Halloween — Then and Now

Not quite forty years ago, back in the last century, I narrated a “Halloween Special” feature on the local CBS television affiliate station. For those of you who don’t have memories of this historic time, I have to explain that this was really before the New Age as we know it today. Halloween is a very old Sabbat, but most people in recent times had only known it as a rather fun minor holiday marked by “Tricks or Treats,” various boy/girl games, dances and often a bonfire around which people told ghost stories. It was mostly a “kid’s holiday” and not a very big event for retail stores selling costumes and artificial pumpkins. Today, Halloween is second in importance only to Christmas (Yule) in the retail calendar. What happened in the 1960s was the start of a renewal of awareness, and then interest, in the real historic and cultural meaning of Halloween. Alongside this, the Celtic, Pagan and Wiccan cultural and spiritual heritage were being remembered and practiced. These individual people and families were generally found in isolated communities in the British Isles, Ireland and the eastern United States. These memories and continued practices became the source for much scholarly writing. Eventually, these formed the textbook basis for many new books on Celtic folklore and the renewed “Old Religion” that we mostly call Wicca today. But memories are more than fodder for scholars and our modern Celtic Pagan revivalists. Memories involve “associations,” or the “correspondences,” favored in the terminology of ceremonial magicians. All holidays have such associated memories, and those of religious holidays (Wiccan and Pagan Sabbats in particular) are triggers to important myths and celebrations including functions of religious worship. Each of the eight sabbats of Wicca and Paganism tell of particular myths that form part of an eight-spoked Wheel of Life, making up the entire cycle of seasons of the agricultural year. But those related to Halloween speak even more directly, because they are intended to trigger memories of our ancestors — those who came before, and upon whose very bones we walk and live today. These are the “ghosts” to whom we make offerings of food and drink, else they may play “tricks” upon us in vengeance for our lack of respect. Such stories of “trick or treat” are ways that children are taught adult manners, like “Be good, or the ‘boogey man’ will get you!” Adults know how to be “good” without fear of the boogey man, but learning starts when we are children and includes ways to access the heritage of all who have gone before. Halloween was also a time “between times” in the Celtic year — when the harvest had been completed, the cattle brought home from summer grazing to winter barns and the harshness of winter had yet to start. This was a time when maturing boys and girls could meet one another in the social events that brought people together from the surrounding rural area. Dances and games (like bobbing for apples) initiated opportunities for physical contact, starting the cycle of life all over again. Halloween marked the ending of the cycle, and of its new beginning — hence it was the official start of the New Year. And for the Celtic world, the new day started the evening of the day before; hence, “All Hallow’s Eve” was the real time to celebrate new beginnings, remember and honor the past and contributions to the world of the present, just as we will contribute to the world of tomorrow. Too often we fail to honor the past, and to learn from it, in our modern world where most of us are separated from the agricultural years and the visible cycles of Nature. The celebrations, and indeed the rituals, of the Sabbat remind us of these important memories and restore the essential awareness of the natural world. Of equal importance is the awareness of the responsibilities each of us has for the world of tomorrow. What we do today is “tomorrow’s history,” and we have a deep responsibility to make it right. Ask yourselves how you want our descendants to read the history we are making today, and live accordingly. Responsible actions cannot be passed on to others — each of us must play an essential role in making the world a better place for our children, and their children, forever and ever.