For most, Halloween is an autumn holiday for dressing up in costumes, focusing on spooky stories, and for children to go about begging for candy. That was my childhood memory of Halloween and it remained the same for much of my adult life – just a fun day and evening of dressing up with the opportunity to hoard sweet treats that were very scarce the rest of the year. For an unreligious household, there was never anything wrong with Halloween except for candy gluttony that sometimes ended up with a stomach ache.

Then came my years as a Christian which had me take more notice of the spiritual focuses of the holiday. The church often teaches that Halloween is demonic and derived from the ancient pagan Celtic holiday called Samhain (pronounced “sah-win” in Irish), so Christians shouldn’t participate in any Halloween traditions. Indeed, sometimes there is too much focus on darkness and the occult during Halloween that really can be harmful; things like séances, necromancy, channeling the dead, witchcraft, sorcery, and watching excessively gory and inappropriate horror movies. They can all negatively affect your spiritual and mental wellbeing in ways that you wouldn’t expect, so there is good reason why the church is worried about people celebrating Halloween.

But what I had focused on during Halloween and what most households focus on is generally harmless – wearing costumes, collecting treats, and good-natured fun. For the average household, any religious or spiritual aspects of the holiday are not present. Still, is there more to the origins of Halloween that should make us think twice about participating in it altogether?

As a long-time student of Irish culture, I know it is true that Halloween did come from Samhain, one of the most important holidays for the ancient Celts and their druidic religion^{[1.1, 1.2, 1.3]}. It was originally celebrated on the full moon midway between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice^[1.3], which are when day and night are about equal and when daylight is shortest and night is longest, respectively. Later, Samhain became fixed to November 1st, but like many ancient cultures, including the Jews, a new day began at sundown because sunset ends a day, so celebrations for Samhain began on Samhain Eve which is October 31, the date we know as Halloween.

For the ancient Irish and Celts, though, Samhain was a harvest and pastoral holiday (as in shepherding) that marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter^{[1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5]}. It was a marking of the change from warm weather operations to cold weather routines. In fact, many scholars think Samhain means “summer’s end”^{[1.4, 1.6, 1.7]}. The Celts actually considered Samhain their New Year, which seems like an odd thing to celebrate at the end of harvest and beginning of winter when the world stops growing and goes dark and cold. We usually think of New Year’s as a time of new beginnings and renewal which commonly is associated with springtime. Indeed many ancient civilizations marked their New Year’s closer to the end of winter when spring growth started.

However, there is another ancient culture that marks a New Year near the end of the harvest season. Does Rosh Hashana sound familiar? It’s known as the Jewish New Year, though in the Bible, it was never instated as a New Year (see Yom Teruah/Rosh Hashana for more about that holiday).

Did the ancient Jews and ancient Celts view seasonal change in the same way? There are many legends that the ancient Irish came from the exiled tribes of Israel when their kingdoms were destroyed by the Assyrians and Babylonians, and it’s no secret that many Jews think that the stereotypic Irish rua or redhead came from the famously “reddish or ruddy” ancient Israelite, King David (1 Samuel/Shmuel I 16:12, 17:42) (for more about these claims, see Myths or Facts? Jeremiah’s tomb is in Ireland and the Celts descend from the ancient Lost Tribes of Israel).

Legends aside, there does appear to be a similarity to the New Year’s thinking of the ancient Jews and ancient Celts. The Celts saw the beginning of winter – darkness – as the start of the New Year because it was like a baby in the womb and a seed in the ground^[1.7]. Before birth and before growth sprouts, the baby and seed are in darkness, so the end of summer and beginning of winter, a new year beginning in darkness, was analogous to the cycle of life. This logical cycle of life may very well be why the ancient Hebrews began to celebrate their New Year at the end of summer as well.

This logical thinking of the ancients is also reflected in how they counted a person’s age. Someone was already 1 year old when they were born because the beginning of life began at conception, not birth, which obviously is true, and the ancient Jews followed that logic as can be seen by how Yeshua’s (Jesus’s) age was counted in the New Testament (see There was not enough oil but the menorah remained lit for details about how ancient Jews counted a person’s age).

