what is the "whole" truth behind hollaween, and how did it come about?

Question

the devils holy-day / the day is the freaks

Answer 1

http://www.history.com/minisites/halloween/viewPage?pageId=713

Answer 2

The 'whole' truth is that it is called Hallowe'en, which stands for hallowed evening. It is descended from a much older holiday, the Sanhedran, which was a so-called pagan celebration of the winter season.
Many conquering armies have discovered that it is easier to subsume a local tradition and amend it only slightly, then present it in its new disguise. Otherwise the population won't accept it. This is what happened with Sanhedran. Christianity changed it from a winter festival (that's why children are given gifts at the door) to a hallowed evening. But it has nothing to do with the devil. That's a myth that has grown up over the years.

The Christian church is finding that it is itself the victim of this sort of absorption too. In many places, especially in Asia, where the Christian missionaries have been trying to grow churches, the results are a sort of half-breed, combining Christianity with an earlier and older religion. Because peple are unwilling to give up their heritage, regardless of who wins a battle.

That is the 'whole' truth behind Hallowe'en -- except today, it has been taken over by commercial enterprises and generates more money in sales, than Christmas. Hard to believe, but it's true.

Answer 3

The origins of Halloween has roots in ancient Celtic, Roman and Christian tradtions. The celtics believed that November 1st was the first of the year.They considered October 31 as the last day of Summer. They would dress up in costumes and celebrate. When the Romans conquered the Celtics they adopted some of the Celtic ways. As Christianity spread, many older traditions were given a Christian interpretation.

Answer 4

Halloween has no Christian or Catholic origins whatsoever. It originated with the celts years ago within there religions. America later brought in the witches and brooms and the concept of satan in halloween.
Originally, there were no witches in halloween.
And halloween had no evil, satanic type ideologies in it whatsoever.
Wicca, and warlocks, witches have been given a bad name in the name of halloween.

All people should be respected and accepted, as well as there beliefs.

Answer 5

Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?

The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.

One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.

Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.

The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.

The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.

The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.

The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.

According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.

The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.

So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.