candystripper
Posts: 3486
Joined: 11/1/2005
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quote:
I feel this way every Halloween and Easter, as the least thoughtful and angriest parts of my faith rise up in inconsistent and wicked fury. As a Christian who has a Hellenic and Pagan* cultural heritage, Easter Eggs and Halloween masks don't make me shit my pants in distress. Like CS Lewis and Tolkien I honor my Pagan and Hellenic roots - I think they were given for a reason. Lewis felt that one people were given the Word, and other peoples were given stories and images - that resonates with me. Well, I'm a descendent of the peoples who got the stories. I like 'em, and there is no reason to disavow them.
Faramir
If i remember correctly, the History Channel show described a holiday around Nov 1st or October 31st as occuring in most cultures -- perhaps only western ones, not sure -- since the beginning of recorded time. The Christian/Catholic Church, as it spread throughout Europe, at first tried "co-opting" the Pagans by "consecrating" their traditions and places of worship, and this included what became two Catholic Holy Days; Nov 1st, All Saints' Day; and Nov 2nd, All Souls' Day. However one of the popes during the 14th century (i believe the date is right) became frustrated by the fact that Pagans were still around and began attacking their priestesses as devil-worshippers, burning them at the stake or otherwise disposing of them. Other sects were just as guilty, and the last such frenzy was the Salem Witch Trials, in which some 16 or so women were found guilty and hanged and -- in one especially gruesome event -- crushed to death by stones.
However, the holiday was celebrated in the Americas by other Christian sects at the same time as the Salem Witch Trials, and eventually lost any religious meaning as the country moved into the Industrial Age. In the 1950's and 1960's, the holiday was celebrated mainly by children, trick or treating. The "razor in the apple" scare in the 1970's has changed that to a degree; some parents only take their children to the homes of close neighbors, or have their candy x-rayed.
As we moved to the current Age, the holiday is primarially an adult one, with parades and Haunted Houses...and children still trick or treat. i was shocked to hear Halloween is the second biggest cash cow holiday for retailers, with only Xmas leading the way. Some Chrisitian sects have sought to provide their followers with a Halloween of sorts; setting up "Hell Houses" meant to illustrate the wages of sin by showing people being tormented...as if in Hell.
The show did not touch on this, but i have a family member who teaches school here. Halloween is concealed as a "Fall Festival" and children are allowed little in the way of costumes. The first-grade exerience we had of cutting out black cats and bats from construction paper and decorating the school room is long gone, killed off by someone's hyper-sensitivity.
One thing the show made quite clear -- the holiday is much too beloved to ever die off altogether, no matter how it may morph, and for Pagans today it has lost none of its mystical and cherished meaning.
candystripper
< Message edited by candystripper -- 11/1/2005 7:23:02 PM >
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Happy Halloween - 
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