By Father Augustine Thompson, O.P.

We’ve all heard the allegations: Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. If you let your kids go trick-or-treating, they will be worshiping the devil and pagan gods.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American. Halloween falls on October 31 because of a pope, and its observances are the result of medieval Catholic piety.

It’s true that the ancient Celts of Ireland and Britain celebrated a minor festival on October 31–as they did on the last day of most other months of the year. However, Halloween falls on the last day of October because the Solemnity of All Saints, or “All Hallows,” falls on November 1. The feast in honor of all the saints in heaven used to be celebrated on May 13, but Pope Gregory III (d. 741) moved it to November 1, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter’s at Rome. Later, in the 840s, Pope Gregory IV commanded that All Saints be observed everywhere. And so the holy day spread to Ireland.

Saint Odilio of Cluny

The day before was the feast’s evening vigil, “All Hallows Even,” or “Hallowe’en.” In those days Halloween didn’t have any special significance for Christians or for long-dead Celtic pagans.

In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in southern France, added a celebration on November 2. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. This feast, called All Souls Day, spread from France to the rest of Europe.

So now the Church had feasts for all those in heaven and all those in purgatory. What about those in the other place? It seems Irish Catholic peasants wondered about the unfortunate souls in hell. After all, if the souls in hell are left out when we celebrate those in heaven and purgatory, they might be unhappy enough to cause trouble. So it became customary to bang pots and pans on All Hallows Even to let the damned know they were not forgotten. Thus, in Ireland at least, all the dead came to be remembered–even if the clergy were not terribly sympathetic to Halloween and never allowed All Damned Day into the church calendar.

But that still isn’t our celebration of Halloween. Our traditions on this holiday center on dressing up in fanciful costumes, which isn’t Irish at all. Rather, this custom arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. Late medieval Europe was hit by repeated outbreaks of the bubonic plague–the Black Death–and it lost about half its population. It is not surprising that Catholics became more concerned about the afterlife.


A Danse Macabre

More Masses were said on All Souls Day, and artistic representations were devised to remind everyone of their own mortality. We know these representations as the “danse macabre”, or “dance of death,” which was commonly painted on the walls of cemeteries and shows the devil leading a daisy chain of people–popes, kings, ladies, knights, monks, peasants, lepers, etc.–into the tomb. Sometimes the dance was presented on All Souls Day itself as a living tableau with people dressed up in the garb of various states of life.

But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween; and the Irish, who had Halloween, did not dress up. How the two became mingled probably happened first in the British colonies of North America during the 1700s, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. The Irish focus on Hell gave the French masquerades an even more macabre twist.

But as every young ghoul knows, dressing up isn’t the point; the point is getting as many goodies as possible. Where on earth did “trick or treat” come in? “Treat or treat” is perhaps the oddest and most American addition to Halloween and is the unwilling contribution of English Catholics.

During the penal period of the 1500s to the 1700s in England, Catholics had no legal rights. They could not hold office and were subject to fines, jail and heavy taxes. It was a capital offense to say Mass, and hundreds of priests were martyred.

Occasionally, English Catholics resisted, sometimes foolishly. One of the most foolish acts of resistance was a plot to blow up the Protestant King James I and his Parliament with gunpowder. This was supposed to trigger a Catholic uprising against the oppressors. The ill-conceived Gunpowder Plot was foiled on November 5, 1605, when the man guarding the gunpowder, a reckless convert named Guy Fawkes, was captured and arrested. He was hanged; the plot fizzled.

November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, became a great celebration in England, and so it remains. During the penal periods, bands of revelers would put on masks and visit local Catholics in the dead of night, demanding beer and cakes for their celebration: trick or treat!

Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English settlers. But by the time of the American Revolution, old King James and Guy Fawkes had pretty much been forgotten. Trick or treat, though, was too much fun to give up, so eventually it moved to October 31, the day of the Irish-French masquerade. And in America, trick or treat wasn’t limited to Catholics.

The mixture of various immigrant traditions we know as Halloween had become a fixture in the United States by the early 1800s. To this day, it remains unknown in Europe, even in the countries from which some of the customs originated.

But what about witches? Well, they are one of the last additions. The greeting card industry added them in the late 1800s. Halloween was already “ghoulish,” so why not give witches a place on greeting cards? The Halloween card failed (although it has seen a recent resurgence in popularity), but the witches stayed.

