Halloween: One Last Fling for the Dead?

by John Brolley

Adjunct Instructor, Judaic Studies

Halloween's origins may not be spooky, but they are unclear. Several Christian denominations commemorate the lives of all dead saints on All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve has come to represent various creepy beings' last fling before that day. But the holiday clearly has pre-Christian roots. More than one ancient polytheistic religion apparently believed that the souls of the dead - particularly the wicked ones! - were released to roam the earth once a year. (What little we know of Druid religion suggests they believed that for the year prior to that day, these wicked souls inhabited the bodies of various animals. Hmmmm…has Fido or Boots been acting strangely around the kitchen lately?) At some point October 31 became the “new year” for one or more of these religions - but some time after Rome adopted Christianity as its official religion, the date became reserved for All Hallows' Eve.

If Halloween seems scary now, consider this: before the so-called modern era, folks thought that demons and sorcerers were operating 24/7. Demonic activity was considered the source of everything from toothaches to cattle disease to political unrest. So it was only natural that folks would carry a little something to ward off the supernatural nasties. Here's an excerpt from a charm written about three hundred years ago by Christians, but representing a tradition of religious magic that's millennia old. Enjoy!

By the power of

these ten sayings

of the glorious Godhead, and by the name

I am that I am, El Shaddai,

Adonai, Lord of Hosts, I bind,

and I repel , and I remove all

pains and diseases and the evil

and covetous eye, and fear and terror

and trembling, and every kind of fright,

and dehydrating heat-sicknesses and all

sicknesses and all pains and all illnesses

and the hot and cold fever

and throbbing of the head and splittings,

and the “spirit of the heart,” and the “spirit

of the bone”

from the body and from the members

of the bearer of this writing. Amen.