the SmockLady

An article written by SmockDaddy about Halloween and our journey to the fun it possesses and to debunk all the lies that surround it. This article was originally written in October of 2002. I lost this article’s permalink when I moved my blog back to WordPress. If you have come here looking for it again, I’m sorry for your inconveniences and this is it’s new permanent home. It is here to stay. It’s a long read, but well worth it. So get your coffee and sit a spell. It’s time to think.

It is perhaps unfortunate that, due to my crazy schedule these past couple of months, this issue will be reaching you on Halloween or a few days afterward. Then again, it may be better this way, as this essay will call us to a task which takes time and effort: investigating the truth. Too often we settle for easy answers: we believe everything we hear or read. For those who follow the one who said, “I am the truth,” our gullibility is appalling. Christians need to be champions of the truth, yet we seem to be quite satisfied with rumours and myths, especially ones that fit neatly into our world view. At no time of the year is this more evident than at Halloween.

I have several Christian tracts and booklets in my possession, all purporting to let me know the “Truth about Halloween”, or “Halloween from a Christian Perspective”, or something like that. You’ve seen them too. You probably have a few of them. Maybe you, like me, have even participated in the distribution of these tracts in years past, in your church or in a Christian school. A few years ago, I decided to do something unheard of in evangelical Christian circles: I decided to check out these “truths” about Halloween to see if they could be historically documented or if they were simply myths.

What made me want to do this? Or, to ask it another way, why don’t all Christians treat such “information” with the kind of healthy, godly skepticism exemplified by the Berean Christians in the biblical book of Acts? The Bereans, you may remember, were not satisfied to take even St. Paul’s words at face value, but decided to “examine the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11). For this they are commended as being of “more noble character” than other recipients of Paul’s messages. If the Bereans were careful to check out what the Apostle said by consulting primary sources, how can we in good conscience take the word of a mimeographed tract of uncertain origin and even more uncertain scholarship? When it comes to Halloween, that is exactly what Christians have done for the past twenty years or so.

I think my doubts about these pamphlets warning of the “real dangers” of Halloween began when I first encountered the work of Dr. Jan Harold Brunvand in the late 1980’s. Brunvand is a folklorist and an expert in the field of urban legends. His books, such as The Vanishing Hitchhiker and The Choking Doberman show how many of the “true” stories we hear are fiction, even (or especially) those that happened to “a friend of a friend.” Undergirding most of these legends is a belief that sinister plots and conspiracies fill our everyday lives. A popular bubble gum contains spider eggs. Ray Kroc of McDonald’s (or Liz Claiborne, or the president of Procter and Gamble) is a Satanist and donates corporate profits to Satanic causes. Atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair has pressured congress to remove all religious broadcasts from the airwaves. HIV-infected needles are being hidden in gas pump handles (or theatre seats, or the ball pit at a fast food restaurant’s playground). All of these are familiar to us. All of them carry the message that evil lurks in the shadows of seemingly innocent products and activities. All of them are 100% false. Sadly, all of them continue to be perpetuated, largely by well-meaning evangelical Christians.

In the mid-1990’s, as a Bible teacher in a Christian school, I started taking a look at these Halloween tracts and noticed similarities between the information they contained and the contents of typical urban legends. I began to question the anti-Halloween literature the way I questioned the urban legends. What I found along the way was quite revealing.

I would like to take a look at three tracts I have had in my possession for a long time. I see all three make the rounds this time of year, and so I am confident that most readers are familiar with at least one of them. If not, you have doubtless read the same information in other pamphlets, perhaps even verbatim, as such tracts quote from each other at length without citing sources.

The first tract is anonymous, although it has the name of a church here in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, printed on the back. Whether it came from that church originally is impossible to tell. The tract looks as if it were run off on an old mimeograph machine and then photocopied several times. It bears the title, “Halloween–It’s [sic] History and Origin.” That alone should be enough to let the reader know this is not exactly serious scholarship. The tract begins, “Three hundred years before Jesus was born, a civilization of people called the Celtics lived throughout the British Isles . . .” The author refers to the ancient Celts as the “Celtics” throughout the article. One would hope that the author of an essay purporting to give us the origin of Halloween would take the time to find out the name of the people with whom Halloween ostensibly originated.

