Halloween Origins: Those Ancient Celts Sure Were Crazy…
While perusing History.com, I came upon some info on the origins of Halloween:
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
Today, of course, we don’t believe such patently-absurd things.
It should be clear to all of us that ancient people lived lives of far greater uncertainty than we do today. At the start of every winter, the Celts had to be keenly aware that many of them might not survive to see spring. Protecting their crops would have been of paramount importance; if the food ran out during the winter, they would have starved to death.
Knowing all this, it’s easy to see why the Celts would have developed rituals that, in their minds, protected their crops and allowed them to predict the future. In reality, these people were at the mercy of nature—but when they celebrated Samhain, they at least created for themselves the illusion of power over the elements.
But today’s religious beliefs are different, aren’t they?
Could it be at least partly true that religion originated as (and remains to this day) Man’s way of convincing himself that he has some power over things like nature and fate? Isn’t this why so many of us modern folks resort to prayer when things look grim?
And how can we possibly look back at the seemingly-ridiculous beliefs of ancient people, and not recognize that we are repeating the same pattern?
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