• Contrary to Christian criticism from many sources, Halloween did not originate as a Satanic festival, but was religious in nature (of course, the religion I am referring to is the Celtic faith of the ancient Druids rather than Christianity). This is an important distinction, for Halloween’s association with Satanic worship is a modern phenomenon. The Celts didn't worship the devil (or any god of death) on Halloween.

It is important to distinguish between paganism and Satanism. Pagans are people who believe in more than one god. Some modern day pagans call themselves Wiccans. [For more on Wicca and modern witchcraft see What is Witchcraft?] Pagans are quick to emphasize that they do not worship Satan or the devil. The devil is a Judeo-Christian concept, they say, because one has to believe in a single God to believe in God's opposite: "We do not accept the concept of 'absolute evil,' nor do we worship any entity known as 'Satan' or 'The Devil.'" (Drawing Down the Moon, pp. 103).

Celts were pagans, not Satanists. Of course, from a Christian standpoint both are in error. But to my mind there is a major difference between: (1) pagans (who have not heard the gospel) practicing a holiday containing fairies and elves and (2) Satanists (in rebellion against God) who sacrifice children to the devil. There is no original evidence to indicate that Samhain was any more Satanic than pagan harvest festivals of other religions, like the Romans or the Greeks.

• We have no evidence any where (from tradition, Celtic texts, or archaeology) that virgin princesses or any one else were being offered to the lord of death on Halloween.

There is general agreement that the Celts did in fact practice some form of human sacrifice or human execution, but this seems to have been limited to criminals, prisoners-of-war, or volunteers. (For more information on human sacrifice and the Druids see History of Halloween : Myths, Monsters and Devils.) We have no evidence that Druids practiced human sacrifice on Halloween (let alone sacrificed "virgin princesses".

• The pumpkin is a New World plant that never grew in Europe until modern times, so it couldn't have been used to make jack-o-lanterns by the Druids.

• There's zero evidence that the ancient Druids or their congregants ever dressed in costume or engaged in ritualized begging at harvest time. One Christian tract entitled Trick or Treat says:

The Druids went from house to house asking for a contribution to their demonic worship celebration. If a person didn't give, their trick was to kill him. The people feared the phrase "Trick or Treat."

This charge has been laid at the door step of the Celts so often that it's hard to believe there is no evidence for it, but there is absolutely none. Tad Tuleja (a folklore expert) writes:

An exhaustive Victorian survey of Irish calendar customs mentions divination games and apple bobbing as Halloween pastimes, but says nothing about food collection or a procession of "spirits."...On the question of masked begging at the Celtic New Year, authorities on the Druids do not say a word. (Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 83).

Where did costuming at Halloween come from? There is a lot of confusion on this point. But in spite of what you may have read in an encyclopedia or seen on the History Channel, I can find absolutely NO historical evidence of costumed begging among the Druids or as part of the Samhain festival.

We do have records of costumed processions in a much later time (Christian times), but these costumed processions were NOT limited to the Halloween holiday. They appear much more frequently at Christmas. The earliest actual historic practice seems to have been poor folk in masks and costumes going from house to house. They would put on a simple play or musical performance in return for food and drink. This practice is called mumming or guising and has no discernable connection to the Celts.

You may be surprised to learn that your parents or grandparents know nothing about costuming on Halloween. A reader sent me this email:

You mentioned in your article that the American custom came about in the 1930s as a reaction to vandalism. My parents were kids in New York City in those days, and I started looking for more info because of a comment my mom made on Halloween night. It seems that Halloween as we know it did not exist at the time--it was all pranks, as you mentioned (my mom mentioned taking gates off posts and moving outhouses, as you did, and my dad said that in the days of coal fuel there were big cans of ashes that the kids would tip over--a big mess).

The interesting part was that both of them said (Dad was born in 1924 and Mom in 1927) that each year as kids, they did go from door to door begging for food--but it was on Thanksgiving Day, not Halloween! My mom said that rather than "Trick or Treat!" their line at each door was "Anything for the poor? Anything for the poor?" They were given fruit, nuts, a cup of cider, or the occasional coin--that sort of thing.

This email is similar to conversations with my own father and mother (born 1928 and 1930 in western Pennsylvania), who told me that no one dressed in costumes or went door-to-door when they were children. There were lots of pranks on Halloween (some of which make great stories for the grandchildren), but they know nothing of dressing up. So where did costuming come from? That's a big question mark. Folklorist Tad Tuleja says that costume parties are frequently mentioned in the early decades of the 1900s (but nothing about going door-to-door in costume). The costume parties themselves seem to be an attempt to involve children in disciplined "fun" as opposed to destructive "fun."

• The actual phrase "trick or treat" is not Druidic! The earliest known reference in print dates only to 1938 in an article in the Los Angeles Times entitled "Halloween Pranks Plotted by Youngsters of Southland," Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California), October 30, 1938, p. A8: "Trick or treat!" is the Halloween hijacking game hundreds of Southern California youngsters will play tomorrow night as they practice streamlined versions of traditional Allhallows Eve pranks." The phrase is not recorded by the Merriam-Webster Company until 1941. And the term is actually American, not European (Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 47,86-90)!

It's not only the phrase that is American, the practice is too! In America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was a custom of playing pranks on Halloween. This custom appears to have come from immigrants from Ireland and Scotland which had a practice called Mischief Night. Favorite pranks included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates (Charles Panati, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things). The pleasant fiction was that such rambunctiousness was the work of "fairies," "elves," "witches" and "goblins" (Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 87). That's the "trick" part of Halloween.

The Halloween begging activity known as trick-or-treat comes from America in the 1930s, not the British Isles (for confirmation see A Letter from a MacDonald). The custom was intended to control and displace disruptive pranks.

Every year, right around Halloween, we are treated to an outpouring of literature making false statements about the origins of Halloween. (In years past, I even helped distribute this type of literature to my congregation.) But my research on this subject has found that the Christian Halloween literature is vastly mistaken. Christians are guilty of spreading falsehood (perhaps out of ignorance, but falsehood none the less). Believers do no service to God or to other Christians by creating very frightening fantasies masquerading as historical facts. Sloppy and improper scholarship makes Christians look deceitful. It also makes God appear deceptive to unbelievers.

What I am arguing for is accurate information, rather than falsehood. No, I'm not a "closet pagan." No, I'm not "a wolf in sheep's clothing." No, I haven't "bought into pagan propaganda." I'm a born-again, fundamentalist, Bible-believing, filled with the Spirit Christian (did I use enough labels?) trying to get at the historical truth.

At the Christian college I attended, I was taught that all truth was God's truth and that we don't need to fear truth -- whether it comes from secular, pagan, or Christian sources. Over a period of years I have been reading and talking with folklorists, historians, Christians, pagans, and people from Scotland and Ireland. The origins of Halloween are NOT what most Christian literature teaches. Sorry, no pumpkins with candles of human fat! Sorry, no human sacrifices by evil druids. Sorry, dressing up can't be historically connected to the Celts. Sorry, treat-or-treat is not a Satanist plot to captivate our children.

Interesting information. Many pagans went underground to protect themselves and their magicks from those who wanted them gone from their ever growing religious society. Many still protect their teachings from outsiders. I myself have taken an oath.

Interesting topic...

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