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The Origins of Halloween
by Michel Archer

Ghouls, monsters, skeletons! We've heard many times that Halloween is not a Christian event and I quite agree.
We have had it explained to us how everything from jack-o-laterns to trick-or-treating began as demonic practices.

In short, already know that Halloween is a huge, evil, Death-Fest. No argument. It's the greatest day on the occult calendar, the witches High-Sabbath, but where did it come from?

Historians can quite easily point to the British Isles as its point of origin. The Celts held a celebration at that time in honor of Samhain, their death-god. They believed that the line between the spirit and the natural world grew thin that night and the dead could step through from their world into this. Jack-o-laterns were lighted as watchmen against these spirits, and treats were given out to hold off and appease these souls. (http://www.vintonenterprises.com/il...halloween3.html) (http://bilderberg.stagyro.org/sacrific.htm)
(http://www.christiansunite.com/halloween.shtml)

Some things about this description do not fit with the perspective of modern historians. Some have tried to excuse Halloween as a 'harvest-festival.' But in Great Britain, the harvest is more than finished by the end of October and its already cold. Others say the date for the harvest fest changed with the Gregorian calendar. So? A change in calendar doesn't change the physical reality of harvest's end. Another school of thought suggests that these early Celts realized that the coming of winter meant death was on the way and they wanted to appease their gods in hopes of still being around in the spring.

That might work, however, there are hundreds of similar celebrations at the same time, all over the world. Even in places which are toasty warm in October, like Mexico and Egypt. So two questions: why are there so many death festivals, and why do they happen about the same time?

I think I can account for Halloween in Great Britain, which might explain the occurance of Halloween elsewhere. The key is in a similar activity: the Celtic pratice of sometimes spreading blood around buildings and door posts to 'bless' a building or to keep death away. (www.keithhunt.com)(I tested the original post I placed here and it did not seem to work. However, if you go to keithhunt.com and put the word 'druid' in his 'search section, you will find a rather weighty text that draws many more parallels between Druidic/Celtic practices and Judaism than I took time to mention here.)

It sounds like a perverted version of the Passover. How on earth would Celts hear about that?

The Exodus occured approximately 1400 B.C. and given that the events in Egypt surrounding the flight of the Jews were catastrophic, I'm sure stories of it travelled far and wide. There was certainly time for news of the events to spread through-out what is now Europe. So the earliest Celts could have heard about Jewish cutoms that way.

However, they could have also heard it from their 'spiritual leaders.' At the time, those would have been the Druids. And who were they?

It's difficult to say, because as every historian, and his or her mother, will say, 'the Druids didn't write about themselves because they held to an oral tradition.' And this is repeated as if it were some grand, wonderful, thing. However, it isn't as if alphabets didn't exist, so why only a spoken history?

There may be a few reasons: perhaps the information was something they wished to keep secret, i.e. their history may have been too valuable or so terrible they did not wish for a more permanent record. Or, they may have been just too dumb to write things down. However, according to the records, the Druids especially, were highly intelligent, well-studied, people....who never wrote anything.

So we have to trace them geographically. The net is full of Halloween apologists who insist the Druids were natives of the British Isles and then moved out to Gaul, Denmark, Rome, etc..from there. However, there are other historians who place the Druids chronologically in the middle orient and Europe, before they EVER saw the northern countries.

There are reports of Druids in Rome as early as 300 BC and as late as 6 A.D. Before that, there seems to be little mention of them in the area. However, about the same time they are in Rome, another religious group, one from the east, is quite notably taking up residence and spreading their philosophy. The other group is the Magi, but not the ones who stayed in Babylon to see the advent of Christ.

