Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Here's the thing, I do think Halloween is a secular holiday. I also think it happens to coincide with several religious holidays and festivals that have to do with death, ancestors, sacrifice, and confronting our mortality (along with a big party). Fete Gede for Vodou practitioners, Día de los Muertos for followers of Santeria and several indigenous religions in Mexico and Latin America, Samhain for many modern Pagans and Celtic Reconstructionists, and Velu Laiks ('the time of spirits') for Baltic Pagans, among many, many others. In Catholicism, this time is celebrated with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, keeping with many of the same themes as the 'Pagan' holidays (though some may say 'appropriating'). In short the preoccupation on Halloween to 'flirt with the night and evoke the dead' isn't so much as 'pagan' thing as a 'human' thing. There's a deep cultural default, far deeper than the veneer of Christianity, that draws us towards celebrating Halloween the way we do (no cultural vacuum required).

"I don't think that the current popularity of Halloween makes it more, or less, 'pagan'. I think it's an excuse to participate in a communal festival, to don masks, indulge in sweets, and forget about fiscal troubles for one night. I think its people doing what they've always done when the nights got longer and the days got shorter, make merry to help us through the darker days. [...]"

-- Jason Pitzl-Waters, 2011-10-21 [<em> emphasis in original; <strong> emphasis added]