Every year, Halloween gets scarier and scarier. I am not talking about the costumes but religious writers and activists who denounce the holiday as a pagan attack on God and faith. The creepies started early this year. Bloomberg columnist Amity Shlaes has written to denounce “the pull of the pagan” and ask people to think about how Halloween fills the vacuum left from the absence of faith.
First, I am a notorious Halloween fanatic. I have a blow up witch pumpkin on the roof and a blow up cat (with moving head and glowing eyes) coming out of the bushes. Skeletons hang from the trees, a cemetery graces the lawn, Frankenstein is reaching out from a bush near the door, webs cover the greenery, and floating ghosts hang above the door (and well as other finishing touches). If Halloween fills a void of faith, I am the black hole of faithless angst.
The premise of this column is that this is all something of a cry for help to fill such a void.
Halloween isn’t secular. It is pagan. There’s nothing else to call a set of ceremonies in which people utter magical phrases, flirt with the night and evoke the dead. . . .
There’s a reason for the pull of the pagan. In the U.S., we’ve been vigorously scrubbing our schools and other public spaces of traces of monotheistic religion for many decades now. Such scrubbing leaves a vacuum. The great self-deception of modern life is that nothing will be pulled into that vacuum.
While the well-written column cites sources like psychologist Carl Jung for the “modern myth,” there is another possibility: it is fun and you get to eat huge amounts of candy. There is that possibility that these children are not performing an annual ritual of the struggle mortality and the modern myth.
It is now a secular holiday regardless of any pagan origins. The column says:
Fans of the orange holiday may want to pause for a moment to look at the empty spaces between its rituals, as with the pumpkin’s smile. Some of us forego it to dedicate ourselves to one faith or another. But you don’t have to reject Halloween to ask what it may be replacing.
True, but what if I ask and find that it is replacing a year of dieting and boredom? Humans love to fantasize and this holiday allows kids to transform themselves into something unrecognizable. It allows them to scare or humor others. Such role playing is a healthy form of expression. It is not due to the angst of faithlessness and fears of mortality but the joy of invention and imagination.
Now, does anyone knew where I can get a ten foot spider with glowing eyes?
Source: Bloomberg
Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows Eve, which is the day before All Saints Day. Although the day use to be celebrated by pagans, no doubt still is, Halloween is an invention of the christian church and was intended to give a christian significance to the pagen feastivities. Early christians realised they wouldn’t survive if they were party poopers. It seems their modern day counter parts are determined to poop on people’s partying and that way lies tears of the lonely zealot.
People give out candy for free. I would say it is a communist, not pagan plot..
Another reason to do it…if they say don’t….
these people have slipped the surly bonds of reality for a world where their ignorance, insecurities and bigotry makes sense. Shortly after they are done hyperventilating about this they will commence the counter attack on the “war on Christmas”.
The only question is, are they so stupid that they believe this bullshit or are they just fanning the flames for the rubes? Hoping to keep the truly ignorant and insecure scared enough to control so that the 1% can continue to destroy this country for their profit?
A good friend, devout Catholic and one-time seminary student told me, “We have all sort of holidays why can the pagans have at least one.”
http://www.onemorelevel.com/halloween/pumpkintoss.html
["If Halloween fills a void of faith, I am the black hole of faithless angst."~stealin this line, I will give credit
]
Shlaes:
“Unmask Halloween, however, and you’ll also find some disconcerting features. Christmas and Easter may be secularized these days, relative to their past, but they remain Christian holidays. People value Halloween, like Valentine’s Day, because they can tell themselves that it’s not merely secularized but actually secular, which is to say, not Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim.”
Oh, how awful! We had better do away with the Fourth of July, Labor Day, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day. Can’t celebrate holidays that aren’t Christian or religious…can we?
Good grief, Amity, get a grip!
*****
BTW, did you know that the first jack-o’-lanterns were turnips?
This Is Halloween
Great clip Elaine!
This is such a ridiculous story. This writer has to be scraping the bottom of the barrel to writing about a holiday that allows kids (and adults too) an opportunity to escape the normal day to day drudgery and be someone or something else. And for the kids, they get to be kids! Why doesn’t Shlaes make herself useful and write about how Teapublican and some Dems actually voted to allow women to die on hospital floors recently. How could Jesus, or Buddha allow that?
Thank You Elaine! <\:)
I love Halloween. It is my favorite holiday. I loved it as a kid. I loved it as an adult with kids. I love it as a senior with grandkids.
We start with big bowls of chili and all the fixin’s. We go trick or treating in hug groups. We return to homemade donuts and hot cider. We play games and award prizes for best costumes. We finish off the evening bobbing for apples. Nobody has to go to church. Nobody has to be naughty or nice. Nobody has to do anything other than have fun.