So far Samhain, the precursor to Halloween, doesn’t seem very harmful, at least in its most common modern incarnations. If you don’t focus on any occult practices or consume excessively dark media, then Halloween is just an occasion to have some spooky fun. But on the other hand, if you do focus on the occult or other historic rituals and worship related to Halloween and Samhain, then you’d best keep reading and learn more. Your spiritual and physical health could be seriously affected by the wrong focuses.

But maybe even more surprising for Christians is that many of the unhealthy, so-called “heathen” practices of Halloween, actually came from the church. Samhain came to be called Halloween because when the church tried to move people away from celebrating Samhain, a very popular and important holiday for most of northwestern Europe, Ireland, and the British Isles, the church instated an All Saints Day on November 1st to replace Samhain and shifted focus to celebrating the saints instead of harvest and New Year^{[1.1, 1.2, 1.3]}.

In English, the church’s All Saints Day was called All Hallows Day, and of course, people continued to start their holiday celebrations on the night before or its eve, so All Hallows Eve came to replace the start of Samhain. Eventually, All Hallows Eve contracted into Halloween from Hallow and Even, an archaic word and contraction for evening^{[1.8, 1.9]}.

When All Hallows Day was widely celebrated by the church, it used the same focus of Samhain for using prayer and ritual to ward off evil so that the coming dark, winter months would be blessed. Samhain was considered to be a time when spirits and the deceased would have more effect on humans because the Celts believed the barrier between the spirit realm and physical world was most weak during Samhain. It brought about legends of the sí or fairyfolk and mystical beasts coming to cause both mischief and good fortune upon people.

Large bonfires were traditional on Samhain to ward off the darkness of the coming months and evil spirits, and of course, death and the spirits of the dead were major themes^{[1.2, 1.3]}. Obviously, the church was very successful in channeling that death theme by redirecting it upon the dead saints, and so All Hallows Day became a popular time to pray to the saints for blessings and even to worship them. Unfortunately, unknown to most of the church, those are bad practices that I urge everyone to not participate in because they bring people into the sin of idolatry – worshipping anything other than God.

In addition to All Hallows, the church extended the holiday with another on the next day, November 2nd. That became All Souls Day, in which people focused on praying for the souls of deceased loved ones so that they might come out of purgatory and be released into heaven^[1.1]. Unlike the idolatrous focuses of All Hallows, there is nothing wrong with praying for the souls of our dead loved ones. Purgatory is a real spiritual realm where souls are held in a grieved state because of sins in life. I’ve seen more than enough real world evidence of it to know it is real (see Abortion's Unseen Consequences for an example).

Samhain was also a popular time to consult the dead and divine or tell fortunes because the veil between the spiritual and physical worlds was thin. These occult practices of necromancy and consulting the dead, unfortunately continued into the church age as people shifted their consultation to the dead saints, trying to find answers for everything including the future.

The Celtic druids (the priesthood class of the ancient Celts) also helped with this divination by being channels or mediums for the spirits. And one popular Irish or Celtic tradition they inspired for Samhain and Halloween to this day is to bake a bairín breac (Anglized as barmbrack) with a fortune telling item baked inside to tell the recipient of the loaf a fortune, much like fortune cookies do^[1.10]. Barnbrack is a type of shortbread (unyeasted but leavened with baking soda) baked with dried fruit, like raisins and berries, mixed throughout the dough.

This bread was a popular way to use and preserve the fruits of the harvest, but somewhere in the history of Samhain, people began to bake objects into them, like a ring or bean, to signal a good or bad fortune^{[1.10, 1.11]}. For example, a ring would mean marriage would come in the next year, while the bean would mean the person would have a future without money. Doing this seems like a fun way to tell the future, but if you do this seriously, intending to tell someone’s future, it is the sin of divination or fortune telling, something we should avoid (1 Samuel/Shmuel I 15:23; Isaiah/Yeshayahu 8:19, 20:6-7; also Leviticus/Vayikra 19:31; see Divination, Idolatry, Witchcraft and the Curse of False Gospels for more).

