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Halloween's Celtic Samhain Beginnings
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.
The Nature of Halloween
For many people around the world, Halloween is a time of remembering the souls in Purgatory. These souls are those caught between Heaven and Hell, and undergo rigorous cleansing before being granted entry to Heaven.
According to Dante Alighieri, souls found in Purgatory are trapped between Paradise and Inferno. In modern times, this passage deals with the day after All Hallowed Even, which is All Soul's Day (November 2).
Samhain
Experts say that Halloween started as a Roman celebration in Pomona, associated with the Roman goddess of harvest. Another version of this is a Roman celebration called Parentilia, which might explain how Halloween is celebrated. Basically, this event is a celebration for the dead.
As for the Celtic origin of Halloween, researchers point to Samhain or Samuin (sow-an), which is carried out when the summer days finally end. The celebration of Samhain is often paired with another celebration known as the feast of Beltane. The feast of Beltane is a celebration of the powers of life.
As pointed out earlier, even Celtic traditions have binaries, like Chinese medicine or Indian Ayurvedic tradition. A balance must be formed so that forces of death and life will not overwhelm each other. If there is balance between the forces of life and death, life will always prevail. If there is an imbalance, diseases and famine will follow.
Why the Samhain?
Why did the Celts celebrate Samhain? The summer months were usually the months when people gathered food; during the winter months, the food becomes scarce and the forces of Nature become more dominant. This was when humans bowed down to the superior force of the seasons, wind, ice and the unbearable cold.
Halloween's Bad Rap
During the past several decades, Halloween went through a period of bad reputation. Owing to the fact that it's not 100% Christian, parents and school officials wanted it banned from all school activity.
While it's improbable that the ancient Celts were really worshipping the Christian Lucifer, the fallen angel himself, the original rituals of Samhain are not really that palatable to modern sensibilities.
Strange Depictions Of Halloween
In movies like those that feature the character Michael Myers (the Halloween series of movies), the Samhain was used as a central category that encompassed how a person can sacrifice to oppose the forces of life and death. The ritualistic ceremonies that the main character espoused built an image of the Samhain that stank of 'evil' in the most modern (yet ironically, comic) sense.
It's ironic that there are actually very few records about how Druids really did carry out their rituals. Only Pliny the Elder provided a good look into the rituals, but even his writings didn't contain any records of humans being sacrificed on pointed sticks. Instead, the Druids used two white bulls -- a rather ordinary offering for fertility.
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