Yup it's that time of year again, Halloween. Not that it has a great deal of meaning in our neighborhood - apparently the Jewish religion does not observe Halloween as anything of any consequence, and our neighborhood is predominantly Jewish. I got to wondering how Halloween got started in the first place; I knew it had something to do with the dead but that's about it, so I checked it out. Here's the story..
The story of Halloween goes back over 2000 years to the ancient Celts. Druidic priests regarded the day as the end of the year. Not only was it their day for celebrating the year's harvest, but October 31 itself was also the day of Samhain, a festival for honoring the dead. In order to appease the wandering spirits they believed roamed at night, the Celtic priests made fires in which they burned sacrifices (!), made charms, and cast spells.
Portions of the Celtic holiday of the dead eventually passed into Christian culture after the Romans conquered the Celts and tried to bring the Celts into the 'Christian fold'. It eventually became apparent to the church leaders that the Celts, in spite of their conformation to some aspects of Christian culture, were stubbornly sticking with elements of their old religion. So, in the seventh century AD, the church moved its All Saints' Day, a holiday for honoring early Christian martyrs, from a day in May to November 1, thus associating it with the old Druid death rituals of October 31.
By the tenth century A.D., the Catholic Church had added a new holiday, All Souls' Day. This day was set aside to honor all of the dead, not just the early Christian Saints. Over time, Halloween started to lose its mysterious overtones and was becoming merely a harvest celebration - a night of bobbing for apples, eating popcorn, and telling ghost stories around a bonfire. It was already changing into the holiday for children that exists today.
Personally I think it was commercialized the way it is today purely for monetary gain. Not the best way to honor the dead if you ask me, but hey, if there's free chocolates and stuff involved, then it's kinda hard to argue the point.
