What do we really know about
Halloween? Is it just a fun day of the year that we can get all dressed up like
monsters and have a little bit of fun? Should we allow our children to
participate in this event by dressing them up and chauffeuring them door to door
for candy and other treats? Is there a deeper meaning to what most of us celebrate
each year on October 31? How did Halloween begin anyway?
Halloween was originally known as
all hallows eve. It was started around the year 200 bc and continued until
roughly 200 ad. This was a Celtic practice from the British Isle in France.
This group of people practiced a religion known as Druidism. These Druids
included the Celtic priests and shamans. They would study and practice
witchcraft, magic, and necromancy. Necromancy is the practice of communicating
with the dead, with purposes of predicting the future. Samhain was known as “the
feast of the dead” and it was practiced on October 31. This date is also known
as all hallows eve, it was the day before their new year.
On this day, the town’s people believed
that they must appease the evil spirits by giving them offerings. They believed
that on this day the veil between the living and the dead were dropped,
allowing spirits to walk the earth. Giant bonfires were lit to help guide these
spirits to the world of the living. Animals, crops, and humans were thrown into
the fire as sacrifices to these spirits. The townspeople would leave out their offerings
of food so that the evil spirits would not play tricks on them, or harm them in
any way. They would also wear disguises in order to fool the spirits into
thinking they too were evil spirits so they might not harm them.
The druids also required human
sacrifices for these spirits. They would go door to door asking for virgins,
also known as innocent blood. If the home owners refused to give up their child,
the druids would paint a hexagram on the door. This hexagram was used as a sign
for the evil spirits. All homes with this sign would be attacked by the evil
spirits. They would terrorize all living in the home and this sometimes
resulted in death.
Bobbing
for apples?
The Romans held a festival called
Feralia during the end of October. This festival was in honor of their goddess
Pomona, known as the apple queen. The people would throw apples over their shoulders
to help decide marital partners. Roman
Catholics took control of the Celtics and changed the name of this three day
festival to Halloween or all hallows eve, or all saints day. When the Romans
took control of the Celts, they combine both festivals. Bobbing for apples was
a result of this combined festival. Unfortunately, as with many other pagan
traditions such as Christmas and Easter, the Romans kept this tradition, but
simply changed several of the names in order to call it good.
Halloween is full of pagan
practices. There really isn’t anything that should be considered innocent fun
when dealing with this celebration. Allister Crowley, an English occultist
known for developing what Christians would call satanic worship, said that he
loved, “that Christians allow their children to worship satan one night every
year.” Anton Levey, a follower of Crowley, wrote in his book, “The Satanic
Bible,” “After one’s own birthday, the two major satanic holidays are walpurgisnacht
night and Halloween.” Walpurgis Night is
the English translation of Walpurgisnacht, the German name for the night of 30
April, so called because it is the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurga, an
8th-century abbess in Germany. As we can see, Satanists believe Halloween is
one of the biggest holidays of the year.
3 John 1:11
Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He
who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God.
Halloween
is chalked full of evil. We see devils, witches, ghosts and death. Being
associated with this satanic holiday seems to go directly against what God has
told us to do.
2 Corinthians 6: 17
Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate, says
the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.”
We
should not be Christianizing pagan holidays. We should be abstaining from them
altogether. Pagan evil spirit worship is just that. What we are doing on Halloween
is exactly the same as what the ancient pagans did; we just changed the name
and called it good. Believing that we are not doing this same practice for the
same purposes does not mean that we are not doing it. Practicing these pagan
rituals under the assumption that they are now okay because it doesn’t mean the
same thing is simply a lie we were led to believe from Satan. God does not want
us doing this, for ANY reason. He hates
all things that deal with the worship of other gods.
So I ask you, is this really something you want to teach
your children to participate in?