So too, in the late 1800s, ill-informed folklorists introduced the jack-o’-lantern. They thought that Halloween was Druidic and pagan in origin. Lamps made from turnips (not pumpkins) had been part of ancient Celtic harvest festivals, so they were translated to the American Halloween celebration.

The next time someone claims that Halloween is a cruel trick to lure your children into devil worship, I suggest you tell them the real origin of All Hallows Eve and invite them to discover its Christian significance, along with the two greater and more important Catholic festivals that follow it.

Father Augustine Thompson, O.P.Father Augustine Thompson, O.P., is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. BA, MA, The Johns Hopkins University; BA (Philosophy), MDiv, Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology; PhD, University of California, Berkeley; STM, Order of Preachers, 2007.

Hmmmmm

John Stearne + Mathew Hopkins were the "witchfinders General"
Johns  Hopkins University

Another point of view

http://www.av1611.org/halloween.html

I thought it was All Saints Day celebrated by Catholics  by having their kids dress up as their favorite saint and do good works in imitation of that particular saint's holy works. Then it was hijacked and replaced by a counterfeit version of pagan celebrations that are demonic, perverted and judaized. Just as anything holy and righteous, Satan tries to replace it with his demonic ape versions.

It's true that Satan likes to ape many things and twist them into something evil.

But it's not as simplistic as you suggest, nor did it occur that way.

Just do some research into customs around the world. The article above gives the informed (rather than ignorant) view of what happened. There are indeed many elements of goodness and truth in the concept of "Halloween": Purgatory, poor souls, remembrance of death and the Four Last Things ("Memento Mori"), imitating the Saints, plus neutral elements like dressing up as one of God's creatures or a given person/state of life and remembering that we ALL shall die, from the humble peasant to the greatest Pope (as the French expressed in the Danse Macabre)

But also, it sounds like the pagan celebrations developed first.

I would add to Matthew's list: failing to pray for the victims of satanists who celebrate Samhain on the eve of Oct. 31.
 
This is from TIA.

What’s Good and Evil about Halloween?

Margaret Galitzin

E015_Halloween-Spider.jpg - 12466 Bytes
Recently I received the Fantastic Fall edition of a rather upscale catalog featuring “inspired home décor.” I was shocked to see that 33 pages - more than a third of the magazine – were dedicated to Halloween décor - macabre mummies, gaggles of ghosts, skull and bones necklaces and purses, and much more.

There was a 12-foot indoor spider web with Jєωel-eyed black spiders, also a witch so richly detailed “you’ll expect her to take off on her broom.” Every kind of outdoor décor was featured: orange “Halloween lights,” life-size vampires, grim reapers and ghosts, and even an inflatable carriage hearse complete with lights, sound effects and a rising zombie (at a truly frightening price). For the mantelpiece, black candleholders with flickering candles and a black mantel scarf with cobweb or belfry bat patterns.

E015_sconces006.jpg - 47967 Bytes

Macabre year-round "Halloween decor"

Do you really believe witchcraft isn’t finding a place in the mainstream culture? It’s time to wake up. This 2007 catalog aimed at the general public is featuring handsome bound leather books for your favorite spells and potions. Ghoulish gargoyle sconces and sculptures and gothic windows with skulls are advertised to be not just for Halloween, but year-round display.

The ancient pagan feast day, today known as Halloween, has come to be considered a major “holiday,” as important as Christmas and Easter in the minds of many children and adults. This fulfills a goal of the neo-pagans – to reclaim the pagan festivals that were made holy days by the Catholic Church.

On one Wicca site, a witch swore her revenge on the Christians who “have pushed Christmas down our throats every year.” She asserted, “We will do the same with Halloween - make you adopt and accept our feast day, symbols and beliefs, whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not.” Another gloated, “More and more persons are claiming Halloween as their favorite holiday! Hurrah for Samhain (the pagan name for Halloween)! Hurrah for the triumph of Paganism over Christianity. Your sun is setting, Christians, and ours is rising.”

The History of Samhain

What we know as Halloween started as Samhain (pronounced Sah-Ween), the most popular of the eight pagan Celtic feasts in the yearly cycle. Our trick-or-treat, witches, mayhem, costuming and bonfires are vestiges of this pagan festival. By the way, you might be surprised to know that the Catholic countries of Europe and South America never celebrated Halloween.

