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Oct. 5, 2000 'Smatter of Fact Are we under attack? Is a fictional wizard part of a conspiracy to seduce our children into the occult? Is Halloween really the "devil’s holiday"? I cannot pretend to know the answer to the first question, which naturally depends on personal spirituality. I concede that the devil is real, and I do not thrive on making light of others’ opinions. But Harry Potter is nothing new — the fantasy genre has been around for quite some time. C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander and Susan Cooper were the hot children’s authors of my youth. I employed the discretion my parents had taught me, read these books, enjoyed them, and somehow managed to avoid joining a cult. Lewis Carroll gave us Alice in Wonderland. Shakespeare thrilled Elizabethan audiences with "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer’s Night Dream." Arthurian legends and Greek myth have been around a good long time. It seems fantasy is nothing new, and has yet to lead to mass satanism. As long as we continue to employ common sense, it isn’t likely to. Now, what about Halloween? It’s the time of year that makes me think of it — that, and the relentless marketing of costumes and candy that began as early as August. Some contend it’s not at all innocuous. To them, it is evil with a gloss; pagan, and occult-oriented. They are right. Halloween’s origins go back to Celtic Europe, which certainly was not Christian, and many cults today regard Halloween as holy. They are also wrong. Halloween is based on the Celtic festival, Samhuin. It was believed that the earth died on this day; therefore, the boundaries between worlds were in fluctuation and anything could come wandering through. Because the Celts were dependent on the earth for survival, rituals were enacted to protect it. While we cannot of course romanticize the Celts, neither should we demonize them. Those who blindly accept the biased accounts of Roman historians — who themselves lived in a society both violent and pagan — blame the Celts for having "thought of everything evil." Yet archaeological evidence for the human sacrifice and bloody rituals alledgedly practiced by the Celts is slender, absent of context, and reliable historical evidence is non-existent. Today’s "knowledge" of the Celts and their holy days has degenerated to the point of comic-book rubbish, with tales ranging from door-to-door virgin collections, to candles made of human fat. The Church responded to such paganism with adaptation. It turned Samhuin and similar holidays into the celebrations of All Hallows Eve/All Saints’ Day. It replaced winter solstice celebrations with the date for Christmas, and the dates for Easter, although they caused doctrinal disputes, coincided with pagan spring festivals. No Christian believed that he or she was a pagan by virtue of having celebrated on any of these dates, however. Modern society has made Halloween a day of fun, costumes and candy. It seems in order to "celebrate the devil," one must make a conscious attempt to do so. Whether Halloween is the "devil’s day" then becomes a matter of personal choice. A better consideration is whether the devil needs his own holiday in order to work evil. We know what happens on Oct. 31; we tend to ignore what happens the other 364 days of the year. Evil is rampant on them, too. It just isn’t overt. We swear, fight, spread lies, try to control others, and rage down our highways. Sadly, because we make the mistake of thinking the devil has nothing to do with this — that he requires lurid sacrifices in the dead of night, or a special holiday to be made real — Satan need expend very little effort. He doesn’t need neo-druidism or Harry Potter’s help. He has ours. |
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