CrossCurrents A Catholic Reflects on Faith in Our Times

# 154 Bernard F. Swain, Ph.D. www.CrossCurrents.us

Spooked by the Season

I hate to admit this, but Halloween has me spooked. Halloween 2006 has made me realize that I have completely lost track of what is happening to this seasonal observance. It looks like, when it comes to October 31, I have been asleep at the wheel the last 20 years!

I don’t really know what the current trends mean, or what I think of them. The best I can do is share with you the state of my confusion. Perhaps that will help both you and me.

Until now I’ve mostly assumed that Halloween had not changed much since my childhood. As a kid, I’d go trick-or-treating with parents or siblings or with friends. I also remember annual visits to my grandparents’ house, bobbing for apples and helping my grandfather make homemade doughnuts. Generally, my costumes were homemade and relatively simple: a hobo, a clown, a cowboy.

In the 1980s-90s, my kids lived Halloween in similar fashion: homemade costumes, neighborhood trick-or-treating, simple activities. And while new dangers (like embedded razor blades) cut back on trick-or-treating for a while, our neighborhood has seen a recent resurgence, so the local celebration reminds me more of what I knew as a child.

But it seems I wasn’t really paying attention. Since 1980 “Halloween fever” has transformed a minor observance for the entertainment of children into a major cultural event for grownups. More than once lately I’ve heard adults say “Halloween is my favorite holiday.”

Cable television has a round-the-clock schedule of horror movies; “Saw III” (the latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre) is #1 at the box office, costume stores do a booming business, and every bar in town has its own costume contest.

Madison Wisconsin had to close off streets to prevent a repeat of 2005’s rioting when more than 100,000 gathered downtown. Salem, Massachusetts (“Witch City,” population: 40,000) saw more than 60,000 revelers this year.

All of which makes me wonder: how did we get here, and how I should think about it?

It turns out that Halloween has evolved much like Christmas and other pagan celebrations: what began as pagan feast was later “baptized” and adapted to a Christian world view, giving new meaning to the observance while obscuring its non-Christian origins. But a third stage has now emerged, whereby “baptized” celebrations get “commercialized” by consumer/capitalist culture in a way that obliterates both their pagan roots and their Christian meaning.

Take the example of Christmas. Like much of pagan religion, the original observance celebrated a seasonal fact – namely, the winter solstice. Thus the Roman feast of “Sol Invictus” (the invincible sun) marked the late-December phenomenon of days beginning to grow longer, celebrating their promise of spring and renewed life.

Christians chose December 25^th to celebrate the birthday of Jesus, not because they had some historical record of the actual date of his birth (they did not), but because it seemed a perfect substitute: in place of “the invincible son,” Christians offered “the eternal son of god.”

Of course, it’s no secret that modern America has totally transformed formed Christmas into the major commercial event of the year. Our culture has become so dependent on the “holidays” spending orgy that our economy would collapse without it.

It seems obvious that Halloween is following the same pattern as Christmas (except: while capitalism has turned Christmas into a thing for kids, it has made Halloween a thing for grownups!) Lots of people today think of it as a “national holiday,” though it is not a legal holiday and there is nothing American about its beginnings. But it is now #2 among all “holidays” in spending: more than $16 billion last year.

In fact, Halloween began among the druid and Celtic peoples of the British Isles:

The origins of Halloween date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, meaning "summers end.” Nov.1 marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. The Celts believed that on the night before, the veil between the worlds of the living and dead became thin. They believed that the spirits of the dead could return to Earth. They considered this to be the time to pay homage to their departed ancestors. --Nick Critchlow

It was not until Christians “baptized” the observance that we got the name “Hallowe’en.” Christians decided to use November 1 to remember our departed faith-heroes: “All Saints (ALL HALLOWS) Day.” Gradually a three-holy-day custom called “Hallowmas” developed: November 2 became “All Souls Day” (in memory of the more “ordinary” departed), and October 31 became “All Hallows Eve” – then shortened to Hallowe’en.

The idea was to replace the older pagan observance, but many of its roots remained. Hence the symbols of ghosts and goblins, witches on brooms, pumpkins and cats, as the twin autumn features of Harvest and Death continued to “haunt” the observance.

In recent years, there seem to be two reactions to this cultural history.

On the one hand, some Christians who think of themselves as traditionalists have moved to reject (or at least protest against) Hallowe’en altogether precisely because of its pagan roots. In some cases, they even confuse it with “Satanism” or devil worship,” partly because of a tendency to confuse any personification of “death” with the devil.

In other cases, Christians simply feel that any Christian sense of Hallowe’en is lost or is not worth saving. They regard the new “Halloween Fever” as too pagan, too profane, too adult (and sometimes too gay!).

But perhaps the other reaction is more significant, as we see millions of Americans embracing Halloween as the beginning of a three-month-long “holiday season” that runs from the end of October until Super Bowl Sunday.

The actual celebration of Halloween by adults amounts mostly to a kind of costumed craziness that could just as well take place on Mardi Gras (another orgiastic event built alongside a Christian observance, “Lent”). I find myself wondering why adults even need an excuse for a costume party. It’s perfectly reasonable to one to disguise oneself and get a little crazy – but why wait a half the year for the opportunity? Why do people need Halloween at all?

Or is there something a bit more sinister at stake in our popular culture’s fascination with horror, fright, and death? Undoubtedly, we’ve had frightening times for 100 years: World War I followed by Depression followed by World War II followed by the Cold War and Vietnam and Cold War again and then the War on Terror and the Iraq invasion. Should we wonder that people gravitate to fictional frights to escape real world horror?

Frankly, I don’t really know what to make of Halloween anymore, except as one more example of the dumbing down of a popular culture that was rich in historical and human symbols but has been reduced now mainly to one more spending spree. Could it be history’s revenge: what Christianity once did to paganism, Capitalism has now done to Christianity?

When I started out in church work, troubled by the trend to commercialize Christmas, I wrote an article for parish catechists proposing that we “Give Christmas Back to the Pagans.” Now I think it’s too late for that, because I don’t think Christians really control Christmas anymore. And it looks like the same thing has happened to Halloween.

Perhaps it’s time for Christians to acknowledge that we no longer control the symbols of popular culture. If so, we must face up to the responsibility of celebrating our own symbols as a richer, more meaningful alternative to the newly dominant ones.

For me, that doesn’t mean giving up on Halloween entirely – we will still be at the door for trick-or-treaters–but it does mean I will adopt a new and more cynical view with adults who seriously think it’s the “biggest holiday” of the year. They can’t scare me!

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2006

Send Your Comments and Questions to bfswain@juno.com

Dr. Swain’s opinions do not represent the views of this parish or any other official body.

Bernie Swain has devoted more than 30 years to adult spiritual formation in dioceses in the US, Canada, and France. Since 1991 he has maintained a private practice as trainer, teacher, and consultant to leaders in parishes and other religious organizations. He holds degrees in theology and political science from Holy Cross, Harvard, The University of Paris, and The University of Chicago.

His writings include Liberating Leadership (Harper & Row, 1986) and more than 200 articles in periodicals such as The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, The Miami Herald, The Catholic Free Press, The Pilot, Harvard Theological Review, and Liturgy.

A lifelong layperson, he lives in Boston with his wife and three children. Visit his website at:

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