E015_spirit_rising_samhain.jpg - 46800 Bytes

Spirits rising in the pagan Celtic bonfire ritual on October 31
For the Celtic pagans, Samhain marked the end of the year and the Autumn season that faded into history at dusk on October 31. The essence of Samhain is chaos and disintegration; a three-day period called “Time Which Is No Time,” when the normal order was suspended. This chaos manifested itself not only in an unleashing of the spirit world on the earth, but in dark occult rituals and night orgies led by the Druid priests and witches. Disorder reigned: men dressed as women and women as men, people wore costumes of ghouls and ghosts to mix with the evil spirits or fool them so they would pass by without incident.

During the three days of Samhain, the Druid priests would make contact with the spirit world, departed relatives or the spirits that lived in the underworld who would give supposed guidance and inspiration for the new pagan year that was starting. During these days, the veil was said to be drawn that separated this world and the underworld, and journeys could be made from one side to the other. As in voodoo rituals, families set out food and wine for the spirits of their ancestors to refresh themselves after the long journey from the netherworld of Hell. Sweets were placed to appease wandering spirits. Then there were the uncontrollable evil spirits that came forth from the caves to devastate the land. Costumed Druid priests would parade about making loud noises to drive unwelcome spirits to the edge of town. Today it has become fashionable to make light of ghosts, spirits and such as just silly stories, but the pagans take them very seriously.

The pull of Samhain was darkness, the spirit world, divinations, and blood sacrifice. Again, as in voodoo, Druids predicted the future by reading the entrails and movements of the animals slaughtered for the great feast, known as the festival of meat. There were also human offerings to the demon gods, a frequent and common element in the religious rituals that were made only in the presence of a Druid. On the eve of Samhain, the Druid priests would burn the sacrificial animals in huge bonfires on hilltops at the “Fire Festivals.” For this reason the Full Moon in October was often referred to as the Blood Moon. They also used the fires to predict the future.

E015_OpeningRitual.jpg - 35270 Bytes

An opening Samhain ritual to the Devil, revived today in many places
Today you will see that the druids, witches and wiccans of the neo-pagan movement vehemently deny and carefully hide the demonic aspects of the ancient cults and rituals they are reviving. They make no secret, however, that they are adoring the god of the Underworld and the Crone Witch goddess at their Samhain (also spelled Samhein or Sanhaim) festivals.

Halloween Christianized

With her good sense and wisdom, the Catholic Church took those pagan festivals and Christianized them, cleansing them of what was evil and demonic, maintaining what was sound or harmless, and adding what was holy and beneficial.

E015_PowAllSaints.jpg - 52207 Bytes

In Poland, Catholics decorate the tombs of relatives and pray for them on All Saints Day
Therefore, in the 7th century Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints Day to replace the pagan festival of the dead observed on May 13 in the West. In 835, in part to halt the Druid practices in the Celtic lands, Pope Gregory IV changed the date of All Saints Day to November 1.

The bonfires were still lit in the Celtic villages on the night of October 31, but now to give light to the evening of festivities and games and keep away the spirits of darkness. Thus Samhain became All Hallows Eve, the holy eve before All Saint’s Day, later shortened to Halloween. Instead of attending occult rituals to the devils, the Celtic people assisted at Holy Mass on November 1, celebrating with joy all the Saints in Heaven. Families visited cemeteries to decorate graves with candles and flowers and pray for their loved ones.

On the next day, November 2, All Souls’ Day, they joined the universal Church in praying for the souls of their deceased relatives and friends. Instead of leaving wine and food to appease the spirits, the people baked little pastries called “soul cakes” that were blessed and eaten at gatherings and distributed to the poor. The pagan festival had been Christianized.

Neo-Paganism revived

Neo-Paganism and Satanism are on the rise everywhere today, and at no time is it so obvious as at Halloween. Today’s witches and warlocks are openly practicing their Samhain rituals offered to the demonic spirits. The neo-pagans even advertise their festivals, acclimating the public to the worship of the Devil by introducing them to their less alarming rituals.

E015_flyer95.jpg - 37551 Bytes

The public is invited to the Witch Festival
For example, the 2007 Samhain Festival at Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve (25 miles west of Madison, Wisconsin) calls on the public to come ”explore the afterlife, connect with the recent dead and ancestors, walk the Labyrinth and draw tarot cards.” There is a special program for the children, with mask making and spirit bags games. The pretext for all this revival of Paganism, Witchcraft and Satanism is to offer some fun for children and diversion for adults…

Here is another advertised event: The New York Witch Festival claims 2007 will be its biggest and best ever, with Sacred Circles, tarot card readers, and a Samhain ritual inviting the spirits of the departed to join the living. They do not hide that the festival is “offered to the community in honor of the goddess.” Isn’t this goddess the Devil?