A few years ago when my youngest grandchild was awaiting open heart surgery and forbidden to be out in crowds of people, everybody went to my daughter’s house. All rooms in the house were assigned to different people who then had to work together decorating their room, dressing in costumes, and providing treats. The child stayed in her house and went door to door (room to room) trick or treating. All the older kids took part and the decorated rooms and costumes were masterpieces of Halloween creativity. All the traditions, chili, donuts, cider, awards, games, etc. were followed … it just all took place in the house. That’s how important the holiday is to my family and friends.
Blouise,
My daughter used to get so excited decorating our house for Halloween when she was little. She’d begin weeks in advance of the “big night.” She loved scary stories and movies–as do most children. An adult and mother now–she still enjoys the holiday and decorates her house with Halloween lights, ceramic pumpkins, and jack-o’-lanterns.
My students loved the spooky stories I read them with the lights turned off and the electric jack-o’-lanterns turned on. One of their favorites was “The Tailypo”–an American ghost story. The version I read them was told by Joanna Galdone and illustrated by Paul Galdone. They liked that tale so much they would always beg me to “read it again…read it again!”
Some people are killjoys!
Love Halloween, too. My daughter just called about her Halloween costume options. Austin is really fun at Halloween time. There are lots of vintage shops for costume shopping. Do you remember the book “The Ghost Eye Tree”,Elaine? When I moved to the south I started to hear some negative things about Halloween, and I got upset about it but decided my family would celebrate Halloween just like I did when I was a kid. People gave out more homemade treats back then but with all the scares no one does anymore.
Swarthmore mom,
“The Ghost Eye Tree” was one of the picture books that I used to read to my students. The illustrations in the book are great.
Elaine,
Made a note of “The Tailypo”–an American ghost story … I don’t have it but will get it. We’re big on reading to children.
SwM,
I miss the homemade treats from childhood. Trick or treating used to take hours as many had mini feasts prepared and would invite the trick or treaters into their homes for food, drink and bathroom breaks. This one neighbor made the best popcorn balls I’ve every had – sweet & salty and fresh! Another made fantastic caramel apples … heaven.
Of course there was always the party-pooper dentist who passed out tooth brushes … yuck! The fresh popcorn balls and warm caramel apples may be gone but the party pooping dentists are still passing out tooth brushes.
“I love Halloween. It is my favorite holiday.” -Blouise
“The fresh popcorn balls and warm caramel apples…” Blouise, too…
Ditto.
(What’s wrong with these people…)
Amity Shlaes:
“…But as much as we’d like it to be, Halloween isn’t secular. It is pagan… ”
As if “pagan” even has a coherent religious definition, Halloween has any meaningful religious content whatsoever, and anything ‘pagan’ must be rejected.
Here we have a rich, white, tax-hating conservative Christian fascist complaining about how her privileged worldview must be shoved down the throat of everybody else, lest Lord Jesus escape our consciousness for a single evening.
Yuk.
Most Christian holy days were former pagan holy days (just like the saints were gods and goddesses). The early Catholic Church wrote the book on co-opting, though they didn’t use that term. It seems the most vocal remaining Christians are also the most rigid people.
I say that all this anti-Halloween stuff is really anti-Irish bigotry (since it’s Irish pagans who started this holiday). I’d like Amity Shales to explain why she hates the Irish.
anon nurse,
I believe they are secretly working for a dentist lobbying group.
Amity Slaes is not a fundamentalist christian. She is a conservative jewish intellectual.
SwM,
Does she know a lot of dentists?
In my community, it’s a twofer — Halloween (which was pagan, then Christian, now secular)
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/civilization/cc0070.html
and Day of the Dead (which was Indigenous, now Indigenous/Mexican)
http://www.dayofthedead.com/
True Story — Outside a KISS concert on Halloween, local church members DRESSED LIKE CLOWNS were handing out tracts. Guess it was their twofer — a blow against Halloween and that demonic Rock music.
Guess they didn’t know that some folks are afraid of clowns and the rest just hate them.
http://www.ihateclowns.com/
“I have a blow up witch”
Hey! Me too!
Anyway, google Krugman Schlaes for more on this dimwit.
Oh! Yours is a pumpkin.
Kinky.
