Halloween has suffered from more persecution than other public celebrations in the United States. Normally, the persecution comes from the religious communities in the different states. The focus is often the so-called ‘satanic’ overtones of the celebration.

Taking a closer look at the oppression

Today, it is not so easy to comprehend what “satanic” stands for according to these small religious groups. To shed a little light, the western Christian belief considered anything that did not appear Christian-like as demonic.

Picture this — anything unknown or outside of the circle was considered evil. It’s the same as looking outside at the endless skyline from a small room. This unconquered vista is seen as dangerous and, according to such beliefs, evil. This can be established by analyzing how the portrayal of evil has changed through time.

Complete removal?

Due to irreligious Halloween schemes such as various images considered irreverent and demonic, religious authorities have been wanting to completely eradicate Halloween celebrations in schools.

Rationally, if you’re operating with this hypothetical agenda, then kids who wear devilish costumes are encompassed by the devil’s army. Quite ridiculous, but religious communities have a very large following.

Secular Reaction

Then again, not everybody is a fan of the conventional, extreme religious Right. And as stated in the newspaper The Atlanta Constitution:

“Halloween may have begun as a pagan festival, but in the United States it was now a festival of fun, feasts, fancy frocks, and frivolous fright. Ours is not just a Christian nation, but a nation born from the search of religious freedom. Let the kids have some fun.”

Halloween was salvaged from unreasonable renouncement and discrimination, thanks to this firm and vital assessment.

Dousing the fire

In their failure to eradicate Halloween, religious groups tried using other measures to be entitled to dictate how Halloween should be celebrated. These groups can be considered regressive, in short, they may have wanted something but didn’t know exactly how to get it.

They react based on the superficial circumstances and not to the deeper structures; and thus, they fail to address the problem. Anyway, these reactionary communities try to combat Halloween by doing the exact opposite of modern Halloween practices.

For instance, adults dress their kids with clothes that exude vibrancy instead of ones that suggest darkness or despondency, and these pious adults may revise the standard haunted house with their own innovations.

Take the case of the Trinity Christian School in Texas, which stages a Hell House every year. This Hell House antagonizes the certain images and themes in popular culture, such as:

- Drug-ridden raves

- Pre-marital sex

- Homosexuality

- Family violence

- School shootings

The point of all this is to lead children and bewildered teenagers to so-called paths of righteousness. Are they effective? To a certain degree, they are. Because out of 75,000 individuals who have been recorded at one time, about 15,000 have become members of the community.

Today, aside from the Internet, this is one of the most effective tools to evangelize people.

Related posts:

1. Halloween Celebrations in Modern Times
2. America And The Commercialization Of Halloween
3. Halloween and the Celtic Samhain Origins

Many people associate Halloween with pagan rituals. But the truth is that it’s not pagan. Some historians from the West would say this is true, and that Halloween came from All Hallow Even, the day before All Saint’s Day. All Saint’s Day usually happens on the first day of November.

What’s your Halloween like?

Numerous parts of the world consider Halloween as a time to remember the departed souls of their loved ones in Purgatory. Those souls in Purgatory are considered to be souls midway between Heaven and Hell. These souls await final judgment by performing cleansing acts.

In Dante Alighieri’s books, the souls in Purgatorio are individuals who are neither in Paradiso nor Inferno. In the modern appropriation, the day next to All Hallowed Even is All Soul’s Day (carried out on November 2).

Samhain

Some scholars think that Halloween has its older roots in the Roman celebration of the Pomona, which is linked to the Roman goddess of harvest. Another Roman celebration that may have something to do with how Halloween is celebrated is the Parentilia. The Parentilia is a celebration of the dead.

Scholars point out that the Celtic origin of Halloween comes from the Samhain or Samuin (sow-an), which takes place after the summer days have ended. This celebration is often coordinated with the feast of Beltane. This feast celebrates the powers of life.

As you can already see, even the Celtic cultural tradition builds upon binaries, like Chinese medicine or Indian Ayurvedic tradition. There must be balance, so both the forces of death and life have to be in balance. Where there is balance of life and death energies, there is life. With imbalance, there is disease and famine.