If, however, you bake something, like a ring into a loaf, for example, intending to surprise your beloved with a marriage proposal, then there is nothing wrong with that. It is divination or telling fortunes that is a sin that has many negative spiritual effects on people. Even fortune cookies can have people slip in divination, which was a reason why God had me unexpectedly meet a newlywed couple to talk about their fortune cookie (see There’s True Love in 2022 for more).

So out of the most popular Halloween traditions that some people think are demonic, like carving pumpkins, dressing in costumes, having mildly scary fun, or begging for treats, none are truly demonic or harmful. Many of those traditions don’t even originate with Samhain or the ancient Celts^[1.1]. Samhain’s traditional harvest and New Year celebration are also harmless celebration. It’s when dark occult practices, like divination, witchcraft, sorcery, and channeling the dead, come into play that we should be wary of and remove ourselves from.

Because of those bad focuses, I suggest people keep their families away from media that overemphasizes sorcery and the occult, like the Harry Potter series and even more recent Star Wars films (see May the 4th is really about Faith, Hope and Love for more). Letting our children and the impressionable fall in love with occult practices can be a harmful doorway into having them practice occult arts later on because they’re taught the occult is good and normal. That is what “indoctrination” means.

If you’re taught something is the correct and good way for living and thinking, then obviously you will have no hesitancy to avoid it, even though it can be very harmful to you and your community. Indoctrination with bad and false teachings has plagued the church and all peoples and communities throughout history, and its effects have been seen through the peoples’ many atrocities and destructions. They prove that God keeps His word – that He will judge the peoples’ sins and those of His own chosen ones (Hebrews 10:19-31, 12:4-11; Psalm/Tehillim 135:14; Isaiah/Yeshayahu 3:13-15; Romans 2:5-11; Ephesians 6:5-8; Colossians 3:25; Jeremiah/Yirmiyahu 32:19; Numbers/Bamidbar 14:18; Nahum/Nachum 1:3; Proverbs/Mishlei 24:12).

Halloween and Samhain shouldn’t be demonized as long you keep your focuses in check, just like with Christmas and Pascha/Easter which can also easily go into the wrong focuses of love, community, and fun while omitting God and Christ. And even Valentine’s Day, often linked to pagan fertility worship turned out to be an untrue connection, but in fact is a holiday God does want us to think further about (see Countdown to Valentine’s Day for details).

Sometimes there is overzealous pointing of fingers when things aren’t as clear-cut as naysayers make out to be. We saw that here with Halloween’s different incorporation of sins that the misguided church also perpetuated, so have a little Halloween fun if you want to, but keep you and your family from going too far with the themes of death, the dead, and the occult.

Instead of focusing on cold, dark, and lifeless days after Halloween, it may be better for you to keep in mind the ancient notions of Samhain and winter – that of a new beginning and life that grows in darkness, yet comes to sprout and give birth in the months ahead. This theme is prevalent in Irish culture when you consider that the time from Halloween until Shrovetide (the Tuesday before Lent)^[1.13] has a focus on love and romance.

Remember the rings baked into barmbrack and hopes of a permanent and blissful union? Halloween or Samhain - at winter’s start - through Shrovetide, at winter’s end when the fasting of Lent comes just before the Holy Week of Christ during Pascha or Easter-time^{[1.12, 1.13]}; It’s when spring growth comes to renew the earth, and so brings the warmth of life to the forefront, which for the Irish, this hope glowed and kept warm the growing hope of love all through the dark and cold of winter.

May your winter days be so warmed and glowing through the blessings and promises of our God in Mashiach Yeshua (Christ Jesus). Amen.

