The Pagan Origins of Familiar Halloween Rituals
Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, has its roots in ancient Celtic festivals, particularly Samhain, a pagan festival marking the end of the harvest season and the onset of winter. Samhain was believed to be a liminal time, a moment when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead grew thin, allowing spirits to pass through.
Halloween is no longer a time for remembrance, but it still reveals our need to enter liminal spaces: those moments when we're standing on the breach of fear and delight, and those times when we wish that the veil between the living and the dead would lift for a while. But most of all, it hints at the winter to come, opening the door to the dark
... See moreThis was a liminal moment in the calendar: a time between two worlds, and between two phases of the year, when worshippers were just about to cross a boundary but hadn't yet done so. Samhain was a way of marking that ambiguous moment when you didn't know who you were about to become, or what the future would hold. It was a celebration of limbo.
Our
... See moreOctober 31st is known as one of two ‘spirit nights’, the other being Beltane. A magical interval when the laws of time and space are suspended, Samhein Eve sees the veil between worlds at its thinnest, facilitating communication between ancestors and departed loved ones.
In an overly digitized world, people embrace with intensity the few remaining ritualistic activities available to them. Halloween gets turned into something extravagant—not just for children anymore, but adults too. The same is true of Valentine’s Day or Mardi Gras and other ritualized occasions. They are pushed to extremes because people have so... See more