Ghastly Goblins and Candy Cravings

Trick or treat! When said by children, these three words bring back a flood of childhood memories to most adults. Memories of masquerading as vampires, ghosts, witches, ghouls, monsters and fairies. Memories of canvassing the neighborhood, going door to door, shouting those three little words, and watching their bags fill up with all sorts of candies, apples, nuts and other goodies. Memories of parades, parties and playing tricks, like soaping the neighbors’ windows, decorating their trees with toilet tissue, or playing baseball with their roadside mailboxes. After all, one might reason, “What’s so wrong with Halloween?” Most believe that it is just another harmless childhood indulgence—much the way they view Christmas and birthday parties. Many wonder, “What’s so wrong with having a little fun?”
Besides teaching children that it is alright to beg for something instead of earning it through work, and also turning them into extortionists, trick or treat essentially means “give me a treat or I’ll play a trick on you”. Halloween, its spooky costumes, scary jack-o-lanterns, juvenile tricks and colorful parades, may look like clean, innocent fun. But its traditions, customs and practices are rooted in a past far darker, far more sinister than you may realize.
Where did Halloween actually come from? How did it originate? How did it get to be so widely observed, especially in the United States?
The ancient Celts lived 2,000 years ago, in what is now Ireland, Great Britain, and Northern France. The Celts were pagan nature worshippers who had many gods, including the sun, which they believed commanded their work and rest times. They believed the sun maintained the earth and kept it beautiful, and caused their crops to grow. The Celts observed their new year on November 1, which marked the end of the harvest and summer, as well as the beginning of the cold, dark winter ahead. From October 31 to November 2, the Celts celebrated a 48-hour festival, the Vigil of Samhain. They believed that Samhain, the pagan lord of the dead, assembled the souls of those who had died during the previous year and decided what form they would take for the next year. The souls would either pass on to human bodies or would be condemned to live within animals, known as the most evil of the bad souls or spirits would take the form of cats. Hoping to coax Samhain into giving lighter sentences, the Celtic worshippers tried to bribe him with gifts and prayers.
At Samhain, held on November 1, the world of the gods was believed to be made visible to mankind, and the gods played many tricks on their mortal worshippers; it was a time fraught with danger, charged with fear, and full of supernatural episodes. Sacrifices and propitiations of every kind were thought to be vital, for without them the Celts believed they could not prevail over the perils of the season or counteract the activities of the deities. Samhain was an important precursor to Halloween. On the night of October 31, the eve of the new year, the Celts, after harvesting their crops and storing them for the coming winter, began their festival. First, they extinguished the cooking fires in their homes. Then the Druids met on hilltops in the dark oak forests and built huge sacred bonfires to frighten away evil spirits and to honor the sun god. Next, the people would burn crop and animal sacrifices to their gods, dancing around the fires as the season of the sun passed and the season of darkness began. The Celts wore costumes of animal heads and skins, and told each other their fortunes. The next morning, they re-lit their cooking fires from the sacred bonfires, in order to free them from evil spirits as well as to help protect them during the coming winter season.