As Halloween and Samhain approach again, I'm reminded of topics that I did not talk about last year. The Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) and ancestor worship. You may be familiar with Dia de los muertos because of the Disney movie, Coco, which put the Mexican holiday central in its story. The main character, a boy aspiring to be a famous classical guitar singer, is caught up in the spirit realm during Dia de los Muertos where he finds out a secret about his favorite singer and his father who are both dead.

The Day of the Dead actually usually takes place over two days, usually at the same time as Halloween and Samhain, because of its historic associations with the Catholic Church's "Halloween" and All Saint's Day^[2.1]. If you don't remember or know that Halloween actually came from a mixing of Celtic Samhain festivals and the church's All Hallows Day, then read from the top of this tread. You will also be reminded of many other things about Halloween and Samhain, and that they really are NOT as bad or demonic as the church may proclaim, but also represent a change of season that embodies hope and new life.

Dressing in costumes and begging for treats is nothing bad by themselves. Even the angels and God disguised themselves throughout the ages, though I cannot recall instances in the Bible where they did it for fun, like is done for Halloween and other masquerade holidays. As I talked about in the initial discussion at top, the bad focuses we should avoid on Halloween, Samhain, and All Saints' Day are what cause people to sin or what cause spiritual corruptions, which I talked about above - inappropriate horror movies and media, occult practices, like consulting the dead (necromancy), divination like palm reading and fortune telling, idolatry in the worship of the saints and dead, and practicing sorcery and witchcraft. 

Simply dressing up as and pretending to be witches and sorcerers is not bad, though it can be harmful for the naive to think that black magic, sorcery, voodoo, witchcraft, and the like are harmless or good. Such beliefs can get them to actually practice dark arts. They are real dark forces that people can learn to use, and because they are always linked to demons that reign in this spiritual realm, we should always teach children and people to NEVER practice any occult arts. Only the naive believe that practicing occult arts is harmless or good. That does not just include witchcraft and sorcery, but also divination and fortune telling. It is in the best interest of families to NOT let children idolize sorcerer heroes, like Harry Potter and Merlin, or surround themselves with that culture, so I would not suggest letting children dress up as Harry Potter and the like. They need to know that witchcraft and sorcery are things to avoid.

A disturbing testimony about how harmful witchcraft is comes from a pastor working in Africa. I heard his testimony about 15 years ago. He worked among indigenous tribal communities and got a report that a local elderly medicine woman was possessed by a demon. The locals said she was immobile, and acting and speaking very strangely. When the pastor went to her, he found that she was unable to move around because she was actually dead. The demon linked to her lifetime of witchcraft had remained and partially took control of her body after she died, so that it spoke through her. The pastor exorcised the demon through the power of Christ, and the community could finally have closure and mourn.

This testimony shows how sin like practicing dark arts, like this medicine woman did, can bring demonic attachments and habitation to those who do these things. This is another warning to indigenous peoples everywhere to not practice traditions and rituals that have bad spiritualism in them. However, sins of all kinds can bring demonic attachments, so let it be another warning to remove as much sin from you and your loved ones as you can. You have no idea how things of the dark spiritual world can affect, inhabit, and control you.

It is a false belief that being saved and reborn in Christ prevents demonic habitation (for more about this, see Myths about demons in Light Within). I've seen many Christians go through demonic deliverances or what Catholics call exorcism, and a plain, hard truth is, it was God's will that the devil plant corrupt seeds in the church (those weeds or tares) (Matthew 13:24-30, 13:36-43). Indwelling demons in Christians and in people of all believing sects and their leaders are the rule, not the exception, unlike what many preachers would tell you. John MacArthur is one who would say so, but truly, even the most learned among God's people have no idea what they speak of, because they are mostly only book-learned and do not have real experience in dealing with the spirits (see more about this misconception in Myths about demons in Light Within).

And because any serious sins can have demonic attachments, why should it be a surprise that sins of false teachings and false prophecy should be an exception? Such things are everywhere among God's people, but they are accursed, the same as the more specific case of teaching false gospels (Galatians 1:8-9). False teachings and false prophecy are realms that religious spirits reign in. These sins also often involve sins of divination and idolatry, because many false teachings and the demons imposters of God that spread them often teach methods of divination and use brainwashing techniques to make their followers give them absolute submission. I talk more about these things in Testimonies Prove the Baals and Imposters of God are among His People Today, Light Within, and Ministry Warnings.

