Don’t Let Your Kids Celebrate a Religion of Evil

( American Daily ) - Do you want your children and grandchildren involved in a celebration of demons and witchcraft? Halloween is not innocent fun with costumes and candy, as many believe. You may be surprised by the roots of this religious holiday.

Where to start with something as completely wrong as this is a really difficult question. What needs to be remembered is that the christians built Halloween out of demonized elements of the Festival of Samhain, one of the 4 major (sometimes termed) Pagan fire festivals… a celebration was been taken over by the christians and remodeled by them to include the demons, and the evil spirits, and the satanists (who are really nothing more than the antithesis of christianity) who are late comers into the game with whatever it is that they do.

• Halloween is not a religious holiday
• Druids were not “Pagan Priests”, Druids were the learned class of people. They spent years learning the law, studying history, studying the science of the day, and studying nature - they were the lawyers and the judges of society, in addition to being spiritual persons who could interpret the intents and wishes of deity. While they would have over-seen major spiritual rituals and events “priest”s they were not.
• During Samhain it is said that the division between this world and the Otherworld is thinner than at other times of the year, a time when interaction between the two is said to be easier and more productive. The idea of horrific ghosts and goblins coming out of their graves to seek the warmth of their homes as part of this is a completely christian construct. In fact many Pagans will place a full plate of food on the table for any of their ancestors to partake of should they happen by - why would one fear the spirit of an honoured and loved ancestor?
• The urban mythology, that includes kids drugged by satanists with candy apples and infants being spirited out of their cribs for a human sacrifice under the full moon by a coven of evil witches in a graveyard is basically that - urban lore, and I have not seen any verifiable evidence that this has actually happened and challenge the believers of such tripe to reply with links to reputable news sources backing up their claims with hard evidence.
• The burning of buildings and out-buildings on Halloween is done by idiots, gangs, and other ner-do-wells…. I challenge anyone to provide evidence that these acts of destruction and violence are in any way connected with Pagan practices.
• The “Halloween fertility rituals” is far less than accurate - Pagan fertility rituals would be held during either Imbolic (in February) or Beltaine (in May)… oh no !! Don’t have anything to do with Groundhogs Day which has it’s roots in Imbolic or let your kids run around the May Pole which has connections to Beltaine - they’re both Pagan in origin to !! GASP !!
• The idea of children dressing up was part of the general Samhain practice of “stepping outside the norm” for a little while during the ‘time of no time’ (adults did it was well), as was the practice of children going door to door asking for treats. I have seen no historical evidence that prechristian people dressed up in costumes to scare away demons or that they left treats so the dead would not destroy their crops - another christian construct.
• The pumpkin thing is really funny considering that pumpkins are not native to Europe meaning that any “ancient” use of them is completely impossible…. unless of course the author got their information from Monroe’s “The 21 Lessons of Merlyn: A Study in Druid Magic and Lore” that references “pumpkin trees” and the dread lord Samhain. A book, by the way, which has been shown to be just about as inaccurate as a book on the subject could possibly be and is generally referred to as “The 21 Lessons of Hogwash” by folk who know anything at all about the subject material.

It is interesting to note that when the fundies start up their evil propaganda machine they do not bother either (a) looking any further into historical practice than what they want to see, and (b) do not bother back up their claims with any sort of statistics.

The idea that the Pagan roots of Halloween are at all evil, are primarily concerned with demons, evil spirits, satanism, human sacrifice, or an all consuming fear of the dead is complete christian fabrication. The fact is that the early church took a Pagan festival and demonized it as part of their conversion attempts - the tradition obviously continues to this very day.

(The content of this post came from an older pMachine incarnation of stageleft with a different hosting company - comments, if any, didn’t make it into the rebuild)