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Is halloween _pagan
- Thread starter Riders
- Start date
Google “Halloween and Samhain”,
then reach your own conclusion.
then reach your own conclusion.
I got whiplash between the thread title and to OP.
What does paganism have to do with churches?
What does paganism have to do with churches?
At some point in my life I need to spend an entire year in the northern hemisphere just to experience the major liturgical feasts in their proper season.
Halloween originated in Ireland and is linked to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, a pagan festival to welcome harvest. It was replaced in Christianity by All Saints.
To the titular question....
Halloween is whatever you want it to be.
To me it's a secular holiday about candy, costumes, & carnage.
Halloween is whatever you want it to be.
To me it's a secular holiday about candy, costumes, & carnage.
rocala
Well-Known Member
I don't know anything about Halloween but Samhain...
About ten years ago I was on an art course in an eco-village in Scotland. I saw a Samhain celebration in the local hall advertised but paid little attention. Another person on the course was interested, so I agreed to go with her.
There was singing and storytelling, all good stuff, and then the dancing. We were told only the first dance was compulsory, after that...
We formed a large circle, close to a hundred as I recall. Musicians, mostly drummers, were in the center. We were taught the dance, a few simple steps finishing with the right foot stamping forward. We all held hands, all sorts from kids to the elderly. The music started and the circle began to turn. Step, step, STAMP. People began to grunt as they stamped and the grunts became louder and longer. Some became roars. Something was happening, we were putting every ounce of energy into this. The music, the thud of feet, and the voices, it was exhilarating, it was liberating.
It came to an end, there was some more dancing but I could only watch. We were then asked to follow some people through an exit. We went out into the pitch dark, this was a rural area. As we assembled, people with torches or burning wood, illuminated a path towards the seashore.
As we reached the end of the path we saw a huge pile of wood. A priestess gave a service that concerned not only the passing of the seasons but the dead too.
The wood was set ablaze and the music began, the celebration continued. It was without doubt one of the most impressive times of my life. If I was not pagan at the beginning, I certainly was at the end.
And a jolly good time was had by all...
It is pagan, if you have it like a pagan.
Augustus
…
Googling issues like this tends to lead to reading lots of pop culture myths about them that are easy to find on mass market sites.
Move past myths about druids and Irish festivals of the dead and the actual history is somewhat different.
Samhain wasn't a festival of the dead, although end of (agricultural) year/pre-winter is a fairly natural time to think about spirits or death/mortality due to winter being a deadly season in pre-modern times.
Christians have pretty much always celebrated saints and martyrs, and days for all saints moved around the calendar. Samhain is unlikely to be the origin of the current All Saints Day though as the tradition for that date started in the Germanic world, not the Celtic.
Ronald Hutton:
Charlemagne’s favourite churchman Alcuin was keeping [All Saint Day on 1 November by 800 AD], as were also his friend Arno, bishop of Salzburg, and a church in Bavaria. Pope Gregory [IV], therefore, was endorsing and adopting a practice which had begun in northern Europe. It had not, however, started in Ireland, where the Felire of Oengus and the Martyrology of Tallaght prove that the early medieval churches celebrated the feast of All Saints upon 20 April. This makes nonsense of [the] notion that the November date was chosen because of ‘Celtic’ influence
So unless the German Christians were ripping off an Irish festival as a marketing ploy while Irish Christians were completely oblivious as to the plan, Samhain is not the origin.
The answer is the same for all of these “X is pagan” myths, there may be some cultural commonalities as is to be expected, but these are largely overstated and do not equate to pagan origins.
The idea that unless something appeared entirely out of a vacuum then it must be “pagan” is inane.
I am continually annoyed that so many cannot grasp this simple point. Pre-Christian European paganism is dead. It has been dead for a thousand years. Easter, Christmas, Halloween, etc. are Christian holidays with Christian rationales. That some cultural traditions associated with each corresponding holiday may have pre-Christian origins does not in itself make [insert holiday] pagan.
No one argues that using the Latin alphabet makes one a pagan. No one claims that an English speaker worships Odin every time they utter the word Wednesday. So even if a pre-Christian Halloween equivalent existed, that alone does not change the Christian rationnel for Allhallowtide as it actually exists now.
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I've attended several Samhain circles, and while "festival of the dead" is not an entirely accurate description, it is a time where those who have passed are remembered and celebrated, and there are rituals surrounding this.
That said, Samhain is not a day to commemorate Christian martyrs, so it's unclear to me if this day of remembrance inspired All Saints Day, or if the remembrance of loved ones is a spill-back from All Saint's Day's commemoration of Christian Martyrs.
But primarily, Samhain marks the final harvest of the year.
At the end of the day, does it really matter where Halloween came from? Celebrations today neither commemorate Christian martyrs nor family members who have passed.
True, but there are those that have undergone great effort to learn about these religious practices. This is why we have revival religions today.
Of course not. Using elder futhark runes does.
I was dabbling in the Arabic script a few hours ago. I should stop lest my growing mastery of the script inadvertently turns me into a Muslim.Of course not. Using elder futhark runes does.
Catholic vigils do, as do Anglican services. Many people go but prefer not to associate it with modern commercial Halloween.
It's been 40+ years since I've gone to mass regularly, but I remember doing this regularly, not just on All Saints Day. But yeah, I never connected the practice with Halloween.
Halloween (All Hallows' Eve) itself is the eve of All Saints' Day (1 November) when all the saints are commemorated. After All Saints' is All Souls' Day (2 November) which commemorates all who have died.
wellwisher
Well-Known Member
Christianity became the official religion of Rome in the 4th century AD. This concession by Rome was done to honor the Christian Soldiers of Rome, who were Rome's most fearless in battle.
Up to that time, Rome allowed conquered territories to maintain their religions and customs, as a way to make them easier to control. The cultures would be allowed to self govern, as before, with some oversight by Rome. This way Rome did not need standing armies to force feed them. Rome could bribe a few top officials and the rest would fall in line, since there was little disruption to their former ways. By then Christianity was no longer a target.
When the Rome Catholic Church was established by Rome, Rome tried to take an average of the different religions of the empire, with several concessions to long standing traditions and pagan holidays. This did not impact the basic teachings of Jesus; love your neighbor and God, but rather allowed a bridge for Christianity, so it could be taught throughout the empire; shared holidays among neighbors.
Halloween or October 31, is short for All Hallowed Eve or the evening before All Saints Day, which is celebrated on November 1. Halloween is a day of remembrance for everyone else, who may not be a Saint. The next, day the cream of the crop is honored.
On Halloween, everyone gets honored at some level, no matter what you may look like and no matter your quirks. One gets to be themself or their fantasy self, and not have to pretend and tow the social line. It honors the spirits of the past and present. Adults get to be children again, which is spirit of their past, no longer with them.