Such widespread demonic attachments in congregations of God are why I do not recommend going to most churches and ministries. They are the main spreaders of demons, along with their Internet-only associates that preach on social media, because their audiences eagerly and easily accept anything these unapproved preachers and laymen say, but woe to them all, believing in and spreading false teachings are exactly the hooks the devil secures in them to do his will (2 Timothy 2:26). Let this be another warning so that you do not give any more attention to these people and ministries on the Internet and everywhere. Ministry Warnings shows how extensive the devil's reach is among all believing sects.

Now, what does all this have to do with Dia de los Muertos and ancestor worship? Like the church's All Saint's Day and the Celtic Samhain, the Mexican Day of the Dead and ancestor worship can have very bad spiritual focuses. Ancestor worship is practiced as a routine in many Chinese and Southeast Asian cultures^[2.2], and like during Dia de los Muertos, people make shrines to the deceased, give offerings of food and other items, and consult the dead for advice. Ritual incense is burned for them as well. Some of the origins of these practices come from wanting to honor dead loved ones. That, too, is not wrong, like dressing up as Harry Potter is not, but going too far and practicing rituals and customs that actually have sin in them is wrong.

Some aspects of ancestor worship, like practiced in Asian cultures and the Day of the Dead, is actually nothing bad. People are trying to honor the memory of their beloved deceased. Honoring the dead is to give their memory respect and to keep their memory alive. There's nothing wrong with making celebrations to remember or honor the deceased, so long as that celebration and honor does not go too far and become idolatry or truly worshipping any other than God. I noted this kind of idolatry was happening on Lag B'Omer, a Jewish holiday where Jews often take honoring their dead sages too far (for details, see The Hidden Message of the Messiah in Lag B’Omer).

Going too far also happens when people make shrines, give ritual offerings to their dead, and try to connect to the dead for guidance. What is a personal shrine, but a small temple to another entity that is not God? It is idolatrous worship and the offerings and rituals with that are a bad form of spiritualism that demons are associated with, such as demons of prophecy and divination, and demons of necromancy and channeling the dead. It's true that people can speak with the dead, whether it is through a spiritual medium, or directly through themselves as the medium, or very rarely, a deceased soul may appear as a ghost or spirit directly to people. An example of mediums channeling the dead is in the Bible when King Saul got a medium to reach the deceased prophet Samuel. He wanted to get guidance from God this way because God would not guide him directly or through living prophets (1 Samuel/Shmuel I 28:3-20). Talking with the dead this way is real, but it is a sin, as is using spiritual mediums (1 Chronicles/Divrei Hayamim I 10:13; Leviticus/Vayikra 19:31, 20:6-7). A people of God should be consulting God directly; "When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritualists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?" (Isaiah/Yeshayahu 8:19).

Another danger of trying to consult the dead is that much of the time, you actually won't be contacting the person you're trying to reach, but a spirit that was attached to the person instead. I had always suspected this to be true when people gave testimonies of speaking with the dead, because I knew that demons inhabiting a person could take the person's place, like we saw with that elderly medicine woman. Other demons unrelated to the deceased person can also replace who you think you're talking to, because people attract lying and deceiving demons to themselves when they sin in divination or necromancy, like trying to channel the dead. It is easy to mistake a spirit pretending to be someone else when that spirit spent a lifetime with the person. It knows details of the person's life that most people think could not be known by anyone else. A demon of necromancy that is unrelated to the dead person can also know details of the person because of its innate spiritual powers of knowledge.

NO WAY! You might be thinking. Where's the proof this is true? If it's not in the Bible, it's not true! Sorry, if you think like that then you have further to go in the maturity of Christ and the knowledge of spiritual things. I didn't have much proof until almost two years ago when I had to deal with a Christian's haunting ordeal after their elderly mother died.

