Did Halloween originate from religious beliefs? Answer in complete sentences.?

Answer 1

Yes, it. The Druids. Then, came later. Now, isn't.

Answer 2

Yes, Halloween does originate from religious beliefs and practices.

The Celtic New Year festival, also an end-of-harvest festival, Samhain, was celebrated from the evening of October 31st to November 1st. This is the last of the Celtic harvest festivals, and it was a harvest of meat - a time when animals were slaughtered for salting smoking, and curing to last through the winter. It also was the beginning of the cold, dark part of the year.

It was considered that during this time, the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead were thinnest, or even broke; that the living could communicate with their beloved dead. This did NOT involve "worship" of the dead, only a chance to communicate with them, and with their help to divine the future.

Typically, this religious festival was marked with bonfires, often with burning of the chaff from the recent grain harvest. The Celts would take brands from the bonfire home to relight their hearth fires, which they had allowed to burn out the day before.

By around 43-45 CE, most of Celtic territory had fallen under Roman control, and sometime in the next few centuries (I think), two Roman religious festivals were combined with Samhain. The first was Feralia (a day late in October, the Roman commemoration of the passing of the dead), and the second was the festival of Pomona (the Roman goddess of fruit and trees)

I think it was Pope Boniface IV who made November 1st All Saint's Day, but it could have been aother Pope - in any case, it's clear that Samhain predated this by centuries.

Presumably Boniface was trying to replace the Celtic Pagan festival of the dead with a related but Christian holiday. Tha would have been in keeping with the similar overlay of Christianity onto Yule and Eostre.

Answer 3

Halloween (All Hallow's Eve) are old traditions that came down
from the northern European pagans, whom the Christians
"borrowed from, along with Christmas and Easter"
It was celebrated by the pagans as a religious festivity, until
Pope Gregory III moved All Saint's Day to November 1.
All Sain'ts Day was formerly celebrated on Halloween, in Ireland,
to this day they call it pooky night, named after puca, a
mischievous spirit.

Halloween is often associated with the occult
Euopean cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal (sensory threshold, barely perceptible)times of the
year, when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent(e.g., Catalan mythology
about witches, Irish tales of the Sidhe)

Pope Gregory IV standardized the date of All Saint's Day or All
Hallow's Day, on November 1 to the entire western church in 835AD

Unfortunately, there is little primary documentation on
preindustrial Ireland.
Historian Nicholas Rogers has written:
"It is not always easy to track the development of Halloween
in Ireland and Scotland from the mid-seventeenth century,
largely because one has to trace ritual practices from
modern folkloric evidence that do not nesessarily reflect how the holiday might have been changed; these rituals may not be "authentic" or "timeless" examples of preindustrial times."

On Halloween night in present day Ireland, adults and children dress up as creatures from the underworld(gthosts, ghouls, zombies, witches, goblins) especially in Derry and Dublin)
And they enjoy spectacular fireworks displays.
The children walk around knocking on doors of the neighbors, in
order to gather fruits and nuts and sweets for the Halloween
festival. Salt was once spirnkled in the hair of the children to
protect against evil spirits, no longer practiced, these days.

The houses are decorated by carving pumpkins or turnips
into scary faces and other decorations.
The traditional Halloween cake in Ireland is the barnbrack,
which is a fruit bread.
Each member of the family gets a slice. great interest is taken
in the outcome as there is a piece of rag, a coin and a ring in each cake. If you get the rag, then your fianancial future is doubtful. If you get the coin, then you can look forward to a prosperous year.
Getting the ring is a sure sign of impending romance or continued happiness.

Children also have a week-long break from school for Halloween,
and the last Monday in October is a public holiday given for Halloween even though they quite often don't fall on the same day.

I hope this answers your question, and I think it is an interesting one, too.

Thats my message, good luck.



Donald H. Sites
[e-mail]

Answer 4

Halloween like many holidays we celebrate today, including Christmas and Easter, was taken from older religious/cultural traditions. Halloween's origins are rooted in the old Pagan celebration called Samhain. It occured right after the last harvest of the season and was a celebration of the end of the harvest coupled with the belief that because the nights were getting colder and darker the veil between the worlds was thinnest. They believed spirits were most likely to be able to cross over into our world on this night. There were other cultures that celebrated harvest festivals around this time along with festivities to honor ancestors and family members who had passed recently. When Christianity came they converted these traditions into All Soul's Day. Christmas was originally the festivals of Saturnalia and Yule. Easter was originally a pagan festival, Ostara.

Answer 5

Yes. Halloween began mostly with the Celtic peoples, who celebrated it as the last day of the Old Year, when the Lord died to eventually be reborn at Yule. It was a night to honor your deceased ancestors and practice divination to get a glimpse at how the upcoming year would unfold. There's a lot more to it than that, but I'm on lunch at work and have to take some time to eat. :-)

Blessed be!
)O(

Answer 6

According to pagan religions, All Hallows Eve was the night whenever the spirits were closest to the living, roaming about on the earth. People felt that the spirits would and could take the living with them back to the land of the dead on this night, so they carved ugly faces into gourds and beets and potatoes (whatever they had around) that would scare the spirits away... hence the carving of pumpkins into 'jack-o-lanterns' and the dressing up as someone else so that the spirits couldn't recognize you!

Answer 7

Halloween started out pagan, and it still is. The customs connected with it can be traced to a Druid ceremony in pre-christian times. The Celts had festivals for two major gods--a sun god and a god of the dead, whose festival was held on November 1, the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The festival was gradually incorporated into "Christian" ritual.

Answer 8

Yes, it is related to ancient pagan beliefs. Some pagans still practice Halloween or Samhain as a religious holday.

Answer 9

Halloween started as a Pagan celebration.

Answer 10

Halloween is a tradition that has its roots in paganism. To learn more check out the website below.

Answer 11

it was originally a pagan celebration of new year called samhain. where the veils of the universes were at thier lowest. so the people could feel their ancestors. hence the ghosts etc