More about the Samhain

The Samhain was actually an acknowledgement of the two opposing forces of life and death. Summer was usually the season when people tilled the Earth, planting and harvesting food. But when winter came along, man gave way to the powers of Nature, and submitted to the ice, wind, and cold.

Negative reaction to Halloween

In the past decades, there has been a negative reaction to the celebration of Halloween. Because the celebration is not completely Christian, many parents and school administrators think that the celebration should be banned completely in schools.

Although the ancient Celts did not likely worship the Christian Lucifer, a fallen angel, Samhain traditions are largely not acceptable in modern times.

Strange Depictions Of Halloween

In certain movies, such as those featuring the character of Michael Myers (The “Halloween” movie series), the Samhain celebration was the focus of the movie, covering a person’s sacrifice to negate the forces between life and death. The main character of this movie advocated traditional ceremonies wherein an image of the Samhain (which reeks of evil) was built.

And strangely enough, there are only a few existing records showing Druids actually carrying ritualistic celebrations. Pliny the Elder, a public figure, was the only one who provided a clue. But then again, humans were not sacrificed on a pointed stick, but they did use two white bulls in the ceremony, which looked like an ordinary offering for better fertility.

Related posts:

1. America And The Commercialization Of Halloween
2. Ground Zero and Halloween
3. Halloween — A Kid’s Festival?

Unbelievably, Halloween-inspired scripts and stories first made their appearance not in movie theaters but in good, old radio. We owe the first scary and thrilling story for Halloween to the novelist H.G. Wells. If you remember Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds, then you might already know of this novelist.

But how did a literary piece such as “War of the Worlds” scare people, especially when it’s been in circulation for a time back then? A radio production by Orson Welles turned the novel into a radio script that would serve as the first Halloween show.

“And in the news today Aliens!”

That’s right — Welles’s radio production served as the standard by which other Halloween shows would be judged in the future. His radio production turned parts of “War of the Worlds” into news bulletins that were announced between songs.

Imagine hearing news about aliens landing on Earth, sounding like the regular news you hear everyday. When Welles began the radio production, it was just a few days before Halloween, so the premise couldn’t have been better. People actually got scared and panicked around North America.

Actually, in New Jersey people were subjected to mass panic! Imagine the effectiveness of the move. It was pure genius, and a wonderful appropriation of a classic literary piece. In addition, this was just in 1930s. What would follow was a careful yet guided effort to use Halloween as a central theme in available media.

Halloween in Literature

The theme of Halloween also managed to make it into printed media. Barely 15 years after the very scary radio production, the writer Anthony Boucher wrote a noir story that focused on reality and the grisly. Boucher’s story was set in California, adding to its realism.

The North American comic series ‘Shock’ was published five years later. It made the perception of Halloween more frightening than it used to be. The story line was about the cruel head of an orphanage, punished and turned into a Halloween pumpkin. In addition, during Halloween, pumpkins are finely carved and hollowed, and some of its peel were also taken off.It was a daring step, but the public took the idea well, making Halloween a production where a certain handful of themes was supported.

EC Comics also created their own spooky comics, but censoring some parts of the stories was on the rise. Before the 1960s, the American Comic Code controlled the circulation of these stories, as some of the story elements were no longer “suitable.” This caused the horror comic books to subside.

Now, comic series like “Watchmen” from Alan Moore and “Sandman” by Neil Gaiman are showing to be lucrative enterprises in the comic industry. But these stories are not endorsed by American Comics Code. ACC only supports more wholesome comic books like “Archie.”

Halloween on TV and the Movies

It’s surprising to know that TV took its sweet time getting used to Halloween. TV was more closely censored by religious and conservative groups, so Halloween-themed shows were difficult to produce.

Here are the some of the first Halloween-themed movies that landed on the boob tube in North America.

