What is the origin of Halloween?

Compton's Reference Collection (1996) says the celebration of Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, precedes All Saints Day (a day set aside by the Catholic Church in the seventh century to honor all saints). But the celebration has its origins in autumn festivals of much earlier times.

The Druids (priests of the Celts) held a three-day festival at the beginning of November. The Encyclopaedia Britannica-Micropaedia (1981, article "Halloween") says this feast was the festival of Samhain, Lord of the Dead, and coincided with the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon new year. The souls of the dead were believed to visit their homes that night, and it was believed that witches and warlocks (male sorcerers) flew abroad playing tricks on people and wreaking havoc, so bonfires were kindled to frighten them away.

Since the Celts came through Asia Minor in their migration from the area of the Middle East to the British Isles, they were exposed to the Roman festival dedicated to Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruits. This festival took place around the same time of year. Nuts and apples, part of the winter food supply, were used to honor Pomona. The Celts then added this custom to their celebration of Samhain.

This night was considered the best for divinations concerning marriage, luck, health and death. It was the only day on which the help of the devil was openly invoked for such practices. Young people played games, such as bobbing for apples, to supposedly ascertain which ones would marry in the coming year.

Small stones were placed in the dying embers of the bonfires to represent the people present. If any were displaced the next morning, it was considered certain that those the stones represented would die within the next 12 months. Bands of young people, disguised in grotesque masks, carved lanterns from turnips and carried them through villages.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica concludes that the celebrations of Halloween are purely Druidical, which is further proved by the fact that as recently as early in the 20th century the night was still referred to in parts of Ireland as Oidhche Shamhna, "Vigil of Saman," a variation in spelling for Samhain, god of the dead.

As the Catholic Church began to encourage the festival, poor families began to beg for pastries in exchange for promises to pray for the donor's dead relatives. This gave way to the modern "trick or treat" practice.

Satan enters "Christianity"

So how did Satan "worm his way" into the so-called Christian calendar by getting the eve of all witches and demons transformed into the eve of All Saints Day? The short version is that the Roman Pantheon (a temple) was dedicated by Emperor Hadrian around A.D. 100 to the pagan goddess Cybele and other Roman deities. In time, it fell into the hands of the barbaric tribes from the north. In A.D. 607 it was recaptured by Rome and given to Pope Boniface IV. In A.D. 610 it was rededicated, this time to Mary and all the saints, and people were encouraged to pray for all saints on May 13 each year.

Since the time of Constantine, the Roman Empire had usually allowed only one religion (Christianity) in an effort to unify all its conquered peoples. So when Charlemagne invaded and conquered parts of Eastern Germany, he required their king, Wittekind, to be baptized and accept Christianity. The Germans continued to insist on their old religious practices, though, so in A.D. 834 Pope Gregory IV felt he could solve the problem by changing the date of observing All Saints Day to Nov. 1 throughout the empire. So the empire tried to transform this evil night by giving it another name and calling it good.

AND i might add this is yet another satan inspired, man made holiday, that HIDES the biggest and most wonderful Feast of God, ( Feast of Tabernacles 7 days, then the 8th day, called the last Great Day)

Which begins around the first of October. something to ponder.!?

satan is very very clever.

I expect you will pick the answer that matches your prejudices, but I'll put this anyway to ensure that the truth gets an airing.

A lot of people in the USA and the UK mistakenly think it is originally pagan or to do with witchcraft or to do with Satanism.

Curiously, outside these two countries, hardly anyone thinks that. As far as most of them are concerned, it is the Eve of All Saints Day (Hallow is old English for Holy or Saint)

All Saints is an old Catholic festival celebrated for over a thousand years.to celebrate the lives of holy people who have gone to heaven. It is followed by All Souls Day which is a day to pray for all the dead, it is known as the Day of the Dead in some countries - Mexico, Spain, Hungary, the Philippines and others.

So why do the British and Americans have these funny ideas? The common feature is Puritanical Protestantism - people like the Pilgrim Fathers. These people did not approve of Saints nor of praying for the dead. They hated the Catholic church and all it stood for. They tried to ban its festivals - even Christmas. They attacked it for being un-biblical, of the devil, pagan, of the anti-christ and other such propaganda.

These ideas took particularly strong root in the USA and have affected both popular culture and writing about Halloween. People do not recognise Catholic customs and assume they must be pagan - they then invent links to obscure, almost unknown, ancient texts which are actually not about Halloween at all.

The truth is - it began in the Catholic church and is the start of its celebration of the great community of believers who have gone before us. It's a brilliant occasion in Catholic countries where people reconnect strongly with the past and really feel part of the timeless community that is the Christian family - all people, living, dead and those yet to come.

It is very sad that most people in the USA and UK have lost all of that for a secular costume party.

This article is about the holiday. For other uses, see Halloween (disambiguation).