It’s funny how everybody projects onto Halloween some real meaning from their psyches. My mother wouldn’t let us dress up and go trick-or-treating because she said: “My kids don’t go around begging for candy; my kids have homes and parents and if they’re hungry they can stay home and ask their PARENTS for food!” Total weird take! Not religious, not anything else, just weird. I loved it becaudse I’m a garbage artists so I loved to make costumes, but that was the only reason I loved it. My kid loved it becausde he enjoys funny stuff, candy and celebrations in general. I’ve met people whom I quite like and respect who insist that Halloween should be forbidden because child-abusing satanists conduct organized abusde rituals on that day, victimizing children, and I think that some people imagining themselves to be Satan-worshippers must surely do that on October 31 of each year on the calendar, as they do on other days when they feel that such conduct is called for; surely if there are people who do such things on other days for other reasons (which undeniably there are), there are those who do it on that day for that “reason.” But that doesn’t really mean much about the day; it means much abut the particular “celebrants.” In other words, it’s not in our stars, but in us.
How do you know that Amity Shales (sic Slaes) is a conservative jewish intellectual?
I will grant you that most good Jews are intellectual, but not all Jews are conservative.
Will you please define, if you are speaking about conservative as a branch of the faith or conservative as in not a tax and spend liberal?
Her writings are economically and politically conservative. Don’t know about faith.
SM:
“Amity Slaes is not a fundamentalist christian. She is a conservative jewish intellectual.”
My bad, then. I apologize. Please amend my statement to:
Here we have a rich, white, tax-hating conservative Jewish fascist complaining about how her privileged worldview must be shoved down the throat of everybody else, lest her definition of approved religiosity escape our consciousness for a single evening.
Thanks for the correction.
Actually, Christmas and Easter are no more Christian than Holloween.
Christmas is actually a day chosen by the first “Christian”Emperor of Rome to ease the transition from from paganism to Christianity. It was the Roman Holiday called Saturnalia. Change the name,leave some of the old pagan customs and Voila’ Christian Holiday.
“And the Saturnalia did continue to be celebrated as Brumalia (from bruma, “the shortest day,” winter solstice) down to the Christian era, when, by the middle of the fourth century AD, its festivities had become absorbed in the celebration of Christmas.” Wikopedia-
“The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (saturnalia et sigillaricia),and a special market (sigillaria). Gambling was allowed for all, even slaves.” Wikopedia-
Easter is celebrated for the same reason and is consistent with ancient Fertility and Spring Rites. Though a direct connection is harder to makehe customs are similar enough to make the connection hard to deny. Painted eggs,rabbits,rebirth after death are all aspects of both the Easter and Pagan festivals as well as the timing being approximately the same. When you consider the common practice of ancient religions meshing the new gods with the old to make a new god more pallatable and the same practice being carried through to the early church (as with Christmas)
it isn’t hard to see the truth of the matter.
So if you celebrate Christmas and Easter and all of the Pagan customs associated with them, why not Holloween
BOO!
I think some may be playing a game of payback. Every year, Christmas gets attacked by secular nutjobs, atheist nutjobs, etc… It has gotten so ridiculous that you can’t have Christmas trees, you can’t call it Christmas, and good grief, don’t say “Merry Christmas” because you might offend some dolt somewhere. Christmas is a legal federal holiday and yet schools are even afraid to put CHRISTMAS on their calendar or have anything to do with Christmas. It’s a shame.
Probably what is happening is from cause and effect. The more pressure from leftwing nutjobs and atheist BS, there will be more pressure on Halloween. They have painted themselves into a corner, not knowing that their stupid harassment of Christmas celebration is having an effect on Halloween.
@ Roger Lambert:
“Here we have a rich, white, tax-hating conservative Christian fascist complaining about how her privileged worldview must be shoved down the throat of everybody else, lest Lord Jesus escape our consciousness for a single evening.”
I’ve seen some really leftwing, secular humanist, atheist BS comments before but you’re really out there.
Talking about something being shoved down our throat, it’s secular humanism. You can’t even say Merry Christmas without some idiot somewhere getting offended. So your kind misuse the legal system and pass laws that are upside down, distorting our freedoms so you won’t be offended.
Amity Shlaes
AKA Amity Ruth Shlaes
Born: 1960
Gender: Female
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Columnist
Nationality: United States
Father: Jared B. Shlaes
Mother: Nancy S. DeGrazia
Husband: Seth Lipsky (m. 1988)
Those who can do, those who can’t teach and those who cannot do either write.
Her Mom may not be Jewish is it possible that she converted?
War on Christmas: Part 4
Really Annoying,
“Those who can do, those who can’t teach and those who cannot do either write.”
Correction: Those who can do, those who can’t teach–and those who cannot do either work for FOX TV.
Thank you for fixing that Elaine
lottakatz,
It was my pleasure!
The War on Christmas
Mr Collier,
After acknowledging you aren’t allowed to use the word “Christmas”, you have repeatedly done so. I’m going to have to ask you to step into the re-education pod, really it’s for your own good.
sorry, off topic, but this is amusing
add the Koch brothers to the list of climate change conspiracists
try that again
I object most strongly to the inclusion of Satan as an aspect of Halloween (or to give it its original Irish name, Samhain) — sorry, Satan is a Christian deity and has nothing to do with Paganism.