Signs of the rise and acceptance of Neo-Paganism are everywhere. Anyone who visits a bookstore will find special sections at Halloween on magic, potions, spells, witches and vampires. One need go no further than e-bay to purchase a “Samhain blend” of Magickal Herbs, “specially blended for use in Samhain spells and rituals,” along with a Magickal Herbs eBook to learn the spells and uses.

Halloween is treated as an important date in the world of wizards and magic in the Harry Potter book series. The name Samhain appears as a title of a song from the album Mythical and Magical by a Heavy Metal band Pagan Altar. An article in the New York Daily News features an ex-Catholic mother who became a witch and celebrates “Samhain, not Halloween.” If you look around you, you will find signs that Halloween is increasingly turned toward the occult.

Let Christianity re-triumph

As Paganism revives, Halloween becomes more and more incompatible with Catholic Faith. Some 20 years ago, neither adults nor children took witches or ghosts seriously; Halloween was just a night to go out in a costume and get a bagful of candy. Perhaps it was a lack of vigilance.

E015_Manual.jpg - 54033 Bytes

Readily available to all: A Samhain manual with spells and rituals to communicate with the dead
At any rate, in the present climate, the witches and wizards have returned with a vengeance. They are taking themselves seriously and asking our children to do so also. The pagans are taking advantage of the symbols of Halloween to breathe life into their pagan festival of Samhain with its rituals to the devils of the underworld. The underworld, which sounds a bit glamorous, should be exposed for what it really is, Hell.

In this context, it behooves Catholics to rethink the practices of Halloween. We have our Catholic feast days, the holy days established by the Church to give honor and glory to God and celebrate the Saints in Heaven and Poor Souls in Purgatory.

Let’s do as the Church always did, crush out the pagan practices and customs, and emphasize what is salutary and good for souls. Let’s not decorate our homes with witches, spider webs and bats. Instead of dressing as ghouls and vampires, children can wear costumes of their favorite saints to commemorate the approaching holyday. There’s no need to do away with Halloween, just get rid of pagan practices and symbols, and make it what it should be, a “holy eve” before our Catholic feast days.

This was in national UK papers recently - Satanic, devil worshippers driven off after taking over abandoned rural church with 11th Century Saxon paintings found on walls under lime-wash paint
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/524854/Lost-church-rescued-from-Satanists-saviour-Bob

photos here
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/houghton/houghton.htm


Mr Davey on TV
http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/update/2014-10-27/meet-the-norfolk-pensioner-who-defied-death-threats-to-spend-two-decades-restoring-a-derelict-church/#

You all realise that the Roman Army didn't kill all the human, blood sacrifice 'Druids' on the Isle of Anglesey.(Hint Prince William "I know that I speak for Catherine when I say that I have never in my life known somewhere as beautiful and as welcoming as Anglesey,’ he said. ‘Both of us will miss it terribly when my Search & Rescue tour of duty comes to an end.")

Many escaped by boat to Ireland where they can be picked up again, written in Irish History as court mis-leaders, 'advising' Royalty - Tuadha d’Anu

The witch, as a seer or Merlin in Scythian culture and society, consequently belonged to an exclusive genome within a distinct holy and royal caste of overlords, which is reflected in the Gaelic word for a witch - Druidhe - which is pronounced Drui and is related to Draoi and Dracoi, meaning a dragon. Drui itself means Man (or Woman) of the Tree (not men of the oaks, as some have suggested) and is also related to the Sanskrit dru, meaning to run. This is associated with the ritual of running the labyrinth, with which we will deal in due course. (How many watched the occult film/DVD?)

In summary vampire in its earlier form - oupire - derives ultimately from the Galatian Uber, which itself is derived from the Aryan Upari and linguistically and contextually the Vampire - the witch or druid - was a Scythian High Queen or King: an Overlord.

PRINCE Charles is the heir to Dracula's blood line, the Romanian tourist board has claimed.
Prince Charles, who owns a farmhouse in rural Transylvania, appeared in a video being used to promote Romania, in which he confirms his distant kinship with Vlad Tepes, the 15th–century Wallachian ruler.
“Transylvania is in my blood,” Charles laughed in an interview last year. “The genealogy shows I am descended from Vlad the Impaler, so I do have a bit of a stake(witty Masonic pun) in the country.”

As Professor Margaret Murray discovered herself, vampirism was not the prerogative of the merchant or peasant classes, but was a cultic observance confined to the environs of the nobility, often as an adjunct to rites of the Noble and Royal Witch Covens of Scotland.

Bal-moral "Fairy castle"
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_tuathadedanaan01.htm


You can now link up Scottish Rite, modern, faux-masonry

St Andrew's walk about - he converted the pagan 'Scythians'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythia

1320 Declaration of Arbroath, the élite of Scotland claim Scythia as a former homeland of the Scots.
The Scythians weren’t however named after their use of a curved sword. The name Sithian is related to a group of words that appear in Indo-European languages which are found as far apart as Eire and Northern India, indicating that they had a common Aryan origin in Scythia. These include - Sithia, Sidhe, Siddir and Siddhi.

Harry Potter - Slytherin?

In Cymric ’dd’ is pronounced ’th’, whilst in Irish and Scots the ’th’ is spelt dialectically ’dh’ whilst the ’s’ beginning a word is pronounced ’sh’. As we have related, the Siddir in Danish society were witches who practiced the art of knot tying and loosening.

Ashke_nαzι 'Khazarian' territories and modern wars break out here! >>>

The early "Scythians", the people of the powers, occupied a region spanning The Balkans, Transylvania, Carpathia, the Ukraine and later, Siberia and Takla Makan where the Tocharians, as the Elves were mistakenly called by early linguists, spoke a ritual language which is now called Tocharian A but which originated in Thrace in 1800 BC and thus had connections with the Fir Bolg and consequently with the Tuadha d’Anu as a whole, who began migrating from Central Europe to Ireland at that period.

The Carpathia -  Titanic!

Over the centuries, from 5000 BC onwards, the Scythians had also migrated into the middle-east and had provided ruling families for many tribes and nations along and beyond the eastern Mediterranean coast.

In the ’Annals of Irish History’ the Scythian ’Tuadha d’Anu’ who had migrated farther still, to the islands of the north, were described as a tribe of deific queens, kings, princes and lords and were noted for having druids of their own. In Japan’s North islands there lives a shamanic tribe called the Ainu whose early writing style has been identified as being Gaelic Ogham!

In general they were usually tall, pale skinned, with golden red hair and green eyes, unlike the Celts, who were stocky and squat, with ruddy complexions and dark hair, and practiced settled agriculture from a very early period.

The recent and rather unfortunate propagandist depiction of the Aryan (Scythian) as a tall, ruddy complexioned blonde racist yeoman-farmer-warrior-god has no basis in truth. In pre-christian history an Aryan was a High King, a warrior was a warrior and a farmer was a farmer and ne’er the three e’er met. The real Aryans of fact were red haired and green eyed, their hired military help, derived from their lower Ksatriya caste who were not Aryan were, sometimes, blonde and blue eyed.

The Aryan royal families didn’t intermarry with other tribes or castes but, with the development by many of their clans of settled city-states such as Scythopolis (30 AD, on the banks of the River Jordan just south of Galilee) nevertheless they became urban multi-racialists and appreciated cultural diversity.

The Aryan Hittites in particular were close allies of the Jєωs

St Andrews is known worldwide as "The Home of Golf"
Trump builds Golf Links!

Are illuminati - Druids?

By Father Augustine Thompson, O.P.

We’ve all heard the allegations: Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. If you let your kids go trick-or-treating, they will be worshiping the devil and pagan gods.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American. Halloween falls on October 31 because of a pope, and its observances are the result of medieval Catholic piety.

It’s true that the ancient Celts of Ireland and Britain celebrated a minor festival on October 31–as they did on the last day of most other months of the year. However, Halloween falls on the last day of October because the Solemnity of All Saints, or “All Hallows,” falls on November 1. The feast in honor of all the saints in heaven used to be celebrated on May 13, but Pope Gregory III (d. 741) moved it to November 1, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter’s at Rome. Later, in the 840s, Pope Gregory IV commanded that All Saints be observed everywhere. And so the holy day spread to Ireland.

Saint Odilio of Cluny

The day before was the feast’s evening vigil, “All Hallows Even,” or “Hallowe’en.” In those days Halloween didn’t have any special significance for Christians or for long-dead Celtic pagans.

In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in southern France, added a celebration on November 2. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. This feast, called All Souls Day, spread from France to the rest of Europe.

