We’ve created a 3:30 minute video which shares the Halloween story:
‘From Darkness to Dollars: How Faith, Fear and Consumerism shaped a Festival’

The video will suit public and church audiences, playing at Light Parties and sharing online.

Also view a series of short videos on YouTube covering parts of Halloween HERE

As an additional resource — and a great tool for sharing the history of Halloween with friends, or for giving out at ‘Light Parties’ — we’ve created a 16-page A6 booklet called:

‘Unwrapping Halloween’

– A Tale of Three Stories.

FROM DARKNESS TO DOLLARS:
HOW FAITH, FEAR AND CONSUMERISM SHAPED A FESTIVAL

This booklet explores the history of Halloween and its untold stories.
Available to purchase at $1 each HERE or to view in full online HERE

Brand new Children’s resources

Halloween Fold-Out

– A Tale of Three Stories

$6 for a pack of 10 (+ postage)

A pocket-sized, illustrated fold-out — just bigger than a credit card — featuring a poem that tells the story of Halloween’s ancient, Christian, and modern origins across 12 panels.
Perfect for giving out at Light Parties, handing to kids who knock at your door on Halloween, or using to explain the history at kids’ church.

The final panel links to HalloweenHope.nz (launching soon), where families can find more information and prayers to pray in times of need.

Read the full content HERE

Order HERE

A PowerPoint of the Fold-Out is available HERE for download for those storytellers who have an opportunity to present this Halloween story at Light Parties or to classrooms.

The history of Halloween 

STORY #1: The festival of Samhain – its beginning point

Halloween’s earliest roots are in the ancient Celtic (English/Irish) festival of Samhain – which is a Gaelic word pronounced “SAH-win”.

• This was a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer.
• This included lighting bonfires and wearing costumes to ward off the dark spirits – whom they believed could possess and torment you if they ever identified who you are. The masks were therefore to conceal your identity from the dark spirits.
• As a pagan festival, it also included various animal sacrifices – and very likely including human ones at times also as was customary to the fearful religious practices of our earlier Celtic ancestors. Crops were also amongst the things sacrificed.
• They believed evil spirits roamed and controlled the world – including controlling both the fruitfulness of crops in summer and their preservation for eating through the dark of winter. Any potential anger from the gods / spirits therefore needed appeasing. This is a common way of thinking in all primitive tribal religions.
  • One well known practice of the Celts –likely occurring at Samhain though possibly also at other times, was the building of a large wooden effigy of a man, into which people would be trapped to be burnt as offerings to the god of death. To
  • Interestingly, it is said to have been the arrival of the Romans from AD 43 that signalled the start of the end of Druid culture in the UK. Julius Caesar had commented (after Roman visitation to England in 55 BC) how it seemed in the view of that Brits that, “unless the life of a man be offered, the mind of immortal gods will not favour them.” Human sacrifice was common – while there is indication the practice then faded – eventually being fully eradicated with the embrace of the Christian belief in the value of human life as a part of that picture.
• At times it was a 3 day festival, while at others it might cover the full month of November.

Why ward off ghosts?

Winter was the dark part of the year and also risky. Living in an agricultural season, and with no welfare state, you needed your stored crops to last the winter. Food supplies could be damaged, stolen or rot.  They believed the evil spirits caused this – so their anger needed appeasing, and hence the sacrifices.

It was also assumed evil spirits came out at this time between the harvest and winter. The spirits liked the dark. The believed that, during this time, the spirits walked on earth. So Druid priests would focus on trying to connect with the passing spirits, to discern their intentions for the winter, and to know the future. While masks were used to obscure a person’s identity – to avoid ‘demonic possession’, some suggest there were masks Druid priests would wear that helped to invite this – desiring possession so as to gain from the strength and knowledge of the spirits.

But LIGHT then came to their culture, dispelling these superstition and the culture of fear that was naturally associated with them.

STORY #2: The beginning of Halloween

The gospel is widely believed to have come to the Celts likely in the first Century. England was a part of then Roman Empire. Traders would naturally have taken the gospel there – just as is known to have happened in many other locations. However, the earliest stories of Christianity date to around AD 200. Tertullian wrote the Adversus Judaeos, in which he included Britain in a list of places reached by Christianity. Around the same time, the Greek theologian Origen also wrote that Christianity had reached Britain. Soon after, around AD 249 to 259, under the Emperors Decius and Valerian, the persecution of Christians intensified. Aaron and Julius were two Romano-British martyrs known to have been martyred at this time.

Beyond that – Saint Patrick’s work in Ireland dates to approx. the 5^th Century. The gospel was clearly well-settled in England – for Patrick’s family were Christian. There is some indication that practices like human sacrificing had decreasing since the Romans arrived – enforcing their own religion upon the people, replacing what existed prior. (By contrast, Christianity was only ever offered – not forced in this same manner.) As the gospel was embraced, superstitions and their associated fears and violent associated practices were put aside.

This repeated the same patterns that have followed everywhere Christianity has spread – including here in New Zealand, as likewise in most of the nearby Pacific Island nations.

However, while the meaning behind Samhain was lost, the annual practice of celebration remained. It was their custom. This is  exactly like how Christmas continues for families who no longer follow the Christian faith today. Even without the superstitions, the practice of a pause for a festival continued.

Pope Gregory 3^rd (AD 690-741) therefore established All-Hallows Day – also known as ‘All Saints Day’ – to give new meaning to the occasion for the Celts. The festival had earlier been established on May 13 back in AD 609  by Pope Boniface IV. It’s original purpose was general feast for martyrs and the Virgin Mary . Pope Gregory moved the date to 1^st November to help the Celts out. Their idea was to now celebrate the Saints of history who had dispelled the darkness they had left behind them! The festival took on new meaning. From fear and appeasement, it was now a time to be full of hope.

The night before (31st October) became known as ‘All Hallows Eve’ – from which we get the name ‘Halloween’.

And it remained that for about 1100 years.

STORY #3a: The ‘scary’ dynamic of the festival returns – for fun

The Puritans who travelled and founded America as a nation had no interest in Halloween. It has never been a cultural festival there. It is something else.

What changed? To know that, we have to travel to Ireland.

There was a severe Potato famine in Ireland from 1845 until 1852. As many as one million died from salvation – while others looked for an escape. Selling their possessions, as many as 1.3 to 1.5 million of the Irish then boarded ships and fled to America to escape the famine.

Arriving in the port cities, those cities became a cultural melting pot within which traditions changed and were developed. Feeling displaced, the Irish sought to re-define who they now were. Games and practices connected with the pre-Christian era pagan festival began to be revived – like bonfires, but these were changed in to jack-o-lanterns (faces in pumpkins). ‘Trick or treating’ began – where children went home to home asking for lollies.

(‘Trick or treating’ has a possible origin in a cultural practice in which the poor would go door to door to pray for the souls of a family’s dead in exchange for food to eat).

STORY #3b: Businessmen recognised the opportunity

By early 20^th Century, Halloween was a feature of American culture – endorsed and promoted principally by the businesses who created the myriad of costumes and other extras involved. While not a cultural festival – in the sense of something fundamental to their history and identity (to which a public holiday is often attached), as a commercial festival it is widely embraced because the well-funded advertising makes it visible.

>> It has become one of the most profitable holidays on the calendar.

Halloween in New Zealand  

Halloween as a commercial festival likewise had nothing fundamental to do with who we are as New Zealands – while ‘All Saints Day’ / All Hallows Day did, in that the stories represent our turning toward the values of love, human value, justice, law, equality and charity we share together as a culture.

But then businesses recognised the same opportunity could be leveraged here if they created a desire for it through advertising.  Halloween has therefore been promoted due to commercial interests. There is no governmental purpose in it. There is no cultural or religious purpose. It’s about money!

Of course, some religious confusion results:  Christians knowing it’s a Christian occasion, while those delighting in the occult have naturally gravitated toward it as an occasion for celebration as a possible festival of the darkness.

The publics perspectives are, of course, shaped by what they see and hear.

This reminds us as Christians of how easily public culture can be augmented: If we don’t like the celebrating of demons and ghosts, we are not without power to do something.

The ‘festival’ likely cannot be stopped – but it can be shaped. 

A Christian response – the ‘message’

In noting the THREE stories behind Halloween, we create a legitimate platform upon which we can tell the stories of light. Form our history, this is the story of why our ancestors chose Christianity over their prior pagan superstitions.

In countless ways, life became better!

• Just as light dispels darkness, a culture of fear and superstition was replaced with one of confidence, reason, hope and good sleep.
• They received  a basis for believing in the value of every human individual – which they didn’t have prior.
  • This stopped a range of violent practices.  
  • This redefined the role of governments as existing not to rule over the people, but instead to serve them. (Christianity is what transformed our political systems).  
• A basis for believing in the equality of all people was found – from which the poor were lifted, the economy changed, government systems reformed, slavery then ended and the women’s movement then started.
• Education for all then followed – empowering the free will of the average citizen, intentionally including the freedom of religion.
• A culture of charity came from this
• Our entire healthcare system, and related values, came from this.
• …and much more, including the shaping of our economic systems enabling our prosperity as a culture. the ending of widespread corruption which also liked to political freedoms and our prosperity, as also the technological age, and then also the scientific age due to the rational way of thinking and value of knowledge, rationality and people inherent to the faith.

It is of note that the exact same pattern of change as happened among the Celts and Irish also came among Germans Goths, and the Nordic peoples, as also more locally here the Tongans, Fijians, Samoans, Solomon Islanders, to Vanuatu – and many more.

Stories of remarkable transformation exist from each of these locations – as cultures shifted from ‘pagan fear’ and sacrifice to religious belief that inspires love, light, hope and life – based in a new view on human value and freedom.

• >>> These are the stories to tell – while affirming that BOTH the stories of darkness and also of light are true to our history. 

No good will come from grumping about the public celebration of darkness. ‘Condemning’ it will look judgemental. There is political power telling us we have to celebrate darkness also. It is up to us – the public – to decide what we want our children encouraged toward!

All Hallows Day has a 1400 year-old history in our wider culture – from which a great many of our cultural benefits have come.