Also, how is halloween celebrated differently today than it was historically. 10 points to the winner!!!

1) Halloween is largely a recycled pagan celebration. The Encarta Encyclopedia says, "According to the Celtic pagan religion, known as Druidism, the spirits of those who had died in the preceding year roamed the earth on Samhain evening. The Celts sought to ward off these spirits with offerings of food and drink. The Celts also built bonfires at sacred hilltop sites and performed rituals, often involving human and animal sacrifices, to honor Druid deities.” The ancient Celtic culture believed that on the evening of October 31, the barriers between the human and supernatural realms were weakened, and it was thought to be the most favorable time for divinations and fortune telling (for the Druids to make predictions about the future). I read that during the celebration, they wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and this seems to be where the tradition of dressing up for Halloween came from. By A.D. 43, the Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. The Romans then blended local Samhain customs with their own pagan harvest festival honoring Pomona, goddess of fruit trees. Some scholars have suggested that the game of bobbing for apples derives from this. Some believe bobbing for apples was originally a form of divination (fortune telling) to learn of future marriages—the first person to bite an apple was predicted to be the first to marry in the coming year.

2) Then the Catholic church got a hold of the holiday. As the Encarta Encyclopedia further says: “The Roman Catholic Church often incorporated modified versions of older religious traditions in order to win converts. For example, Pope Gregory IV sought to replace Samhain with All Saints’ Day in 835. All Souls’ Day, closer in spirit to Samhain and modern Halloween, was first instituted at a French monastery in 998 and quickly spread throughout Europe.” And so, in an attempt to Christianize this pagan event with a church-sanctioned holiday, they moved the old Christian feast of All Saints’ Day (a day commemorating all the “saints” of the church) from May 13 to November 1. And November 2 was later made All Soul’s Day (a day to commemorate all the departed who are thought to be in purgatory). And so October 31 was set aside as a holy evening, known as All Hallows Eve (“hallows” speaking of the holy ones or saints—the evening before All Saints’ Day), which then became “Halloween.” And churches began staging pageants in which people dressed up as saints or demons—which seems to have added to the dressing up tradition.

3) Trick-or-treating most likely dates back to early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor people would beg for food. Families would then give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. Children eventually took on this tradition, known as “going-a-souling” or “souling” and they would visit houses in their neighborhood for drinks, food, and money (a practice mentioned in Shakespear’s writings).

4) People have been making jack o’ lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish folktale about a man nicknamed “Stingy Jack.” He was not allowed into either heaven or hell because of his trickery. So, according to the story, the devil gave Jack a glowing piece of coal placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to light his way at night as he roamed the face of the earth. He was later called “Jack of the Lantern” which was shortened to “Jack o' Lantern.” So, in Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into large turnips and placing them in windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o’lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States, and they soon found that pumpkins made much better jack o'lanterns than large turnips.

5) The modern observances of Halloween in America are probably more recent than you might expect. It was pretty much rejected at first, but the holiday had a rebirth in America between the late 19th and early 20th centuries because of the influx of Irish immigrants (many fleeing Ireland’s potato famine) who came over and helped popularize Halloween traditions. They brought with them traditions that combined features of the Celtic and Christian holidays. But as belief in many of the old superstitions waned during the late 19th century, Halloween was increasingly regarded as a children’s holiday. To millions of Americans, Halloween is not celebrating Samhain or All Hallows Eve. Yes, Halloween came from paganism through Catholicism, but it has turned (for the most part) into a national American holiday.

Halloween is the holiday that worships the most beautiful, sensual, and wonderful Goddess named Mayzie!

I understand there are different viewpoint on this???

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day 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. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

For my US history class, we have to dress up as an "idea" such as "the missouri compromise." How would you suggest that i dress up for the missouri compromise, or if you dont know, you can suggest an idea of a past historical event that i should dress up as.

THANKS!!

dress as the boston tea party!

http://www.buycostumes.com/Tea-Party-Hostess-Adult-Costume/19909/ProductDetail.aspx?REF=AFC-datafeed&AID=10273928&PID=2100672&SID=-sc29030284

http://www.buycostumes.com/Teapot-Adult-Costume/32707/ProductDetail.aspx

http://www.anythingcostumes.com/testeys-tea-bag-costume.html

Halloween is a celebration honoring the death of the sun god in ancient pagan religions. This is when the final harvests are taken and stored and it was and still is by some believed to be the day when the barrier between our world and the hereafter blurs, and the dead's spirits would come back to visit their families. Some would leave out extra food at the table for their guests, for it was considered rude to not welcome your ancestors' visit. This was seen as good luck.

Nowadays, neo-paganism celebrates it under many of its old names from a variety of ancient pagan traditions, most commonly it is called Samhain (pronounced "SAM-wen"). It is called the witches' new year and is a day for honoring the end of the growing season and nature's bounty as well as a day to honor one's ancestors. It is, in a sense, a death festival, but with the promise of rebirth on the horizon. The death is temporary and the sun god is reborn on the winter solstice (Yule) but that's a completely seperate holiday. Life is seen as a cycle and treated as such, so death, while sad, is not some terrifying thing to be feared. It is honored, like birth, on Halloween/All Hallow's Eve/ Samhain/etc.

Granted there has been lots of modern era influence, such as Christian superstitions fed into it, as well as other urban myths that have evolved into the mainstream Halloween we see marketed today. It is not to worship Satan, but to honor the end of the growing season and to reflect on the reality of death and await the coming of new life. The costumes come from the Central American holiday Day of the Dead. The revelers would dress up in elaborate costumes in the fashion of their ancestors to honor them and still practice it to this day.

Personally, as a pagan, I view it in its revamped form which was salvaged from the remnants of what it once was. BUT, that certainly doesn't stop me from dressing up and giving little kids candy =D