Most people gleefully celebrate Halloween without ever thinking about how it originated or what our Halloween traditions really mean. They just assume that it must be okay since almost everyone else is doing it.
Today, Halloween is celebrated all over the world, but that hasn’t always been the case. In fact, there was a time when most Americans did not celebrate it. It was only during the 20th century that it actually became a nationwide holiday that was celebrated on a widespread basis, and only within the past few decades has it really taken off as a truly global holiday.
To find the original roots of Halloween, one must go back approximately 2,000 years to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.
Halloween’s original roots trace back to Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”—because of course the Celts couldn’t make it easy), an ancient Celtic festival that marked the end of the harvest season in Ireland. The Celts believed that on October 31st, the boundary between the living and the dead became, shall we say, a little thin. To keep any wandering spirits at bay, they’d light massive bonfires and don costumes—probably doubling as a solid excuse for some much-needed group bonding (what else was there to do in ancient Ireland, really?).
This is where the tradition of “Halloween costumes” began.
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Some revelers apparently wore costumes to ward off spirits, but others apparently wore them “to allow for communication with the spirit world.”
Besides the reasons given above, Halloween masks and costumes were used to hide one’s attendance at pagan festivals or—as in traditional shamanism (mediated by a witch doctor or pagan priest) and other forms of animism—to change the personality of the wearer to allow for communication with the spirit world. Here, costumes could be worn to ward off evil spirits. On the other hand, the costume wearer might use a mask to try to attract and absorb the power of the animal represented by the mask and costume worn. According to this scenario, Halloween costumes may have originated with the Celtic Druid ceremonial participants, who wore animal heads and skins to acquire the strength of a particular animal.
Today, some of the most popular Halloween costumes are of ghosts, witches, vampires and fallen angels.
But most people are entirely convinced that there is absolutely no danger in dressing up as such entities.
According to the History Channel, during Samhain the Celts would also “burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.”
In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.
That is quite alarming.
And there are also some ancient documents that indicate that humans were often sacrificed in massive Samhain fires as well.
According to old documents, in its most primitive guise, Samhain would have featured many sacrifices to the Celtic gods of death, with both animals and humans thrown in to huge firepits as offerings.
People claimed the ancient Druids ate their first born children on Samhain, or collected the blood of their sacrificial humans in cauldrons and drank it.
But nobody does such things anymore, right?
Well, Pastor John Ramirez says that when he was a practicing Satanist he actually participated in the sacrifice of animals on Halloween.
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Ramirez, now a pastor, knows all about the dark reality of Halloween. He once sacrificed animals as part of satanic rituals and his friends even knew him as “Lucifer’s son.”
Now as a born again believer, he strongly warns Christians against celebrating Halloween and participating in harvest festivals.
“The only harvest we should celebrate is the harvest of souls,” he adds.
Those that are obsessed with spiritual darkness take these things very seriously. Many of them even still call this holiday “Samhain” even though most of us call it Halloween.
So how did it come to be called Halloween?
Well, it all started when the Celts were invaded by the Roman Empire.
However, when the Roman Empire took over the majority of the Celtic region, two ancient Roman festivals merged with the festival of Samhain over the 400 years the Romans occupied the territory. These festivals were Feralia, a day honoring the dead, and a day celebrating Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees who is primarily symbolized with an apple.
It was not until roughly the 9th through 11th centuries when early Christianity was spreading throughout the Celtic territory that we finally obtained the name we all know and love. The Christian (specifically Catholic) holiday of All Saints’ Day was very similar to the festival of Samhain with bonfires and costumes, though it was celebrated in early November. It was also called All-Hallows and the festival of Samhain—celebrated the night before—became known as All-Hallows Eve and eventually Halloween.
From that time forward, “Halloween” was primarily a Catholic celebration. That is why the Puritans that settled in early America were steadfastly against it.
Today, Halloween has become one of our biggest holidays.
In fact, it is being projected that Americans will spend more than 11 billion dollars on Halloween this year alone.
Americans are projected to spend $11.6 billion on Halloween decorations, costumes, candy and other festive purchases this October, according to an annual survey from the National Retail Federation.
When broken down, that $11.6 billion translated to $3.8 billion spent on costumes, $3.8 billion dedicated to decorations, $3.5 billion allocated to purchasing candy and $0.5 billion spent on greeting cards, per the survey.
If you can believe it, Americans even spend approximately 700 million dollars on costumes for their pets each year.
Can you believe that? One survey found that 93% of Americans celebrate Halloween in some way.
Needless to say, this makes certain people very happy. The founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey, once made the following statement: “I am glad that Christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out of the year. Welcome to Halloween.”
Like I noted earlier, most people celebrate Halloween without ever even thinking about it. In fact, many people don’t know why they believe what they believe about most things.
If we are going to do something, we need to understand why we are doing it.
As for where Halloween originally came from, now you know the truth.
Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