Halloween

Jack-o'-lantern

Also called All Hallows’ Eve

All Saints’ Eve

Observed by Numerous Western countries (see article)

Type Secular with roots in Christianity and paganism

Date October 31

Celebrations Varies by region but includes trick-or-treating, wearing costumes, ghost tours, apple bobbing, costume parties, carving jack-o'-lanterns

Related to Samhain, All Saints’ Day

Halloween (also spelled Hallowe'en) is a holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints’ Day. It is largely a secular celebration, but some Christians and pagans have expressed strong feelings about its religious overtones.[1][2][3] Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America during Ireland's Great Famine of 1846.[4] The day is often associated with the colors orange and black, and is strongly associated with symbols such as the jack-o'-lantern. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting haunted attractions, carving jack-o'-lanterns, pranking people, reading scary stories, and watching horror movies.

Instead of All Saints Day, it should read All Satan's Day!!!

Halloween has origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain

The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is sometimes regarded as the "Celtic New Year". Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient Celtic pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Celts believed that on October 31st, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the living and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops.

Costumes and masks being worn at Halloween goes back to the Celtic traditions of attempting to copy the evil spirits or placate them, in Scotland for instance where the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white.

The dentist are smarter than we are when i bake a bun at 350 they will get slower at 250 then ny guitar could be tuned to the car wash tomrrow then the turtles will stop saying its cold when i get some wood for the fridge then the people will drown in the ocean from the cattle that are standing in my yard when the sunshines and the hampsters will get naked and ruin the thankgsgiving holiday then the truck will need new tire rotations when the cats start licking the milk from the barn yard animals to get brushed everyday at the expense of the tsunami in asia the chinamen will all get new sunglasses when the trees turn blue after that the ice cream will melt from the grass not being in in my yard then the dogs will get smake bitten by a girl that had only 1 leg who ran track in the olympics then the restaurant had the grill flooded by unwanted people in the office building trying to get a haircut before the hot dog stand closes and the books will be destroyed from the weather today is 70 degreees and the sandwich is getting molded from the size of the pants my friend wears and the shoes will not fit right because the airplane has got stuck in the mountain rivers of Italy...........

I have no idea where it originated from dude

Originally a Celtic holiday called Samhain.

The Holy Roman Church placed All Saint's Day as the day after Halloween so the pagans could have a holiday in the same time frame, but the church wanted to usurp the pagan holidays.

Look it up in Wikipedia (.org)

Samhain Lore (October 31st) Samhain, (pronounced SOW-in, SAH-vin, or SAM-hayne) means "End of Summer", and is the third and final Harvest. The dark winter half of the year commences on this Sabbat. It is generally celebrated on October 31st, but some traditions prefer November 1st. It is one of the two "spirit-nights" each year, the other being Beltane. It is a magical interval when the mundane laws of time and space are temporarily suspended, and the Thin Veil between the worlds is lifted. Communicating with ancestors and departed loved ones is easy at this time, for they journey through this world on their way to the Summerlands. It is a time to study the Dark Mysteries and honor the Dark Mother and the Dark Father, symbolized by the Crone and her aged Consort. Originally the "Feast of the Dead" was celebrated in Celtic countries by leaving food offerings on altars and doorsteps for the "wandering dead". Today a lot of practitioners still carry out that tradition. Single candles were lit and left in a window to help guide the spirits of ancestors and loved ones home. Extra chairs were set to the table and around the hearth for the unseen guest. Apples were buried along roadsides and paths for spirits who were lost or had no descendants to provide for them. Turnips were hollowed out and carved to look like protective spirits, for this was a night of magic and chaos. The Wee Folke became very active, pulling pranks on unsuspecting humans. Traveling after dark was was not advised. People dressed in white (like ghosts), wore disguises made of straw, or dressed as the opposite gender in order to fool the Nature spirits. This was the time that the cattle and other livestock were slaughtered for eating in the ensuing winter months. Any crops still in the field on Samhain were considered taboo, and left as offerings to the Nature spirits. Bonfires were built, (originally called bone-fires, for after feasting, the bones were thrown in the fire as offerings for healthy and plentiful livestock in the New Year) and stones were marked with peoples names. Then they were thrown into the fire, to be retrieved in the morning. The condition of the retrieved stone foretold of that person's fortune in the coming year. Hearth fires were also lit from the village bonfire to ensure unity, and the ashes were spread over the harvested fields to protect and bless the land.

Samhain used to be a midpoint between the Fall Equinox and the Winter solstice. People used to pay rents during the quarter days. Nothing evil about calendrics. Of course to the demon haunted minds, everything not in the Bible is evil.

Halloween comes from Samhain in Ireland and then integrated with All Saint's Day (Day of the Dead in latin cultures).

The thought was that this was a sacred time when spirits were able to walk the earth. People would wear costumes which they thought represented spirits so that the actual spirits wouldn't kill them.

Today it's all about money and popular culture characters.

the origin of halloween is dated back to the 1700's which people thought other people was witches turns out that they were wrong

Wilford Brimley has already given you the correct answer. Genuine Christians do not celebrate Halloween.