thinking we are so much more righteous than everyone else... well... that is when we are really in for a fall. I for one will keep carving the hell out of that pumpkin...