Halloween2015

Collections & Research Services: The Archive of Folk Culture

The festival observed at this time was called Samhain (pronounced Sah-ween). It was the biggest and most significant holiday of the Celtic year. The Celts believed that at the time of Samhain, more so than any other time of the year, the ghosts of the dead were able to mingle with the living, because at Samhain the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the otherworld.

People gathered to sacrifice animals, fruits, and vegetables. They also lit bonfires in honor of the dead, to aid them on their journey, and to keep them away from the living. On that day all manner of beings were abroad: ghosts, fairies, and demons–all part of the dark and dread.

Samhain became the Halloween we are familiar with when Christian missionaries attempted to change the religious practices of the Celtic people. In the early centuries of the first millennium A.D., before missionaries such as St. Patrick and St. Columcille converted them to Christianity, the Celts practiced an elaborate religion through their priestly caste, the Druids, who were priests, poets, scientists and scholars all at once.

As religious leaders, ritual specialists, and bearers of learning, the Druids were not unlike the very missionaries and monks who were to Christianize their people and brand them evil devil worshippers.

American Folklife Center

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween.html

Honoring the Dead

We can see as far back as the writings of Leviticus that the people of God clearly understood spiritual warfare.  It was demonic influence that caused men to begin experimenting with the occult.  These diabolical hosts know that markings and carvings are signs of agreement with the kingdom of darkness. God had imprisoned the malevolent spirits, but the spirits soon learned that humans were just as rebellious as them.  Capitalizing upon this discovery, demons devised a way to get around God’s authority.  The only thing they needed was man’s participation. The evil spirits knew that they only had to get God’s disobedient children to open gateways into the earthly realm.  The only tool that was required to open these gateways was a person’s heart of rebellion.

The names of evil spirits are usually in the form of nouns.  For instance, in the Bible we see the spirit of divination or the spirit of infirmity.  Some of these spirits followed humans’ rebellion.  God warned His people to distance themselves from such behavior.

Below are some examples of spiritual gateways that were opened because of Israel’s disobedience of God’s laws:

• Eating bloody meat was against the dietary laws for Israel.
• Fortune-telling and witchcraft were against the law.

²⁶ “Do not eat meat that has not been drained of its blood. Do not practice fortune-telling or witchcraft.

 ²⁷ “Do not trim off the hair on your temples or trim your beards.

 ²⁸ “Do not cut your bodies for the dead, and do not mark your skin with tattoos. I am the LORD.  (Lev 19:26-28 NLT)

 

Halloween2015

Many good people, young and old have tattoos today. But, in ancient days there was a dark side to tattoos and the functions they played.  Because demons were attracted to certain behaviors, body ornamentation had the ability to induce a certain presence around an individual’s life.

Tattoos are no any indication where a person is in God.  If a person has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, you cannot judge that servant of God.

Some years ago, I was in a church service and there was a man who seemed to be under the control of a demonic spirit. When the pastor commanded the spirit to leave the man, the spirit replied, “As long as you are wearing that ring on your finger, I do not have to obey.”  Interestingly, I was there and couldn’t see how anyone knew what kind of ring was on the pastor’s hand. The pastor showed the ring later and there were unusual symbols on that ring.  Even though the pastor was unaware of the attachment of the ring to the kingdom of darkness, those symbols on his ring were summoning demonic forces.

 

 

The good thing is that whatever sin or unholy thing that a person has touched, when he or she repents and truly mean it in their hearts, the Lord will forgive that person and justify him/her as His own.

The Celtic Druids priests were responsible for large portions of the Solstice feasts that originated from their history. Some of the Celtic tribes, including women as well as men would distort their faces with drawings and tattoos. The women’s hair was worn in such crazy styles that the people would panic just by looking at them. Ritual cannibalism was also part of their battle tactics.

[rev_slider tatoo]

 

Drinking Blood (hematophagy)

Some societies, such as the Moche, had ritual hematophagy.  Also, the Scythians, a nomadic people of Russia, had habits of drinking the blood of the first enemy they would kill in battle. Some religious rituals and symbols seemingly mirror hematophagy, such as in the transubstantiation of wine as the blood of Jesus Christ during Christian eucharist. In addition, psychiatric cases of patients performing hematophagy exist. Sucking or licking one’s own blood from a wound is also a behavior commonly seen in humans, and in small enough quantities is not considered taboo. Finally, human vampirism has been a persistent object of literary and cultural attention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ

In Biblical days, the people would go to the tombs screaming out loud, while cutting or marking themselves in honor to the dead.  They would pray to the lord of the dead, that they could escape the horrors of death. Finally, they would make covenant pacts with the god “Samhain,” God of darkness and death.

^NLT  Isaiah 28:15 You boast, “We have struck a bargain to cheat death and have made a deal to dodge the grave. The coming destruction can never touch us, for we have built a strong refuge made of lies and deception.” (Isa 28:15 NLT)

We see in the Scriptures that Elijah proved to the pagans that their god was no match for the God of Israel. The pagan worshippers traumatized their bodies and gave their blood as offerings to the prince of darkness.  All of these efforts were in vain as they tried to summon their god to out-perform the God of Elijah in 1^st Kings 18:26-29.

²⁷ About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself.

²⁸ So they shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out.

 ²⁹ They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice, but still there was no sound, no reply, no response.

 (1Ki 18:27-29 NLT)

The pagan culture of marking and cutting to get spiritual responses continued into the New Testament.  Jesus showed an unusual amount compassion and kindness toward the man who was cutting himself.  He knew that the man was driven by evil spirits and needed deliverance.  This was an abomination, but Jesus went beyond the sin and demonstrated unmerited grace and mercy.  After He prayed, the man was set free.

5 Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.
6 When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him, ran to meet him, and bowed low before him.
7 With a shriek, he screamed, “Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In the name of God, I beg you, don’t torture me!”
8 For Jesus had already said to the spirit, “Come out of the man, you evil spirit.”
9 Then Jesus demanded, “What is your name?” And he replied, “My name is Legion, because there are many of us inside this man.”
10 Then the evil spirits begged him again and again not to send them to some distant place.
11 There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby.
12 “Send us into those pigs,” the spirits begged. “Let us enter them.” (Mar 5:5-12 NLT)

Although the man desired to follow Jesus and His disciples, it was the Lord’s decision for him to stay among his people.  We do not know the reason, but one theory could be that he needed more personal ministry to maintain his deliverance.  This is not to say that Jesus’ prayer was weak or ineffective.  I have observed that people who have entered into occult practices often experience reoccurring spiritual warfare and usually need a lot of intercession and Godly counseling.