"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Daniel Morgan

As a conservative Christian, I am not supposed to say that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays – it is something of a fundamentalist taboo up there with drinking, smoking, and dancing. But the ignorance and misinformation surrounding what has grown out of the old Celtic festival of Samhain is about 2,500 years overdue for clarification. More to the point, can this be a time of Christian celebration? Like it or not, Halloween inaugurates a congregation of holidays that stretches through Thanksgiving and culminates in Christmas. In reclaiming Halloween then, Christmas and Easter will be vindicated as well, for if a thoroughly pagan holiday can be recaptured for the glory of God, how much more can ones be reclaimed that are already associated with the Birth and Resurrection of Christ?

The sentiment is that Halloween is somehow evil because it has pagan origins. But this is the same thing as claiming that Christmas is nothing but a Saturnalian orgy or honoring Easter a festival of cavorting with Ishtar. Or, if we want to be really nasty, we can say that setting cookies and milk out for the commercial god Santa Claus and his imps is no different from charming the Celtic Elves or one’s loved ones in El Dia de los Muertos with fruits and candy. All of these instances belie that a little leaven ruins the whole lump and if the shadow of paganism (or even Catholicism) even slightly touches something, that object is lost and unclean forever.

It is that erroneous logic, selective history, and distorted missiological perspective that requires an answer. For one thing, it should be countered that those who would hold a Christmas tree to be profane and idolatrous in and of itself is to ascribe unto it the magickal power an animist would; this would be true idolatry. Why eschew and expunge any misguided worship or distorted doctrine when it can be corrected head on and bridged by the Gospel of Christ? Mediaeval Christians strained their evangelism when they saw an oak consecrated to Odin or Thor, simply cut it down, and then shared the Gospel. If they had been aware of the Norse myths which have echoed throughout the Germanic and Scandinavian culture for countless generations, they could have recalled the story of Odin being hung upon his spear on the World Tree for nine days. From there, they could naturally transition to the story of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden east of Eden and then share about the Rood Tree of Life that Christ was crucified upon for our sakes and theirs. To the German, such convergence may be the key to conversion. That same common mythos is true of the evangelizing the Christmas Tree today.

Christians need to do their homework. Halloween is, at it truest, a night for spiritual warfare, to publicly demonstrate the inferiority of pagan gods and to scorn Satan away. Few realize that October 31st marks Protestant Reformation Day. On this day in 1517, in possibly the second most important event in human history, Luther posted his famous 95 theses on the church door at Wittenburg, changing church history forever. Sadly, most Protestants have neglected to celebrate this day.

Too often we rely on tracts without citations and Hollywood without history. And Halloween has a rather mangled history. Three cultures have shaped the holiday through the ages: the old Celts, the Romans, and Roman Catholicism. As near as we can tell, from sometime around the 5th century B.C., the Celts in Ireland celebrated the New Year on October 31st. It was called Samhain (sow-en), which means “summer’s end,” and was the last of their three harvests. Since the border between the worlds of the living and the dead was especially blurry at this time, it was a key time for divination that would comfort the Celts through the long, cold end of the year. The spirits of those who had died that year were thought to roam the earth to possess the living for hope of an afterlife. To resist the spirits, the people would extinguish the lights in their homes. After the snuffing of lights, each hearth would be relit from Usinach, the sacred Druidic fire in the middle of Ireland. The people also gave out meals to win good favor, and sought to frighten away the spirits by dressing as spooky critters themselves. Elves also were said to have trooped out in abundance from their barrows this night playing tricks.

Another misnomer concerning the spirits of the Celtic festivities is that they were demons. That may be so in modern Christian eyes, but Irish mythology has no concept of demons, just as people today have no concept of the old Celtic or Germanic Elf. In place of a preternatural elder race, we have the pathetic picture of the diminutive Keebler or Tinkerbell variety. Much like how our watered-down understanding of angels lacks any fearsome and holy aspect, we have a shriveled imagination when it comes to the spiritual world of the Celts. Today, there is no mention of otherworldly warriors full of the blood of grapes, but cherub babies, bumbling old Clarence, a bad Irish actress, or even a soddy John Travolta, effacing the Faith with heretical mumblings. But angels in Scripture always began, “Do not be afraid,” for their effect on the beholder was such a terrible beauty. The women ran from the angel at the empty tomb “afraid, yet filled with joy.” Such was the Elf to primitive man, tied to the harvest with such monikers as kill-crop or rye-mother.

