It’s that strange time of year when it’s suddenly acceptable to add pumpkin syrup to your coffee, fill your home with flickering orange lights and send your kids out to ask strangers for sweets. The shops are awash with vampires, ghosts and witches, as Halloween is the UK’s third highest spending festival. Though we haven’t quite caught up with our American cousins, who reportedly spend hundreds of millions of dollars on costumes just for their pets. Beneath the plastic pumpkins, though, lies a celebration that speaks to something deeper about who we are and what we fear.
Where it all began
Halloween began as All Hallows’ Eve – the evening before All Saints’ Day – when Christians would remember and give thanks for those who had gone before us in faith. As with many festivals, it likely borrowed from earlier Celtic traditions, particularly Samhain, a harvest festival marking the end of summer and the belief that the veil between the living and the dead was thin. People would disguise themselves as wandering souls and ask for food in exchange for songs or poems – a kind of poetic proto-trick-or-treat.
Haunted by meaning
It’s fascinating that Halloween continues to thrive in a society that often claims to have outgrown belief. We may live in a scientific, rational age, yet each October we flirt with mystery, mortality and the unseen.
We may live in a scientific, rational age, yet each October we flirt with mystery, mortality and the unseen.
Philosopher Charles Taylor describes our time as a secular age – one where people seek meaning and significance without reference to God. Yet even in this disenchanted world, many still feel haunted by a longing for transcendence. The skeletons and spirits of Halloween hint at an intuition that there is more to life (and death) than molecules and matter.
CS Lewis once warned that we can fall into two opposite errors about the spiritual realm: disbelief or unhealthy obsession. “The devils,” he wrote, “are equally pleased by both errors.” Having long leaned towards disbelief, Halloween has become our annual night of fascination with darkness.
Facing the darkness
In recent years, uncertainty and loss have made us more aware of mortality and evil. The ghosts and graveyards of Halloween echo real fears, even if wrapped in fancy dress. Yet the Christian story doesn’t deny darkness but brings hope within it.
The early church transformed All Hallows’ Eve by turning it from a night of fear into a celebration of faith. Instead of making offerings to the dead, Christians looked towards All Saints’ Day, remembering the saints who bore witness that Christ’s death brings life. The cross became the ultimate act of love – the one offering that redeems both the living and the dead.
A better story
So how might we reimagine Halloween today? Perhaps by turning our attention from fear to faith, from the dead to the living. We could take time to thank God for the “saints” in our own lives – the mentors, parents, pastors or friends who have shaped us. We might light a candle of gratitude, offer a gift to a neighbour, or simply tell someone what their encouragement has meant.
In a culture that trivialises evil and sanitises death, Christians have the chance to tell a better story – one that acknowledges darkness but shines a brighter light.
As you carve your pumpkin or sip your pumpkin-spiced latte, consider the story you’re a part of. We live in a disenchanted world, yet one still haunted by the hope of a deeper magic. As Aslan reminds the children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.”
That deeper magic – love stronger than death – moves us beyond All Hallows’ Eve to All Saints’ Day and points us to the ultimate saint: Jesus Himself. His invitation still stands – to go further up and further in.