So now the Church had feasts for all those in heaven and all those in purgatory. What about those in the other place? It seems Irish Catholic peasants wondered about the unfortunate souls in hell. After all, if the souls in hell are left out when we celebrate those in heaven and purgatory, they might be unhappy enough to cause trouble. So it became customary to bang pots and pans on All Hallows Even to let the damned know they were not forgotten. Thus, in Ireland at least, all the dead came to be remembered–even if the clergy were not terribly sympathetic to Halloween and never allowed All Damned Day into the church calendar.

But that still isn’t our celebration of Halloween. Our traditions on this holiday center on dressing up in fanciful costumes, which isn’t Irish at all. Rather, this custom arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. Late medieval Europe was hit by repeated outbreaks of the bubonic plague–the Black Death–and it lost about half its population. It is not surprising that Catholics became more concerned about the afterlife.

A Danse Macabre
More Masses were said on All Souls Day, and artistic representations were devised to remind everyone of their own mortality. We know these representations as the “danse macabre”, or “dance of death,” which was commonly painted on the walls of cemeteries and shows the devil leading a daisy chain of people–popes, kings, ladies, knights, monks, peasants, lepers, etc.–into the tomb. Sometimes the dance was presented on All Souls Day itself as a living tableau with people dressed up in the garb of various states of life.

But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween; and the Irish, who had Halloween, did not dress up. How the two became mingled probably happened first in the British colonies of North America during the 1700s, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. The Irish focus on Hell gave the French masquerades an even more macabre twist.

But as every young ghoul knows, dressing up isn’t the point; the point is getting as many goodies as possible. Where on earth did “trick or treat” come in? “Treat or treat” is perhaps the oddest and most American addition to Halloween and is the unwilling contribution of English Catholics.

During the penal period of the 1500s to the 1700s in England, Catholics had no legal rights. They could not hold office and were subject to fines, jail and heavy taxes. It was a capital offense to say Mass, and hundreds of priests were martyred.

Occasionally, English Catholics resisted, sometimes foolishly. One of the most foolish acts of resistance was a plot to blow up the Protestant King James I and his Parliament with gunpowder. This was supposed to trigger a Catholic uprising against the oppressors. The ill-conceived Gunpowder Plot was foiled on November 5, 1605, when the man guarding the gunpowder, a reckless convert named Guy Fawkes, was captured and arrested. He was hanged; the plot fizzled.

November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, became a great celebration in England, and so it remains. During the penal periods, bands of revelers would put on masks and visit local Catholics in the dead of night, demanding beer and cakes for their celebration: trick or treat!

Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English settlers. But by the time of the American Revolution, old King James and Guy Fawkes had pretty much been forgotten. Trick or treat, though, was too much fun to give up, so eventually it moved to October 31, the day of the Irish-French masquerade. And in America, trick or treat wasn’t limited to Catholics.

The mixture of various immigrant traditions we know as Halloween had become a fixture in the United States by the early 1800s. To this day, it remains unknown in Europe, even in the countries from which some of the customs originated.

But what about witches? Well, they are one of the last additions. The greeting card industry added them in the late 1800s. Halloween was already “ghoulish,” so why not give witches a place on greeting cards? The Halloween card failed (although it has seen a recent resurgence in popularity), but the witches stayed.

So too, in the late 1800s, ill-informed folklorists introduced the jack-o’-lantern. They thought that Halloween was Druidic and pagan in origin. Lamps made from turnips (not pumpkins) had been part of ancient Celtic harvest festivals, so they were translated to the American Halloween celebration.

The next time someone claims that Halloween is a cruel trick to lure your children into devil worship, I suggest you tell them the real origin of All Hallows Eve and invite them to discover its Christian significance, along with the two greater and more important Catholic festivals that follow it.

Father Augustine Thompson, O.P.Father Augustine Thompson, O.P., is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. BA, MA, The Johns Hopkins University; BA (Philosophy), MDiv, Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology; PhD, University of California, Berkeley; STM, Order of Preachers, 2007.

As an Irishman, that above is most interesting Matthew. The only thing of awareness to me on this night is the joy it brings to kids dressing up and getting a few sweets. My two granschildren have just gone out with their mums, one as spiderman, the other as a bumble-bee.
Holloween is followed by two great Catholic days, all saints and all souls. as kids we used compete with each other to see who got the most souls out of Purgatory. How could the Devil create such a time?

Around where I live, it's the heretics who bemoan Halloween and call it a "made up" holiday.  Thus, it can't be all bad...