Who knows the history behind Halloween?

Samhain: The origin of Halloween can be traced to this “ancient pagan festival celebrated by Celtic people over 2,000 years ago,” states The World Book Encyclopedia. “The Celts believed that the dead could walk among the living at this time. During Samhain, the living could visit with the dead.”

Halloween costumes, candy, and trick or treat: According to the book Halloween—An American Holiday, An American History, some of the Celts wore ghoulish costumes so that wandering spirits would mistake them for one of their own and leave them alone. Others offered sweets to the spirits to appease them. In medieval Europe, the Catholic clergy adopted local pagan customs and had their adherents go from house to house wearing costumes and requesting small gifts.

Halloween pumpkins, or jack-o’-lanterns: In medieval Britain, “supplicants moved from door to door asking for food in return for a prayer for the dead,” and they would carry “hollowed-out turnip lanterns, whose candle connoted a soul trapped in purgatory.” (Halloween—From Pagan Ritual to Party Night) Others say that the lanterns were used to ward off evil spirits. During the 1800’s in North America, pumpkins replaced turnips because they were plentiful as well as easy to hollow out and carve.

http://www.halloween-website.com/history.htm

The History Behind Halloween

The problem with the claim that Halloween originates in a Celtic holy day of Samhain is that the earliest texts attesting Samhain date from the 10th century AD. While it is possible - POSSIBLE - that these preserve older, pre-Christian traditions, one must recognize that this is 500 years after the Christianization of Ireland and 200 years after the introduction of the Feast of All Saints (November 1) in western Christendom. It's uncertain exactly how All Saints arose, but it likely had something to do with the conversion of the Pantheon at Rome (far far away from any Celtic influence) from a pagan temple to a church dedicated to all saints collectively in the late 6th century, and there is some evidence it may have had sources in the eastern Mediterranean.

There's a habit of 19th-century folklorists to assume that any folk custom which you can't document the origin of in literate elite culture must preserve unchanged the culture of the common people since forever. Underlying that is a assumption that illiterate peasants never think of anything new, adapt or innovate over time, unless the upper classes make them. That assumption is fallacious and rather snobbish at the least.

Using actual historical evidence, the much more likely course of development for Halloween is that it actually originates from the Christian holiday of All Saints on November 1, and that as this day became more widespread in the calendars of Christian churches, folk practices grew up around it, including the notion that it was a day the spirits of the dead were more present than normal. These notions then influenced the way Irish mythology was being written down in the 10th-12th centuries, and developed into the Halloween traditions we think of, which only start to appear in written sources around the 16th century.

Halloween is not exactly a typical holiday. Other holidays, like Christmas and Shavuot, celebrate an event. Halloween celebrates a lot of things, including the lives of people who aren't with us anymore.

The history of Halloween is not entirely a clear one. Here's how (we think) it started:

Many hundreds of years ago, a people called the Celts lived in Europe and on the British Isles. The Celts believed that the souls of the dead visited Earth on the last day of October. They had a festival in honor of these souls of the dead, and they called it Samhain.

In time, the Roman Empire conquered the Celts and took over some of their beliefs as well. This included Samhain. The Romans combined it with their own festivals. And since the Roman Empire spread across a great part of the known world, the idea that the souls of the dead visited Earth on the last day of October spread far and wide.

Many ideas from the Roman days still survive in the United States and in other Western countries. Halloween is one of them.

But how did we get the name Halloween?

In the 8th Century, the Catholic Church declared November 1 to be All Saints' Day. The church calendar had a number of days honoring saints already. November 1 was picked to be the day to honor all saints who didn't already have a day named in their honor.

And the mass that the Catholic Church celebrated on November 1 was called Allhallowmas. This meant "mass of all the hallowed [saintly people.]" It was commonly called "All Hallows' Day."

And somewhere along the line, the night before became known as Allhallowe'en, which was short for "evening before All Hallows' Day." It was then shortened to what we now call it, Halloween.

It is an ancient European tradition in honor of the Saints. It is derived as a contraction of "All Hallows Eve", meaning the eve of the Feast of All Hallows, celebrating the Saints. It was believed people could drive demons and evil forces away by dressing up to scare them out, leaving the Earth clear for worship of the Saints on November 1 and of all the departed (All Souls Day) on November 2.

In time, in the traditions of the people, it took on an independent 'life' as a celebration in its own right.

"Hallow" is Old English for "Holy" as in "hallowed be Thy name." Halloween is actually like Christmas Eve. The night before a Christian holy day. It is the "Eve of All Saint's Day" or "All Hallows Eve" or "Halloween."

Pope Boniface IV created the festival of All Saints on May 13 in 609 or 610 (we are not sure which). It was moved to November 1 about 735.

Do you really think that the Pope in Rome was worried enough by a single Celtic Pagan holiday in far away tiny Ireland to move a holy day that affected the entire Christian world? I seriously doubt it.

But just like Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday), Halloween has taken on a life of its own.

Christians including Catholics do not fear death, evil, or Satan. In Christ, we can laugh in the face of death.

From an email I received: Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside, and scoops out all the yucky stuff--including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.

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Just because a Christian Holy Day lands on the same day of the year as a Pagan holiday does not mean that that Christian Holy Day is "based on Paganism" or is "worshiping Satan."

With the thousands of Pagan religions all over the world which have been practiced for thousands of years, there is probably at least one (if not more than one) Pagan holiday for everyday of the year.

Using that logic:

+ Christians could never celebrate anything on any day of the year.

+ Anyone celebrating a loved one's birthday on April 20 is celebrating Hitler's birthday because coincidentally, Hitler was born on the same day.

With love in Christ.

capitalist money making scheme it's a load of rubbish we in the UK never used to celebrate it it came from America like everything else Christmas was just a celebration now it's one big spending spree no one can afford it starts in June

Quite a few people, including many historians and folklorists. Go to your library and read some books about it.

jesus