By the time of the Roman Empire’s apogee, Samhain was merged with their festivals of Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees, and Feralia, which honored the dead. Those three holidays mixed together pungently and came down to Roman Catholicism, the inheritor of Roman civilization. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints’ Day, Alholowmesse in Middle English, as a time to honor saints and martyrs not specially covered by their own days. He did this by consecrating the Pantheon to Mary and the martyrs, exchanging one set of idols for another. After a few centuries November 1st was settled on and the night before thus became All-hallows Eve (or Halloween). By A.D. 1000, November 2 would be designated All Soul’s Day, to honor all the dead, not just the saints. These celebrations meant bonfires, parades, costumes and ‘souling’ which meant begging for “soul cakes” as a type of indulgence for prayers for the dead. From now on, these three Catholicized holidays were collectively called Hallowmas.

The last phase of Halloween came by way of the same Celtic groves with the mass Irish immigration to America in the 1840s. Since then, play parties have become popular in America for grown-ups and since mid-century became the domain of kids in costume. Today, various Neopagans, such as Wiccans and Druids celebrate Samhain for the harvest and Catholics their Allhallowmas for the dead. Neopagans divination, of course, looks to the Earth Gods while Catholic divination looks to the Catholic pantheon.

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Ah-hah, the pundits say, there you have it: Halloween was evil then and pagan activity makes it evil now. But calling Halloween evil because pagans honor it (though actually it is Samhain they honor) is rather like denouncing the month of Ramadan because of its Islamic connotations or the Old Testament Sabbath because of its legalist Christian adherence. Such celebrations are but symbols, shadows of internal truths. If homosexuals wish to take the symbol of the rainbow and wrap their genitalia up in it, or New Agers want to focalize over it in a crystal daze, or naturalist science wants to explain it away as a diffusion of light particles by water, they have not destroyed the everlasting promise of God in Genesis. The rainbow is still His keepsake. Just so, Halloween is a resonant time of harvest and remembrance that rightly belongs to all men, especially the Christian.

But isn’t Halloween a satanic holiday, our fundamentalist friends ask? The issue here comes down to whether paganism itself is actually satanic or not. The Christian answer is a qualified, “Yes, but . . .” Ultimately, the gods and impersonal forces of pagans are, from a biblical viewpoint, demons. However, the satanic element is not explicit or intended by the worshiper. A modern day Druid or Wiccan does not claim to worship Satan any more than a Reformed Jew would. How could they? Druids and Wiccans do not even believe in the existence of the Judeo-Christian “pantheon.” The question itself reflects the ignorance of the differences between Satanism and the various Earth religions. In that light, Wicca and Druidism are as satanic as Judaism, Islam, or any another other non-Christian source of truth, which is to say, “Yes, but . . .”

There are degrees of willful sin just as there are degrees of spiritual blindness to take into account. When demons masquerade as local deities of the green wood, their imitation is just that. They do not have the power to create myths of their own, but only to copy or distort the eternal myths that God has placed in the human mind of the creation, fall, and fecundity of mankind through a heroic dying God. It is the central folk story across the world. As C.S. Lewis said, why dismiss the distortions of the lost when we can redirect them as stepping stones to the myth made true. The other religions of the world are not total lies, or else who would believe them? It is simply that Christianity is the only complete truth, and the others are fragments that have broken off of the one true story. For example, we have the pagan god of Mithra, who was supposedly born of a virgin on December 25th, was even visited by Magi (where we get the word “magician”), the caste of Zoroastrian priests whose descendents were the God-fearing “Wise Men” and Kings from the East from the biblical account.

Just as the Israelites appropriated pagan festivals and turned them around into celebrations of the true God, God calls us to reclaim the worth-ship for Him whether in the relatively similar Christmas tradition or the earthier Halloween one. We should thank anthropologists like Sir James Frazier for pointing out (albeit unwittingly) how God wrote his redemptive story in fragments across the tribal fireside talks of the world. A wonderful Christian version of this is found in Don Richardson’s book Eternity in Their Hearts where quasi-Christian beliefs are examined in unevangelized cultures around the world recalling Paul and the Altar to the Unknown God. When the Jews failed to bring God’s revelation to the nations, Yahweh was not caught at a loss. The myths of the Greeks (and all Gentiles) lit a hunger in their hearts that, along with the prophecies of the Jews, would find their fulfillment in the historical incarnate God in Bethlehem.

Vestiges of a Magickal Christianity

The question then is what exactly is the allure, the shard of truth in neo-paganism that draws so many to it? It is a sense of wonder and mystery in the universe that the mediaevals held, but is sorely lacking in the Church today. It is easy to skim over in the pattern of the early Church (i.e. Acts 2) that the disciples were continually in awe and wonder of the Rapture, the Mystery, and the Passion – the evocative and almost erotic language used in relation to the Gospel story.

