Spirits & spirituality: Halloween traditions have pagan origins
By ELENA GRIMM
- egrimm@daily-chronicle.com
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| Ben Martin, 7, of Maple Park takes a swing at a pinata during a Halloween party Saturday at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in DeKalb. (Beck Diefenbach - bdiefenbach@daily-chronicle.com) |
To many, the evening of Oct. 31 means parading around in a costume and filling up on sweets.
To those who follow a nature-based or pagan belief system, it marks the beginning of the month Samhain, the new year, or translated literally, “summer’s end.” This time of year also is celebrated by different cultures as the day of the dead, La Dia de los Muertos, All Souls’ Day or All Saints’ Day.
“The veil between the worlds between the living and dead is very thin” on this day, said Ana Blechschmidt, campus minister of the NIU Pagan Association.
That means it’s a time when communicating with the dead comes easily. Spirits of those who died in the past year are nearby, some not wanting to leave Earth as they make their departure.
Blechschmidt said that in early times, these particularly clingy spirits would knock on the doors of homes in the hopes they’d be invited in, take over someone’s body and thus be saved from death’s call.
But there was a catch.
Spirits cannot eat or drink, so they were offered a snack at the door. If they refused, the door shut in their face. And if spirits were denied entrance, that’s where the trick came in, to punish the homeowner for being the wiser.
The tradition of wearing costumes on Halloween began in a similar way. People leaving their homes would need a disguise so that they wouldn’t be recognized by spirits wanting to take over their body.
“When the great migrations came to the United States and the Puritan ethic put the damper on the Halloween custom, as the young country developed, it became more and more a celebration of coming together and the harvest and having fun things for kids,” Blechschmidt said. “All of the spiritual reasons for the holiday have been forgotten, except for Pagans.”
Though Halloween has its roots in pre-Christian Europe as the Celtic holiday of Samhain, it was embraced by early church leaders who arrived in Europe to spread Christianity – with a bit of tweaking.
They gave a Christian slant to the pagan customs by moving the remembrance day of saints to the end of October, thus coining All Hallow’s Eve, hallow meaning holy or saint.
And many churches today cele-brate Halloween as a spirit-filled, community event.
“The whole point of the Halloween party is basically a community outreach kind of thing, and that’s really about it,” said Mary Lasits, director of youth and outreach at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in DeKalb.
Bethlehem’s annual Halloween party was held last Saturday at the church.
“There is no deep reason,” Lasits added, “but to provide a service to the community. Our faith life calls us to help out the world.”
To celebrate Samhain, the NIU Pagan Association made masks to wear for the holiday.
Unlike the early Celts who disguised themselves to ward off unwanted spirits, the masks are made “to show who you have been this year, and what attributes you’d like to enhance,” Blechschmidt said.
This is another aspect of the ancient holiday that isn’t well known: It’s also a time of self-reflection, to evaluate oneself over the past year and try to grow as a human being.
Whether one celebrates Halloween with candy and costume or Samhain with a ritual and mask, it’s a time when spirits are in abundance, and traditions cross many religions.
For example, the Easter Bunny has nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Blechschmidt noted, but can be argued to have pagan roots.
“That doesn’t make you any less a faith-filled person to celebrate the Easter Bunny or Halloween or Santa Claus,” she said.
In fact, it may just bring such spiritual differences closer together.
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