This anonymous tract continues, “They [the “Celtics” in question] were controlled by a secret society of priests and pagans called the Druids. The Druids were satanists [sic] who worshipped and served the demonic god of death–Samhain (pronounced Sa-Man).” There are so many egregious errors here one hardly knows where to begin. First, there is no hard historical evidence that this elite caste of Celts called the Druids ever existed. Modern-day pagans have disseminated tales about the “noble” Druids to bolster their claims for the legitimacy and historicity of their religion. By accepting their claims, Christians are helping these neo-pagans gain respectability. Secondly, if there were a group of Celts called Druids, they were not Satanists, as the Celts did not have Satan or a devil in their belief system. The Celts were nature worshippers, a trait which missionaries to the Celts, such as St. Columba and St. Patrick, used to their advantage as they taught the people about the Creator of all nature. Celtic Christianity is still marked by a deep appreciation of creation. Thirdly, the author asserts that these “Druids” worshipped “the demonic god of death–Samhain pronounced ‘sa-man’)” This is the fundamental myth which forms the basis for all of these tracts. The truth is, the Celts had no “god of death” named Samhain. Samhain is a Gaelic word meaning “summer’s end”, and it is the Gaelic name of the holiday which we call Halloween. That’s it. This “Samhain the lord of death” story is found in so many places, it may be difficult to accept that it is absolutely false, but it is. This particular tract contains no bibliography or footnotes whatsoever to support this claim. The author no doubt read this “fact” in another pamphlet and decided to pass it along. It is kind of pathetic that the author takes the time to tell us how to pronounce “Samhain”, since he has no idea how to pronounce it. Samhain is a Gaelic word and is pronounced “sow-en”. Other tracts, also passing along the notion that Samhain is the “lord of death”, spell it “Saman”, “Samane”, and “Samhane”. One author thinks the “lord of death’s” name must have been “Sam Hane.”

We will leave the first tract now, since there is nothing in it which cannot be found in the others. The second tract is ambitiously titled “The Truth About Halloween” and has the name Bob McCurry listed as its author. It is a more attractive publication, and actually does have a list of references at the end. For the “lord of death” story, McCurry cites a book called Halloween Through Twenty Centuries by Ralph Linton. I learned that this book was published in 1950 and is now out of print. I could not check to see what source (if any) Linton cited for Samhain being the “lord of death,” but research since that time has uncovered the names of more than 350 Celtic deities, and there is no “Samhain, lord of death” amongst them. Some sources mention a mythical hero (not a god) named Sawan or Samhain, whose claim to fame seems to be that someone stole his magic cow. Such a passing reference would hardly qualify him for the title “lord of death,” nor does it establish a connection between him and the holiday Samhain.

McCurry’s chief source for his version of the “truth” about Halloween is the World Book Encyclopedia, which turns out to be the main source for most other such tracts. A look at the sources cited in World Book’s article on Halloween shows mostly children’s books and no primary sources. World Book can hardly be called a scholarly reference: even most high school English teachers will not allow their students to use World Book as a reference in term papers.

The most distressing of the three tracts I have, however, is the one by John Ankerberg and John Weldon entitled, The Facts on Halloween: What Christians Need to Know. Apparently what Christians need to know is that the facts don’t matter, as Ankerberg makes this startling statement regarding the “Samhain the lord of death” story:

Of the 400 names of Celtic gods known Belenus [the sun god] is mentioned most often. “Samhain” as the specific name of the Lord of Death is uncertain, but it is possible that the Lord of Death was the chief druidic deity. We’ll follow the lead of several other authors and call him Samhain (p. 6).

Notice what Ankerberg is saying: “‘Samhain’ as the specific name of the Lord of Death is uncertain.” If he has done enough research to know that over 400 names of Celtic gods are known, and that Belenus is mentioned the most often, he doubtless knows that not only is there no mention of a god named Samhain, but that there is also no mention of a nameless “Lord of Death” either. Instead of admitting that there is no “Samhain the Lord of Death, ” Ankerberg carefully chooses his words to insinuate that there was a Celtic “Lord of Death”, only that his name was not mentioned. He then expects us to make the logical leap that, although this god is not mentioned, he was possibly their most important god! Ankerberg caps it off by saying, “We’ll follow the lead of several other authors and call him Samhain.” We won’t admit the honest conclusions of our research; instead, we’ll “follow the lead” of all the other tracts in continuing the “Lord of Death” myth. Incredible. At least the other authors can perhaps claim ignorance, but Ankerberg seems actually to have done his homework, yet he insists on perpetuating falsehood. There is a great difference between ignorance and deception.

Space does not permit us to go into all of the various Halloween practices to which these authors attribute evil/Satanic properties. The fact that all begin from the false premise that Samhain was the “Lord of Death” instead of the name of the Celtic “summer’s end” festival should be enough to cast doubt on every other assertion. But please, don’t take my word for all of this. That’s how we got into this situation to start with! Please, during the coming year, try to find some time to do a little investigation of your own.

The Internet is responsible for the rapid dissemination of many rumors and myths and is therefore a dubious source of research, but I would suggest (as a quick way to start) a look at these two sites which are well-documented:

• Halloween: Myths, Monsters, and Devils
• The History of Halloween (written by a PCA minister)
• The author of the above site also has a very amusing and informative site on Christian urban legends

Why so much space devoted to Halloween this month? I think it illustrates a larger problem in Christian circles, a problem that surfaces often in discussions on worship. In short, we want to believe what we want to believe, and we tend to accept uncritically whatever fits our preconceived ideas. But as believers, we must answer to a higher authority than ourselves, and we are to show the world what it means to be committed to the truth. I hope this article will inspire you to investigate the truth, in this area and in all areas.

God bless you!