HALLOWEEN
THE TRUTH BEHIND THE MASK
by Jason Decker
Jason Decker is a junior at Liberty High School in Issaquah,
Washington. Last year, at Halloween time, he wrote a paper on the
subject for his English class. While the school district has banned
all references to Christmas and Easter, it promotes a great Halloween
experience. Jason felt he needed to take a Christian stand at the
school, and this article is a slightly condensed version of that
effort.
What is Halloween? A time for ghost stories, Jack-O-Lanterns, black
cats, costumes, parties? Right? That is what I used to think;
Halloween was a time for kids dressed in cute costumes of witches,
ghosts, and devils coming to your doors yelling, "TRICK OR TREAT!"
That's not all there is to it. There is more to Halloween, much more!
Halloween is still seriously celebrated by many satanic and witch
covens today. How do the Halloween traditions we see in our society
relate to genuine witchcraft?
Halloween can be traced back thousands of years to the ancient Celts
and their priests, the Druids. October 31st marked the passage from
summer to winter. It was the beginning of the Celtic new year--
Samhain, a dreaded night when bonfires were lit to Samana the lord of
death, the dark Aryan god known as the Grim Reaper.
On this night it is said that spirits of the dead rose and walked the
earth. Wiccans say this is the best time for communication with the
dead. Halloween is still celebrated in Wicca as one of their Eight
Seasonal Festivals, a ritual during which they ask the dead to "Return
this night to make merry with us."
One of my sources, Bill Schnoebelen, a priest in satanism and the high
priest of a Wiccan coven for almost 15 years, says that he and his
fellow Wiccans would supposedly call up spirits such as Jesus, Merlin,
or Alester Crowley (a satanist who called himself "The Great Beast")
who would come and talk in normal conversations on Halloween during
their rites. He said that they used to cast spells on the countryside
giving the spirits access to possess whomever they pleased. They
especially cast spells on the children going "Trick or Treating."
They believed they were helping people because the spirits shared
their "wisdom" and helped the victim to "evolve" spiritually. They
did not realize the harm they did because they were blinded by their
own spirits. This had to be done on the night of October 31st,
because it was All Hallows Eve, the night before November 1st,
"summer's end when the powers of the underworld are felt to be
growing, with its gates opened and all its forces let loose--the evil
as well as the good."
November 1st, All Saints' Day, was a Catholic feast day established
during the 7th Century. It was the day the Catholics set aside in
memory of the martyrs. November 2nd was the day to pray for the souls
in purgatory. Another name for All Saints Day was All Hallows.
October 31st was known as All Hallows Eve--later shortened to
Hallowe'en.
Today this is unseen, just the way witches prefer it. Quiet, so they
can be left alone. But you don't have to look far for their
influence. Halloween's spirit is seen in the horror movies released
in association with the season--Halloween I, II and III; Friday the
13th series, or Nightmare on Elm Street. Even on TV, there are plenty
of slasher flicks. These are typical of what our society today
accepts as fine and in the spirit of Halloween. It reveals the dark
spirit behind the masks of the Halloween of today.
Black cats, ghosts, Trick or Treats, Jack-O-Lanterns, costumes, and
masks all have associations to Halloween. Yet, each has been commonly
used by witches all the way back to the ancient Druids.
Occult symbolism is applied to most Halloween activities in which we
participate. Just as people offered gifts of food to the spirits,
people today offer treats to the kids who represent spirits by
dressing up. The Jack-O-Lanterns are symbols of the torches of former
Halloweens and the ancient Samhain fires.
Chosen villagers disguised themselves and cavorted from house to house
collecting the ancient equivalent of protection money, and then drove
the spirits out of that village. They carried Jack-O-Lanterns to
light their way, often just a turnip or potato with a fearful face
carved into it which they hoped would intimidate the spirits around
it. Other stories say that the Druids went around, collected money
and then cast a protection spell and left a Jack-O-Lantern to tell the
demons they had been there.
Remember the old saying, "It's bad luck for a BLACK CAT to cross your
path"? Well, it can be almost so. During the centuries the cat has
lived with humans, it has alternately been worshipped as deity or
cursed as a demon. In ancient Egypt the cat was revered as a god. To
the Druids they were dreaded as people changed into animals by evil
powers. That is the reason they wove them into wicker baskets and put
them in the Samhain fires. Cats often serve witches as "familiars"
(spirit helpers). Their "magic" eyes led people to believe that cats
were seers, with strong mediumistic powers.
People hide behind all sorts of "masks." Some hide behind hats and
others behind dark sunglasses. In primitive societies a mask was more
than a means of changing one's appearance; it was a link with the
spirit world, a channel by which men could tap the forces of the
supernatural. The mask was believed to change a man's identity and
faculties, for the assumed appearance was believed to affect the
wearer's inner nature and to assimilate it to that of the being
represented by the mask.
Bill Schnoebelen told me a covener would often dress up as a god or as
Samana the prince of darkness (otherwise known as Set or Satan) and
become possessed by the personality of the represented beast.
This whole idea of kids dressing up like ghosts is actually a mask
worn by Satan to make reality seem like the ridiculous. Once we look
at this dark side of Halloween as foolish, we accept the evil as a
common cultural tradition and find ourselves blinded spiritually to
the truth.
Sources:
Michaelsen, Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Harvest House, 1989, pp.
185-188.
Farrar, What Witches Do, Phoenix, 1983, pp. 88-89.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 1982, vol. 4, p. 862.
Valiente, Witchcraft for Tomorrow, Phoenix, 1987, pp. 48-49.
Phillips and Robie, Halloween and Satanism, Starburst, 1987, pp. 40-
47.
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