- Whispering Ghosts (Milton Berle)

- Footlight Serenade (Betty Grable & Victor Mature)

- Frankenstein (Boris Karloff)

- The House on the Haunted Hill (Vincent Price)

- Rosemary’s Baby (Audrey Hepburn)

- Night of the Living Dead (George Romero)

- King Kong

- Godzilla

- Psycho (Hitchcock)

- Night of the Demons

Related posts:

1. Is Halloween Consumerism also Patriotism?
2. Halloween Celebrations in Modern Times
3. America And The Commercialization Of Halloween

In the weeks that followed the September 11 attacks in 2001, Americans began to question whether continuing to spend heavily during the Halloween season (and other “spending” seasons) was the right thing to do, especially when there seemed to be so much to do to keep the country safe.

Halloween back in 2001 was still happy, but many people were already beginning to raise their voice against the pointless consumerism that abounded.

Halloween and Patriotism

How is patriotism viewed in the United States? In such a large country with a trillion dollar economy, spending is tantamount to patriotism. When you spend your hard-earned money, you keep the economy going. When you spend money, you keep the small and large businesses operating.

In effect, the whole system is maintained because people are letting go of their money. When a season like Halloween is not suddenly questioned, the commercial establishment recoils out of fear. If no one wants to spend, what would happen to the businesses?

The defenders of Halloween insist that spending helps keep the economy afloat. In doing so, you’ll also be doing your duty in protecting the best interests of America and its people.

No one really knows whether this idea is a fact, but it makes some sense.

“We don’t buy that!”

Many people disagree with the way Americans spend money during Halloween. Kevin Horrigan, from the newspaper Post-Dispatch, says:

“Take the dough you’d spend on Halloween candy and send it to the Red Cross. How about $1.9 billion instead?”

This view is apparently shared by many. Halloween does seem to cheapen everything it comes in contact with. But Halloween’s supporters claim that NOT celebrating Halloween is much worse, as it makes the country more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

As a direct consequence, leaving the country defenseless may make the sacrifices of 9/11′s victims meaningless.

Interest in the Economy

Of course, Halloween is a prime point for those interested in the vicissitudes of economic interest in the United States. Halloween is a retail-based industry. The industry thrives on individuals going out of their way to go to shops, stores and malls to buy their Halloween stuff.

What happens when the Halloween industry suddenly disappears? The economy may slow down as a whole.

These “main cogs” are the large companies that produce most of the money. The economy depends on these big companies. This is the reason why the US government is quick to lend out bailouts to keep these big companies from collapsing.

Because when the big businesses go down, the employees and all the small enterprises dependent on the big businesses would also go down fast. It’s not about selfishness, really. It’s more about preserving a slow machine, so that you won’t have to contend with a completely broken workhorse.

Spending during Halloween is increasing again as time goes by and the 9/11 furor becomes more of a distant memory. If it stays this way, then the economy should recover soon enough.

Related posts:

1. America And The Commercialization Of Halloween
2. Halloween — A Kid’s Festival?
3. Halloween Celebrations in Modern Times

After America was shocked by the September 11 attacks, its people reacted by uniting against foreign threats. Back then, the nation was getting lost in the globalization mix, but resurfaced into world view after the events of September 11.

Halloween after 9/11

People started looking at Halloween in different ways after 9/11. As America and the rest of the world recoiled from the carnage of that day, people began to think that Halloween should take a more somber time, one in which the people who lost their lives would be remembered.

Soon people treated Halloween in much the same way as Christians celebrated the day that closely followed it — All Souls’ Day. People began to reflect on life and remember their departed loved ones, a swift 180-degree turn from the corporatist image that Halloween had been getting.

What was it like, back then?

When we listen to Halloween scholars and historians, we’ll learn that Halloween never revolved around candy and costume parties and booze. Halloween was one of the seasons most representative of human emotion — something quite lost in society today.

Originally, Halloween celebrated life. It was the season of looking back and remembering the people who have gone ahead of us. By looking and learning from the past, people would be better able to face the future.

Continuity

Continuity is such a strong thematic for Halloween, even if people don’t realize it. Continuity is important because the thematic of death is not a terminal point; what precedes death is also the continuation of the process.

When people appreciate death, they also begin to appreciate life even more than before. Life doesn’t end with death — if it did, then there wouldn’t be any need for tombs and memorials. Celebrating the fact that life goes on is done by thinking about what happens after death. Knowing that there’s an eternity waiting for everyone after death can make an intuitive person richer and more hopeful.

Dia de los Muertos

A festival of mourning might sound paradoxical. However, in many cultures outside the white, homogenous borders of the United States, death was something that should be taught and remembered through ritual and ceremony.

For instance, the Dia de los Muertos is an official time of mourning in the Rio Grande. This is the time where people mourned and revisited the memories of relatives who have passed away. It’s sad to note that we only think about death when something tragic happens. Unlike other cultures, we don’t have a very good understanding and appreciation of things related or relating to death.

In the case of the tragic events of September 11, some Americans have looked outward for answers. Because it seems that Corporate America had forgotten how to completely mourn something so tragic.

When can we truly appreciate the real essence of Halloween? Can we still change the misconceptions that have clouded Halloween? Only the future can tell. Perhaps people will soon appreciate that there is a deeper and richer essence to this celebration.

It’s possible to change Halloween into something more profound, even if it will take some time. But when the day comes, we can finally enjoy Halloween the way it was truly meant to be enjoyed.

Related posts:

1. Halloween Celebrations in Modern Times
2. Halloween — A Kid’s Festival?
3. America And The Commercialization Of Halloween

Halloween is probably the most commercialized celebration in America. When we talk about commercial potential, Halloween comes second to Christmas when it comes to popularity and marketability.

Commercial Contribution

Halloween is not only popular with kids alone. The Halloween festivities are popular with a wide variety of adult communities around the world. Since a New York Times columnist already declared that, the world is flat, international parades like The Greenwich Village Halloween parade attracts over a million people on a yearly basis.

How much does that contribute to a local economy? The figure shifts from year to year, but at one time the Greenwich Village Halloween parade contributed over $60 million. Because of the commercial quality and contributions to the local economy, even religious groups are willing to clam up just to make sure that people continue to patronize the event.

America and Canada

The Halloween festivities in Canada have been observed to generate roughly seven hundred million dollars in earnings. On average, American households spend around forty-five dollars for the Halloween celebration. Young urban professionals typically spend more for Halloween festivities.

The Halloween festivities generate around 6.8 billion dollars for the U.S. economy. Popular products for Halloween are:

- Candies

- Costumes

- Cards

- Party supplies

Stress relief

It’s a well-known fact that Halloween is that time of the year when people could let off a little pent-up steam. Often, it doesn’t matter anymore what the celebrations are really for. All that people know is that they can go to rave parties, drink, and party all night.

Ultimately, it is safe to say that Halloween continues to be celebrated mainly because of the adult appropriation of the celebration. Without the commercialization of the celebration, it would’ve most likely been forgotten. With all the negative aspects of its origin, it seems that this ancient-rooted celebration will only survive in the modern times by associating it with more acceptable and enjoyable aspects of life.

Problems, again

The annual Halloween celebration somehow conflicts with the conservative and religious principles. This is mainly due to two very sensitive and controversial issues:

- Alcohol

- Homosexuality

Homosexuality (which includes men and women) is very rampant during Halloween since everybody feels it’s the time of year when you can do anything you want and express yourself freely. Alcohol use on the other hand is a very big issue, since beer and hard liquor companies take advantage of the festivities to promote their products. Most Halloween parties are “all nighters” and booze is free-flowing.

More beer translates to more freedom: and the Halloween becomes the pinnacle of personal hedonism and liberty. Compared to the Yuletide season where people are encouraged to not drink and instead buy electronic goods, Halloween is the much-awaited free-for-all.

The stronghold of Halloween is still North America; however, this does not mean that it’s not being exported to the global south. It’s not unusual to see countries with no mass memory of the celebration to start buying Halloween-themed products and commodities.

For instance, in the U.K., Halloween is experiencing a renewed popularity. They usually celebrate it by wearing scary masks and lighting bonfires.

