How is Halloween an occultic synthesis and what ancient superstitions of the holiday survive today?
Halloween has only become associated with pagan religions in the last couple of hundred years as a result of wishfull thinking by Victorian and other writers with an overly active imagination and a romantic view of the Celtic past. The holiday is originally Christian. Its name, “Hallowe’en”, comes from Hallow, old english for holy or saint, and e’ev meaning eve or evening before. Short for All Hallows Eve – the eve of All Saints Day. All Saints Day started over a 1000 years ago in Rome (so nothing to do with Celts) as a festival commemorating the dedication of a church to the memory of all the saints who had no specific feast day. It became very popular as it allowed peopel to celebrate local saints and also to remember all those people they rememebred as being holy – in some countries it is still a day to remember you deceased family – a day of the dead. Being a popoular feast day, people started having general feasting and celebration around the day, particularly the evening before.