The Magi were of two different stripes. One group followed the teachings of a priest named Zoaster and held to the belief that there was one God who created the heavens and the earth. The Roman Magi were Sun-worshipper's who believed that nature-begat-nature. They believed little gods inhabited physical objects causing animation, they certainly did not believe in God as a single Creator. (Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed, American Christian Press, 'Who Were the Magi?')(Huart, C 'Ancient Persia and Iranian Civilization, London, 1927) (Higgins, Godfrey, 'The Celtic Druids,' chapter 5, Kessinger Publishing, 1829)

They may have been pagans, but they no doubt had heard something of Jewish tradition. In fact, there would have still been a number of the pantheistic Magi in Babylon around 345-300 B.C. This means they could have known or at least heard of four particular Jewish youths: Shadrach, Meshach, Abendego and Daniel. And if you'll recall, these four men were eventually put in charge of the kings advisors, (the Magi) and a number of those advisors hated and resented their Jewish leaders and even plotted against them. However, despite their feelings, they would certainly listened to the story of the Jewish people, if for no other reason than to search for 'ammunition.'

I could see them picking up on the concept of 'blood on door posts=death passing over,' and working it into their own beliefs.

The pantheistic Magi left Babylon and spread out into Rome and points farther north. Because these Magi disappear the same time the Druids seem to come on the scene, they could be one in the same or the Druids could be an off-shoot of the old Magian religion. The tiny bit we know about Druid beliefs tells us that they worshipped nature,(like the Magi) but believed gods inhabited our surroundings(ditto for the Magi) and they believed in an after-life.(a belief held by Zoasterian Magi) Which sounds like a mixture of their own pantheistic roots, with a dose of Zoasterism. And since they also believed blood on the door posts caused death to pass by, along with many other OT traditions we'd have to throw a big pinch of Judaism, too. And they brought these beliefs to the Celts of Great Britian.

If this is the case, then fine....But it still doesn't explain how or why all of this would come together on October 31 and why that date is kept so universally.

Well, why do people keep certain days for special events etc..? Often it's to commerate a past occurence or to honor a certain group or idea. Like Thanksgiving recalls a special day of thanks from early America. And Father's Day honors Dads. And lately we have a ton of 'idea' observances, like "Be kind to Everbody Day," "Pat Your Favorite Dog Day," it gets crazy.

Halloween is the anniversary of an event which touched the entire world on October 31st. To see what that even was, we need to check the Bible.

Genesis 7:11

"In the sixth hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."

And the flood began, wiping out all life on earth except for Noah and his family. The Bible even gives us the very day it happened, we just don't understand it in this form. Let's take it apart.

"..in the second month..." To find the second month, we need to find the first month. After the Exodus, the first month on the Jewish calendar became Nisan, a spring time month. However, in Noah's time the calendar began with the month Tishri which corresponds roughly to our September/October. Tishri holds huge amounts of meaning which we will discuss at another time, but suffice to say, despite the change, people still understood it as the 'beginning.' Even in the time of the gospels, the first of Tishri was still used as the beginning of the civil calendar, the way we have a fiscal year. People took care of business then, such as paying taxes.

So Tishri was the first month, which made Cheshvan the second month (approx. October/Novemeber.)

If you've noticed, dates for Jewish observances on our modern calendars change from year to year. For instance, the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah (Tishri 1), can take place any time in September and sometimes late into October. This is because they keep a lunar calendar, which causes all the shifting. So I believe the year the flood began, the 17th day of the second month, corresponded to October 31st.

This would explain why the date is so attached to death. The evil ones among us look back fondly on the day their own were devoured. A Wiccan told me that when people are killed their 'life-force' is released and that on October 31st, "...you can almost feel the force of everyone who ever lived! It's so exciting!" And that person had no clue to the Noatian flood date. And it explains why death celebrations are so prevalent at that time because the flood touched everyone at the same time.

So this year instead of getting out there and celebrating how great it is that humanity almost ended, perhaps we could make an effort to look for one soul to save from the horror of oblivion.

Some other books and websites used in the writing of this article:

The Companion Bible, EW Bullinger

Carter, GW, 'Zoasterism and Judaism.' New York: AMS Press, 1970

Sepharial. 'The World Horoscope: Hebrew Astrology. London, W Foulsham & Co., 1965

World Book Encyclopedia, articles on Halloween, Druids, Magi

www.jeremiahproject.com/halloween.html

www.holidays.net/halloween/story.html

www.geocites.com/Athens/Forum/7280/samhain.html

www.bright.net/~seek/halloween.html

www.wilster.net/holiday/halloween.html

http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/halloween/

YOU CAN REACH MICHEL ARCHER AT: Michele501@msn.com