Oddly enough, what draws me to Halloween is the same thing that I find fascinating about Catholicism, for both still retain that sense of awe and wonder. Both pay homage to the form of high ceremony, a symbolic liturgy (incense, colors, etc.), and formal invocations. In the belief of folk magick, Wiccans are not talking about supernatural forces like Christians would in referencing demons or angels, and definitely not sleight-of-hand stage magic. They see magick as a natural process, working in, through, and for nature, rather than against. It is simply merging and directing a human’s latent energy with an object’s energy. Energy, like the Force of Star Wars, pervades the universe, especially in stones, colors, and herbs.

Again, these are not complete falsehoods, but imitation of the truth. Colors like blue certainly are calming while bright red warns or agitates. These are symbolic, and often work a placebo effect on our minds. Herbs as well have regained the importance of sympathetically healing that they once had in ancient times, especially in the Bible. We also know from Scripture that names have power, and are not arbitrary, but correspond to inner character or essence. To change someone’s name, as is done incessantly for main characters in the Bible, is to change who they are. What is in a name, Romeo? Everything.

The harvest aspect of Halloween is perfectly biblical. Even the Puritan holiday of Thanksgiving would have coincided with this harvest festival had they planted on time. While paganism looks for a connection with nature and especially with God and Goddess, Christianity offers a deeper magick. Anything you ask in my name, Christ says, will be given unto you. The concepts of adoption as children of God, or the everlasting covenant of God, or any other doctrine of Scripture bespeaks a more personal relationship than anything offered in animism or pantheism.

There is a balance there to maintain between the head of good doctrine and the heart of a lusty love for God, especially through His creation. The best thing for restoring potency is a rousing bout of spiritual warfare. A showdown is long overdue. We must be as Patrick, who loved the Celtic spirit, yet resisted the subtleties of pantheism and the druids at Tara just like Elijah who confronted the prophets of Baal with a godly bonfire at Mount Carmel.

The two audiences to keep in mind today are the pagans and the commercial consumers since Halloween and Christmas have become more cultural than anything. The consumers must be educated on the background history and consequences of ideas such as letting their children imitate gory ghouls and vampires. Costumes should be tame or kept for drama, because magick is real and one must be careful opening doorways to strange spirits. Both pagans and consumers must be made aware of the ultimate death of Hell and final judgment as opposed to the endless second chances of reincarnation. Once this is established they can begin to discern their inner need for what it is: intimations of desire for the provision of the Sent Son and the community of the Trinity.

Paganism today must be understood for what it is, a spiritual hunger for something more than material explanations. They want to speak to nature rather than about it. Louis Markos explains the pursuit as a “higher and deeper kind of unity that allows one to experience a sense of connection and purpose in, through, and with all living things. It is the desire to feel and believe that one lives in a sympathetic universe, one in which the turnings of the seasons, the phases of the moon, and the orbits of the planets have something to do with us.”

Sadly, too often the Christian response is as bad as the old Celts who blew out the house fires in hopes of the spirits passing by, like an inverted Passover. Or else we placate the children like the old pagans with food or candy so our houses won’t get egged by the likes of Puck or Peaseblossom. Rarely, do we wage an offensive, adopt the good planks of the other party, and pursue the unfettered thanksgiving of the harvest, perhaps the most universal and primeval of all celebrations. When we are outdone by our pagan neighbors, the more shame is ours. They know how to be quiescent before creation and keep the agrarian observance as their ancestors did since time immemorial; we buy into commercialism and postcards and because of our castrated imagination cannot enjoy what fertility meant in the face of wintry death, when even child-bearing was a heroic act where the mother risked her life.

Christianity must recover what it is that attracts kids to Harry Potter if it is to ever show the potential spiritual power it boasts, the very power that raised Christ from the dead, the very same that is given to us saints to harrow the gates of Hell around us. On this day, a conglomeration of more holidays that any other, and in this season, we ought to remember that Christ is our eternal bread and wine, that we are the first fruits of God, and that He will never leave us nor forsake us as evidenced by what He did through Luther to free us again from the bondage of the law and human institutions in 1517. We could tell others of God’s true necromancy with the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezek. 37) or indeed of Christ defeating death itself for all believers in His Resurrection. How would it be if we might gather with neighbors in our country pastures and enjoy harvest bonfires again, lighting our hearths from the central flame, and maybe even sacrificing an animal, not out of supplication, but thanksgiving to the God who provides all in all. And since a bonfire is as integral to winter as the May Pole to summer, we could reclaim a connection to the world around us and its cycles of life and death, and in doing some spur the pagans on to jealousy for what consummate a God we worship (Rom 10:19; 11:11). Thus beginning in awe and ending in thankful worth-ship, we may redeem the Lord’s harvest.

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