Many people think that Halloween is a “devil worshipping†holiday celebrated by people who don’t believe in God, but the truth is that Halloween really has its basic origins in the Catholic Church. Halloween means “All Saints Eve†or “All Hallows Eveâ€.
All Saints Day is a religious holiday observed by the Catholic Church and set aside for worship of all the saints in heaven. They used to consider it with all solemnity as one of the most significant observances of the Church year The American origin of Halloween extends further from the Celts celebration of Samhain (pronounced sow – in) which is a Druidic festival made to celebrate the end of the harvest. As with a lot of Celtic lore, faeries were thought to be extremely active at this time as they ushered in the winter.
Celts believed that on the night before the “new yearâ€, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrate Samhain. It was on this day that they believe the ghosts of the dead returned to Earth causing trouble and damaging crops.
Celts felts that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids – Celtic priests – to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the natural world, which could be quite volatile, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winger.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes – typically consisting of animal heads and skins – and they tried to tell each other’s fortunes. They would build huge sacred bonfires where people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
