Ways of Life
Every year the same...
Halloween and what it is about
© Birgit Barandica, October 2006
The spiritual realm is real - if only we would comprehend this! The fact that it may not be visible to our physical eyes does not make it less real. But exactly this is the point we so often fail at: we consider ourselves smarter than God, who because of His love for us warns us of things like this; we humans are not made for them, our mind is not apt to comprehend such things.
"Let no-one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices diviniation or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in withcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist, or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you", (Deutoronomy 18:10-12). However there are people saying, "Well, let's prove whether this is really so...!"
I somehow feel reminded of my childhood, "Oh no, not the parents again.... They don't have any idea about things.... I'm still going to do it!" Well, and afterwards, it's the parents being accountable for our stupidities and pick up the pieces. With one difference though: things of the spiritual realm can end deadly for us...
It is very important to understand the things we are doing. To say "Oh well, it won't be as bad..." or "It's only for fun!" very often just prove ignorance. People don't want to deal with things that might force them into changing their thinking...
Okay, let me ask you straight forward: Do you want to deal with the devil?
No? Well, I already thought so, I knew you'd say no. Almost no one would voluntarily deal with Satan. But there are so many things in this material world that open doors and gates wide for the spiritual realm in your life. Halloween is just one of them. Let me tell you what it is about with this so-called "celebration". It is absolutely not about us Christians wanting to be kill-joys. Like in several other areas, this is simply not true. The historic facts about Halloween can be proved. And the other, maybe not visible yet no less relevant thing are the demons that are being allowed into our lifes, no matter how much people are laughing at this truth.
The night between October 31st and November 1st was originally the Celtic New Year Celebration "Samhain", which at the same time was the beginning of the dark season of the year and the celebration of the dead souls. It was believed that in this night the dead would come into the world of the living. In order to soothe them, people would bring sacrifices and practice witchcraft and magic (what did we hear just now about all that??). At midnight, the celtic priests, the druids, claimed a child as sacrifice for their god of the dead and would burn it alive. They would place a caved turnip at the door where their chosen sacrifice lived (in later times, they changed the turnip for a pumpkin as it wouldn't wither as fast). If the house owner would turn the child over to the druids, they would leave the turnip/pumpkin there for protection. If the child was not turned over to them, they painted a symbol with blood at the entrance door. Until the morning hours they would then try to kill all people of that house in punishment.
In the year 835, the catholic church transferred their All Saint's Day, also known as All Hallows, from the first sunday after Pentecost to November 1st, thus trying to set an antipole to those heathen celebrations. The name Halloween derives from "All Hallows Eve".
In many catholic countries people believed that between All Saint's Day (November 1st) and All Soul's Day (November 2nd), the day of prayers for the dead, the devider between the world of the living and the world of the dead would be particularly easy to permeate. In Ireland, for example, a Christianized version was to believe that on that day, the dead would return from purgatory for some days and go back to their houses and request intercession from their kins.
Other fears were that the dead would come back into life and take possession of the living. This is why people would dress up as horribly as they could in this night, for the dead to pass them by and not rcognize them as alive. The masks and disguise served for determent. Yet nowadays, people would voluntarily disguise themselves, or worse their own kids, as devils, witches, skeletons, gnomes, owls, spiders and vampires and simply think this is fun.
Please, dear reader: instead of scoffing at warning Christians, recognize the true danger behind these ados!
The caved pumpkin converted into a lantern is a particular symbol for this night, especially in the USA, but swamping over to many other countries in recent years. This lantern is called "Jack-O'Lantern" as to the legend of a blacksmith named Jack O., who was a roughneck and drinker and pacted with the devil. The devil promised Jack to make him the best blacksmith of the country if in turn, Jack would sell him his soul. Jack agreed and as a symbol for his newly acquired skills, he clung a pumpkin illuminated from the inside at the entrance of his smithy. Yet it all ended bad for Jack; his punishment was to stroll through the world eternally with his Jack-O'Lantern.
Nothing against the pumkin... It is a gift from God, delicious and healty. But what was and is made out of it on halloween, is courting Satan. And people think this is pure fun... Please get it straight that the devil is laughing up his sleeves on such a brutishness. For his concern is to hinder as many people as possible to get close to God, to Jesus, to find their way to eternal salvation. You don't have to be an avowed occultist - it is enough to get into Satan's fooling in such an ignorant way like by celebrating a festival of darkness, an alleged harmless festivity, in order to open up all doors to Satan.
Nowadays, Halloween is a principle and magic festival to many today's witch cults. Satanic aggregations are particularly active on those days. There are brutal animal sacrificing rituals and even human sacrifices. In many places, criminality increases on the streets.
You can see Satan's success in misleading people in the following: Here in Germany, October 31st is officially Reformation Day (I don't know about other countries). But this fact is being relegated to the fringe and will most probably die out sooner or later. Even though this day is mainly known here and is no high Christian holiday either, yet you can well recognize the tendency of pushing aside all that is Christian. In recent years, Halloween has pushed Reformation Day aside to such an extent that certain calendars call October 31 officially "Halloween" and not "Reforemation Day" anymore... This is one aspect where Satan has won a battle.... though he has not won the whole war. We all know that the truth is that he is the loser of the war, yet he does not seem to have understood this and still tries to draw people into the abyss. Or maybe he did understand it but because of his blind anger he tries to draw people into the abyss.
Even if you ignore the spiritual aspect of Halloween you can realize a big danger caused on the psychological level: The fun training of violence by "Trick or Treat" makes people learn: if I don't get what I want, then I am authorized to cause damage. What kind of effect do you think this is going to have on the overall interpersonal life?