I could also object to the commercialization of what is, after all, a very holy day, but I don’t have to participate in that if I don’t want to. Maybe Shlaes and others could take the hint.
As for the “war on Christmas” — even the Japanese celebrate Christmas, and very few Japanese are Christian.
Once again, here is John Hartford’s “The Lowest Pair”.
Much further out than inevitable
Halloween is thy game
Sky King has come
And Wilma’s done
Uncertain as it is uneven
Give us today hors d’œuvre’s in bed
As we forgive those who have dressed up against us
And need us not enter inflation
But our liver, onions, & potatoes.
For wine is a shingle, and a mower, and a story for your father.
All right.
(make that, “hors d’œuvres in bed”
and, “Butter liver…”)
I think we can make everyone happy and just rename Halloween. I will make the suggestion that makes sense to me…..Milky Way Day!!
Barney Collier,
I read your posting. I like your name, but does your name mean you are into bondage? How about Jewish sex?
Elaine, what about Blackbeard’s Wedding Anniversary and The Feast Of The Aardvark?
(Blackbeard’s Wedding Anniversary occurs a couple times a month.)
“Those who can – do, those who can’t – teach.”
I once heard it as:
“Those who can – do, those who can’t – teach, those who can’t teach – coach.”
As time goes by, I’m less and less interested in Halloween, even for the candy. I kindof feel the same way about Christianity.
Who knew they served aardvark at Blackbeard’s wedding?
Barney Collier said,
Talking about something being shoved down our throat, it’s secular humanism. You can’t even say Merry Christmas without some idiot somewhere getting offended.
====================================================
don’t know were you shop but i counted one year and i was told merry christmas twice as often as happy holidays.
also when i was a kid it wasn’t secular humanists or an atheist city government that didn’t allow dept. or grocery stores to open on sunday.
and they still don’t allow bars to open or other alcohol sales on sunday.
I can’t see Halloween becoming any sort of dangerous symbol of any kind. With the dilution of holidays by both time and the media, it’s a wonder that the original intent of the holidays are even remembered by the masses.
As far as I can tell, any 5 year old is only concerned that there’s a cool Captain America costume available, and a large pillowcase for candy is stuffed to the brim.
Adults, equally, use the holiday to ‘let their hair down’ or dress like morons for entertainment. It’s quite hilarious, and generally without any particular intent to either worship Satan or promote/demote any particular religion.
It seems that this article is perfectly in line with the same people who would sue you over putting up a Christmas tree in a public area because it isn’t religiously-sensitive or some other such nonsense. If I want to celebrate the Chinese new year and put up decorations, who cares? Similarly, if I want to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve, and not just for the candy, again…. who cares?
Religious observance is religious observance, but I say that Halloween is Halloween. Where are the candy companies in this debate? They should be outraged that anyone would denounce their personal holiday!
-CPT J
pardon me?1, October 21, 2011 at 5:39 pm
—————————————————-
THANK YOU!
never heard John Hartford before, love his stuff!
I just want to see kids coming to the door asking for candy and dressed funny and when you ask them what they are, they answer, “Bloggers!”
“I just want to see kids coming to the door asking for candy and dressed funny and when you ask them what they are, they answer, ‘Bloggers’!”
When my kids were little, my secretary – about the age of my parents – asked me to drive them to her neighborhood for a treat.
My sons, about 7 and 9 respectively, wanted to be a vampire and a soldier. One wore a cape, white shirt, medallion, painted widow’s peak, and dyed hair. The other wore olive fatigues and a plastic helmet. Our daughter, about 5 had no preference. My wife dressed her in a kid’s motorcycle jacket someone had given her. She added tight jeans, leather boots, hair streaks, and a palette full of makeup and mascara. She told my daughter that she was a punk rocker. See:
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/295738_2305795278837_1067923684_2613011_696458540_n.jpg .
We arrived at my secretary’s. She was the epitome of a sweet Sunday School teacher. As she looked at my children, she said, “Well, I can see your brothers are a soldier and a vampire, but what are you my dear?”
My daughter hesitated a moment and said, “I’m a slut!”
Great story, Ben. And thanks for including the photo. (She must be a smart girl — who among us even knew the word “slut” at age 5…, but then times have changed.)
Ben,
Wonderful story and well told …
Ben,
I see you raised your children to be pagans. For shame!
Woosty,
John Hartford was one of the greats. Among other songs, he wrote “Gentle On My Mind,” which was a great hit for Glen Campbell.
He appeared on the “Smother’s Brothers Comedy Hour” a number of times.
Woosty & Otteray,
This one’s for you: