Halloween and Shamhain

morningstar2651

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So what fun things are people doing to celebrate Halloween and/or Samahin this year?
I'm throwing a Halloween movie marathon at the university I work at. I might do a private Samhain ritual that night after the marathon.
  • Nightmare Before Christmas - 12:00 PM
  • Dracula (1931) - 1:30 PM
  • Ginger Snaps - 3:00 PM
  • Ghostbusters - 5:00 PM
  • ParaNorman - 7:00 PM
  • Trick 'r Treat - 8:45 PM
  • Sleepy Hollow - 10:45 PM
  • Beetlejuice - 12:45 AM
 
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seashale76

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Chili and grilled cheese sandwiches are a Halloween tradition at my house. We hardly get any trick-or-treaters, but I'll buy some candy anyway and convince myself it's for other people's children. We'll likely watch some movies too.
 
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silvermoon383

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I'll probably sit around doing nothing while eating the big bowl of candy I bought to hand out to the kids that never come around.

If I lived closer to a friend of mine I suppose I could see if they wouldn't mind me visiting whatever ritual they've got planned, but they're a good 4 hours away.
 
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seashale76

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Speculative

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Our church has a pumpkin painting party every year the Saturday before Halloween. We show some kid-friendly Halloween movies and paint pumpkins--painting is safer for the kids than carving.--on the night itself, I'll be watching college football, as I do every Saturday, and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, and probably eating a good deal of it myself.
 
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sahjimira

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Well, according to that article of seashale76 it's supposed to b Christian based. I know some churches do a hallelujah night and the kids dress up as bible characters. I
guess it's alright that way and the kids r told the
history of it. I don't believe in praying to Saints myself so I wouldn't want my kid learning that. My feeling is mostly demonized now..no mention of holiness as Jesus is at least mentioned at Christmas. I do not like Halloween and it is a high "holy" day for Satanist.
dn
 
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ViaCrucis

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it is a high "holy" day for Satanist.
dn

You can thank paranoid fundamentalists from half a century ago for that. Anton LeVey's was quite big on annoying uptight Christians, so if there was something that could get a rise from fundamentalists, LeVey latched onto it.

Hallowe'en, regardless of anyone's opinion, remains a Christian holiday, as part of the Triduum of Hallowmas. For over a thousand years now. That's simply a fact that isn't going to go away, no matter how many Chick Tracts get published every year.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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ViaCrucis

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I don't understand what this is supposed to mean.

It means someone is still living in the 1980s during the great Satanic Panic produced all sorts of urban legends, and Evangelical snake oil salesmen like John Todd and Mike Warnke were still fleecing flocks across America.

There are still Evangelicals/Fundamentalists who think Neo-Pagans and self-described witches are cat-sacrificing, blood-drinking devil worshipers.

Mostly because they've never met one.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Jack of Spades

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You can thank paranoid fundamentalists from half a century ago for that. Anton LeVey's was quite big on annoying uptight Christians, so if there was something that could get a rise from fundamentalists, LeVey latched onto it.



If I was a real life troll and wanted to cause problems for fundies, it would be laughably easy. I would start to celebrate some random witchcraft thing on every Christian holy day, and making huge fuss out of it in media. The paranoia of the target group does rest of the job, and soon some churches would abandon celebrating those days. When that would be accomplished, I would go for the church sites and dig up ancient cursed stuff from there, telling media again that the land was used for centuries as a special place for my ancestors sorceries, and see how many churches will get demolished by their own congregations as a result.
 
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awitch

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Making sure that people understand that witches are seriously involved.

Well, it's typical for us to celebrate our Samhain holiday on October 31. It's sort of a combination of New Year's Eve, Thanksgiving, and Memorial Day.
 
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sahjimira

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Viacrusis..thank you for ur reply. There was more to my post than what u quoted,. so even if it is a christian day why doesn't anyone proclaim it so it can b ccelebratedlikeChristmas so people know it's not just about candy and costumes. Instead there r all the horror films and such. It would b good if people knew the true meaning. BTW what r chick
 
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ViaCrucis

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Viacrusis..thank you for ur reply. There was more to my post than what u quoted,. so even if it is a christian day why doesn't anyone proclaim it so it can b ccelebratedlikeChristmas so people know it's not just about candy and costumes. Instead there r all the horror films and such. It would b good if people knew the true meaning. BTW what r chick

A lot of people don't bother to learn, a lot of people don't care. People are often content going with whatever they've heard without bothering to look into things for themselves.