Related posts:

1. Halloween in America: From the Eighties to the Present
2. Halloween — A Kid’s Festival?
3. Halloween Celebrations in Modern Times

Halloween in modern, western society is a grisly yet anticipated spectacle. It’s a spectacle because different communities, groups and individuals celebrate it differently. Since the nineties, people have relinquished aged beliefs about the supposed ‘Satanism’ of modern Halloween.

Why Celebrate Halloween?

How come people celebrate Halloween? Despite the many different sectors in the Christian religion, the modern beliefs of Halloween is basically centered on death; it’s the most feared element in Halloween.

Halloween deals with all the negative energies linked to human life. Sickness, hunger, death and war are just some of these energies. Fear may take many forms, but people create mechanisms like Halloween to control these forces without really having to touch them.

Costumes and Halloween parties

This is the reason why people often watch scary Hollywood releases during the Halloween season, and why children wear costumes in school parties. It’s a way for people to confront seemingly uncontrollable forces, to make these forces less frightening.

Playing historical characters like generals, submarine commanders and firefighters, or wearing costumes of ghouls and ghosts twists reality for a short time of the year.

Hollywood films

Movies like the Chainsaw Texas Massacre, Saw, Saw II and Autopsy all play with the idea of people going beyond the pale of the normal to explore what it would be like to kill and to evade capture.

For some reason, the appearance of Hollywood versions of what is frightening and what should be feared has had little effect on how people generally celebrate Halloween.

So what was the effect of Hollywood on people? Unfortunately, it seems that Hollywood has had a numbing effect on people. People simply no longer care what they see; that’s why the most recent horror flicks focus more on gore to lead people out of their seeming passivity in the face of death and horror.

What About The Kids?

With all these scary get-ups consisting of ghouls and ghosts, how do your kids appreciate what is beyond the world we’re living in? Kids usually don’t get to experience personal loss, death or even horror, which makes Halloween look like a superficial commemoration.

Unlike the Yuletide season, which is often associated with warmth and family, Halloween seems to be that ‘spark’ near the end of the year when people were allowed to be keener to the unseen than normal.

Halloween is that time of the year where children get to ask “Do ghosts really exist?” The diversity of how Halloween is celebrated in every culture is incredible. Suspicions arising about existence of ghosts originated from Halloween itself. So, the question goes: Why celebrate it if it does not even exist?

Overall, Halloween seems to be a sort of inverted reflection of Christianity. There are many things in the Christian faith that can’t fully be explained, and these mysteries are somehow tackled and explained during Halloween — even if the explanations may vary widely and never be conclusive.

Despite the unknown, Halloween is still an opportunity for people to take a break from everyday life and ponder the deeper things in life — and what waits afterwards.

Related posts:

1. Halloween — A Kid’s Festival?
2. Halloween in America: From the Eighties to the Present
3. Growing Up Spiritually is a Great Obstacle in The Modern Times Maze

Halloween today stemmed from the eighties, when the event gained recognition from a number of gory films and the idea that there’s nothing really wrong with celebrating such a holiday. It wasn’t always that way.

Spooky Fun

Halloween was once thought to be a time for rituals and divination, but it is now a time for adults and kids to get creative and simply have some spooky fun. Kids are now the focus of the event, as they without a doubt are the primary consumers of the Halloween season.

Haunted houses were the first line of defense of adults who couldn’t think of anything more interesting. Charity organizations in places like Detroit were the first ones that organized and promoted such places. In haunted houses, children could simply wander and find whatever thrills they may be seeking in this season of the year.

Will The Kids Be Okay?

Is it healthy for children to subject themselves to “scary thrills” such as those that are offered by Ripley’s tours, etc.? It seems so. According to child psychology, at a particular age, children are already capable of seeing and understanding what’s real and what’s not real.

This is the main reason why kids love Halloween so much. When they know their friends and family are simply dressing up for the occasion, they can go ahead and enjoy getting scared.

It’s important to remember that what a 5-year old child sees as scary may not exactly match a 12-year old’s. Adults also see things differently from children, so how they put up haunted houses and other spooky attractions should take this fact into account to avoid any untoward situations.

Types of thrills

These are some of the places that people in North America look for during Halloween:

- (Temporary) haunted houses

- City parks

- Haunted barns

- Ghostly gambols

- Movie theaters

As previously mentioned, many charitable institutions set up temporary haunted houses for the enjoyment of kids and teenagers. But as the 90′s rolled around, bigger companies began cashing in on their own thrill — profit.

By the turn of the century, there were already over 2,000 haunted houses in North America. During the Halloween season, these houses could thrill the public for three weeks or so.

The new boom in the Halloween season also opened the doors for fledgling entrepreneurs to find new ways to entertain people, who are becoming more and more used to the usual scares. For instance, how do you scare teenagers who have gotten used to the usual scary Halloween flicks?

The answer of course, was to bring the scares and thrills closer to home. Kids were no longer scared by conventional goblins and vampires. Nevertheless, they were still scared by the fact that a plain looking man could end up being a crazed psychopath out for blood.

Rats, eyeballs, blood and the prospect of decapitation and evisceration were the motifs that were made dynamic and usable for the purpose of scaring the kids. Sometimes, even adults let loose and allowed themselves to be scared, in this special time of the year.

Related posts:

1. Halloween — A Kid’s Festival?
2. Why Easter Bunny Costumes Are Great For Kids
3. Printable Easter Card: Getting Into The Holiday Spirit With Your Kids

No matter how adults dress up Halloween, many families (especially in North America) believe that it should still be a celebration for the kids. We owe this perhaps to the fact that Halloween is both a celebration of ghouls, ghosts and goblins and a celebration of strong family ties.

Halloween & the harvest

Before the advent of Hollywood-inspired costumes, Halloween was that time of the year in rural places in America for farmers to open their land to hunters. Halloween was a critical time in the year when hunting season was on, and hikers and vacationers began pouring in to pristine lands in the Northeastern region of the US.

Harvest period is a central point in 19th century mythology in the United States. Legends and tall tales were often spun as the harvest season came to fore.

Trick or treat!

There are several urban legends that made people fear trick-or-treating for some time. Some of these urban legends were:

- People who stuff corroded razors into candy apples.

- Contaminated candies given to kids

It was a good thing when more and more homes opened their doors and gave out treats for children in the late nineties. This was a sign that children could now go out on Halloween night, meaning it was safe to roam around their neighborhoods. For adults, it was also a sign that there was nothing to worry about regarding their children’s safety on Halloween night.

Do people often stick to tradition? A lot of people are accustomed to supporting trick-or-treating because they believe that it shows the strength of the neighborhood has. If you believe that your children are in good hands of the adults expecting their arrival, then you must have a very pleasant neighborhood.

Halloween in School

When conservative organizations no longer controlled the Halloween tradition, the schools were the ones who made the initiative to keep the event alive. They are in fact the strongest promoters of Halloween. The schools organized activities such as:

- Halloween processions

- Halloween gatherings

Sadly, in the last few years, Halloween has changed into a commercialized event instead of an opportunity to keep strong relationships and renew solidarity in the neighborhood. Also, it has become less of a chance to spend time with great friends and family.

Big Bag O’ Money!

Halloween has turned so commercialized that large companies have taken advantage of this children’s festival. Companies pump out more and more products that people can enjoy not only during Halloween, but throughout the entire year.

Starting from just mere candies that resemble horror icons such as Count Dracula and Frankenstein to new concoctions that resemble body parts, Halloween has indeed become a capitalizing point for many entrepreneurs.

An estimated income of $950 million a year is brought in by all products related to Halloween. Most of these products sold during this season are little toys and candies. It is thought that this may be a good thing, since it’s a way of training children to become wise shoppers when they become adults.

Well, that’s Halloween today – play for children, and work for adults.

Related posts:

1. Why Easter Bunny Costumes Are Great For Kids
2. How To Protect Kids in Our Culture
3. Printable Easter Card: Getting Into The Holiday Spirit With Your Kids