I personally know this person and family. He told me a few days after the funeral that strange noises bugged him at home, like someone was in the apartment when there was no one else there. At times he felt a presence behind him but when he turned around, there was nothing. The presence seemed to want to scare him deliberately. Another time he was not home but remotely checked an Internet webcam he set up at home. When he was viewing its live feed, the camera moved as if someone picked it up. No one was home at the time. Sometimes he was so afraid of the apparition that he slept outside in his car or at a relative's house. Another day, he noticed his wife talking on the phone to someone just as if it was their dead mother. They spoke in the same manner about things that they always regularly talked about on the phone. He was dumbstruck and asked me if it could be true. Was his wife really talking to their recently deceased mother? Could the spirit in their apartment be her?

I told him, no, the spirit was not her. His mother would not be trying to scare him like that. It was a demon of some kind, so I told him I would pray about it. Later that day at home, I prayed and "exorcised" the apartment in the name of Mashiach Yeshua. The next time I talked to the man, he said the spirit was gone and nothing strange was happening. He thanked me, but it is praise to God, I reminded him, for I am only His servant.

This testimony shows what I said is true. Demons that were attached to a person can pretend to be them after they are dead. This family was not seeking to reach their mother in the afterlife, so no spirit of necromancy or divination came to them. And the mother who died was not into seriously occult practices, like witchcraft, that have strong demonic possessions like I shared in the other testimony. She came from a family that practiced ancestor worship and Buddhism, though. Both systems of belief have sins that demons rule in. But other than that, her life was very typical for her culture - she led a typical small town life as a quiet mother and housewife.

You might think this testimony shows that living in sins like ancestor worship or religions that reject God and Christ are why people get demons. However, I said earlier, ALL types of sins have demons attached to them. The length of time in and extent of your sins determine how much dark spirits affect and inhabit you. And as I said, being a saved, reborn Christian gives no immunity from having demons in you or your life. It is for no coincidental reason God calls people, even His chosen people, "vessels," as in containers, like a vase that can contain many things (Thessalonians 4:4; 2 Timothy 2:20-21; Revelation 2:27). The plain truth is, the entire church and all communities of God have these dark influences. It was a hard truth the Lord had me learn for my role in the good fight. I have many more testimonies this is true. See Testimonies Prove the Baals and Imposters of God are among His People Today and Light Within for more about demons in God's kingdom.

In the end here, it should be obvious what you should avoid in holidays like the Day of the Dead and cultural traditions like ancestor worship. Don't make shrines or give offerings for the dead. Don't try to talk to them or get advice and guidance from them or from anybody who says you can and should talk to the dead. There's no end to the deceptions demon imposters have made in this realm. If they deceived the devout church to think believers should pray to and worship the saints and angels, why should it be a surprise they also deceived people into thinking everybody else who died should also be worshipped and spoken to?

If you want to honor your deceased loved ones, you may do so with the typical grave cleanup and decoration that is normal on the Day of the Dead,  death anniversaries, and memorials. Keep their photos and things around. Share good stories about them, even tell of their wonderful deeds, but go no further. Don't make shrines to them and don't give glorious exaltations, which easily lead to idolatry. No true saint or angel of God desires exaltation or worship, so reserve it only for God.

Spirits that urge offerings, worship, shrines, altars, rituals, adoration, or exaltation for themselves are ones that deceive and lead astray, away from God. Keep away from those practices, even if it feels like removing traditions from you is a kind of personal and cultural suicide, because you've got it the wrong way around. It is the love of traditions full of bad focuses and dark spiritualism that prevent many cultures and peoples of God from stepping out of those practices that are actually severely harming them and their loved ones, for God sees and judges all sin, and so great judgment and holocausts have come upon the peoples through the ages, including the chosen peoples of God, because of the sins they perpetuate in their cultures, sects, and national or religious identities.

May you all walk more and more away from all that is dark but hidden in your lives, through the name of Mashiach Yeshua. Amen.