Also, have you met the internet? Anyone can say anything and get away with it. It's why there are anti-vaxxers today, there's no way the anti-vaccination movement could be what it is today without the internet.

In the United States, historically the most predominant form of Christianity tended to be Reformed Protestantism, that is, Protestants of a Calvinist bent. And in the 18th and 19th century most Protestants were typically unfriendly toward Roman Catholicism--a history of unpleasantness that goes back to the time of the Reformation itself on both sides. In fact, the Puritans who came to Massachusetts forbade celebrating Christmas, because it was a "Catholic holiday" It was illegal to celebrate Christmas.

The Second Great Awakening, along with the springing up of a number of sects in the 19th century, such as the various Adventist groups (who came out of the Millerite movement) resulted in a growing form of pietistic Protestantism that was just as antagonistic to Catholicism as anything else, but also resulted in losing many of the liturgical elements that had been retained in mainstream Protestant groups (Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Methodists) in favor for revivalistic forms of worship. This also meant a stripping down of the Christian liturgical calendar. These revivalistic and pietistic Protestant groups continued into the 20th century, and are also the basis of the Pentecostal tradition which arose out from the previous Holiness Movement--an outgrowth of that frontier second great awakening pietistic and revivalistic tradition. Also, Fundamentalism arose out of the Modernist Controversy of the early 20th century. Fundamentalism, the rise of Neo-Evangelicalism, and later the resurgence of a Fundamentalist coalition under the Moral Majority with specific ecclesiastical and theological trends (all of these things by the way still not exactly friendly to Catholicism) continued a pattern of a particular Catholic-phobic kind of Protestantism. And things like Halloween were just "Catholic things".

That changed some decades ago when Halloween's association with spooky scary was more solidified as a popular idea, and the adoption of Halloween as by Anton LeVey as a Satanist holy day only amplified the rhetoric. And so the new Fundamentalism of the 60s and 70s took to the warpath, led, in part by fear propagandists like John Todd a major "source" for Jack Chick and his brand of propaganda comic books. The Satanic Panic of the 1980s created a tidal wave of urban legend and irrational fear within the public--which only continued to feed what was already going on in Fundamentalist and Evangelical circles.

Hallowe'en went from part of the Christian calendar, to a "Catholic thing" with the supposition that "Catholic things" are icky and bad, to being a pagan thing, to being an evil satanic thing. However, what Hallowe'en actually is never changed, it's still the first day in the Hallowmas Triduum. And is entirely and explicitly Christian.

The way to fight massive ignorance is by consistent truth-telling.

Which is what, ultimately, I'm doing on this board. Trying to put forward truth to combat fiction. Because a lie, even a lie told often enough, is still a lie. And the only way to deal with a lie is to combat it with truth.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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morningstar2651

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I do not like Halloween...
This is the only valid reason you give for not celebrating Halloween - you don't like it. I can respect that. I don't like sour cream so I don't eat it. You don't like Halloween so you don't celebrate it.

The highest of all holidays in the Satanic religion is the date of one's own birth. I doubt this is sufficient for you to not celebrate your birthday and we don't assume you are a Satanist if you celebrate your birthday. Same with Halloween or Walpurgisnacht - the other two high holy days of Satanists.

I celebrate the non-religious holiday of Halloween - the one where children get to dress up in costumes and get candy from their neighbors. It's a fun night for children and parents. The last time I went out on beggars night was with my mom, my sister, my niece, and my nephew. My nephew was dressed as a ninja and my niece was dressed as a princess. When an older child's costume scared my niece my nephew ran to defend her with his plastic katana. It was adorable.

I also celebrate the religious holiday of Samhain which happens on the same day as the non-religious holiday of Halloween. Although these two events happen on the same day, I celebrate them differently and separately. As you can see in post 2, my Halloween plans this year involve thematic movies open to the public, but my Samhain plans involve a private ritual.
 
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