When you hear the word "halloween" what images appear? What "spirit" is invoked at the whisper of Halloween? Halloween openly promotes death, devils, witches and flagrant "appearances of evil" (1 Thess. 5:22). Halloween leaves most people scratching their heads questioning, "How and where did Halloween come from"? This article unearths the hellish tomb of Halloween to exhume its sinister "covenant with death and hell." Halloween began over 2,000 years ago among the Celts and their pagan priests called the Druids. The Druids are, without question, history’s king of the occult. Witchcraft, Satanism, paganism and virtually all facets of the occult acquire instruction from the Druids. From the popular jack-o’-lantern, trick-or-treat, costumes, to the pranks, ghoulish ghosts, demons, goblins and witches – Halloween owes its morbid birth to the Druids. Halloween—the day itself is of Druidic origin. (Myers, Robert J. Celebrations: The Complete Book of American Holidays, p. 258) The mystic rites and ceremonies with which Hallow’en was originally observed had their origin among the Druids. . . (Douglas, George William. The American Book of Days, p. 566) The Druids celebrated two special nights of the year: Beltane and Samhain. Beltane took place on May 1 and marked the birth of summer. Samhain occurred on November 1 and signified the death of summer. Samhain, a night celebrating death and hell, was the Druids most important ritual. It was a terrifying night of human sacrifices. And it was the original Halloween. The Druids believed, during Samhain, the mystic veil separating the dead from the living opened. The Druids taught these roaming spirits loosed on Samhain went searching for a body to possess. The frightened Celts would masquerade as demons, evil spirits and ghosts, hoping to convince the roaming evil spirits, they were another evil spirit, and leave them alone. The Celts also prepared meals as "treats" to appease the evil spirits from "tricks" or malicious acts; hence our custom of "trick or treat." The Druids performed horrifying human sacrifices and other vile rituals during Samhain. Let there be no doubt—Samhain night was a terrifying "covenant with death, and with hell." And let there be no doubt – Samhain was the original Halloween night. All histories of Halloween inevitably wind back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. . . (Skal, David J. Death Makes a Holiday: The Cultural History of Halloween, p. 20) Halloween had its origins in the festival of Samhain among the Celts of ancient Britain and Ireland. (Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 "Halloween") Halloween can be traced directly back to Samhain, the ancient Celtic harvest festival honoring the Lord of the Dead. (Thompson, Sue Ellen. Holiday Symbols and Customs, p. 251) The rituals of the Druids reek from the deepest hell. Their most repulsive activities involve their human sacrifices of children on the night of Samhain or Halloween. First-born sacrifices are mentioned in a poem in the Dindshenchas, which records that children were sacrificed each Samhain . . . (Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, p. 17) Halloween. That was the eve of Samhain . . . firstborn children were sacrificed. . . Samhain eve was a night of dread and danger. (National Geographic. May 1977, pp. 625-626) The Druids would drink their victim’s blood and eat their flesh. They [Druids] sacrificed victims by shooting them with arrows, impaling them on stakes, stabbing them, slitting their throats over cauldrons (and then drinking the blood). . . (Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience, p. 167) Therefore we cannot too highly appreciate our debt to the Romans for having put an end to this monstrous cult, whereby to murder a man was an act of the greatest devoutness, and to eat his flesh most beneficial. (Pliny, Natural History, xxx, 13) The Druids "counted it an honourable thing" to eat their father’s flesh and perform incest with their mothers and sisters. . . . since they are man-eaters as well as heavy eaters, and since, further, they count it an honourable thing, when their fathers die, to devour them, and openly to have intercourse, not only with the other women, but also with their mothers and sisters;. . . (Strabo, Geography) May I remind you, this is what occurred on the original Halloween night! Today, Halloween lives and breathes with the foul stench of the diabolical Druids. The Druids also celebrated the festival of Beltane. The word Beltane (Beltaine, Beltinne, Beltain, Beiltein) literally means the "fires of Bel." Bel is the same god called Baal, found over 80 times in the King James Bible. The Lord condemns Baal worship probably more than any other false "god." . . . then the Druids lit the Baal-Tinne, the holy, goodly fire of Baal. (Wilde, Lady Francesca Speranza. Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland) The god whom the Druids worshipped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show, and . . . children were offered in sacrifice to Baal. (Hislop, Alexander. The Two Babylons, p. 232) • HALLOWEEN: BAAL WORSHIP • The original Halloween was a hellish night of Baal worship and child sacrifice. And most of our current Halloween customs derived directly from Baal rituals! On November first was Samhain [Halloween] . . . Fires were built as a thanksgiving to Baal. . . (Kelley, Ruth Edna, The Book of Hallowe'en, Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Co. Boston, 1919) The mystic rites and ceremonies with which Hallow’en was originally observed had their origin among the Druids . . . ancient Baal festivals from which many of the Hallow’en customs are derived. (Douglas, George William. The American Book of Days, p. 569) Baal is also a synonym for the devil. (Burns, Cathy. Masonic and Occult Symbols Illustrated, p. 327) Halloween glorifies death in worship to Baal or the devil! The Druid festival of Samhain was a celebration of death. Strutting its hellish death images of skulls, skeletons, ghosts, demons, devils and incarnate evil – today’s Halloween glorifies Death. David Skal titled his history of Halloween—Death Makes a Holiday: The grand marshal of the Halloween parade is, and always has been, Death. (Skal, David J. Death Makes a Holiday: The Cultural History of Halloween, p. 18) Halloween can be traced directly back to Samhain, the ancient Celtic harvest festival honoring the Lord of the Dead. (Thompson, Sue Ellen. Holiday Symbols and Customs, p. 251) The Devil glorifies death. Hebrews 2:14 says, ". . . that through death he [Jesus] might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;" Proverbs 8:36 says all they that hate the Lord ". . . love death." Revelation 6:8 says the rider of the antichrist’s pale horse, ". . . and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." • THE ORDINATION OF HALLOWEEN • Understanding the hellish history of Halloween—why in the world did decent people so embrace it? What magic "trick" transformed rancid Samhain into the giddy Halloween? As the Catholic missionaries swarmed Britain and Ireland seeking the mass conversion to Catholicism their orders from Pope Gregory in 601 A.D. was to cunningly convert the Druid rituals into Catholic rituals. The Catholics converted the ritual of Samhain into the festival of All Saint’s Day, a day of celebration and prayer to dead "Saints." Halloween begins well over 2,000 years ago in the British Isles. Here, we find the holiday stripped to its most essential element: a night when Celtic tribes communed with the spirits of the ancestral dead. These grand and glorious pagan celebrations were assimilated by the Catholic church. . . Rather than extinguish old customs, the church leaders provided Christian versions of them: from the Middles Ages on, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day replaced the ancient Celtic celebrations of the dead. (Bannatyne, Lesley Pratt, Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History, Facts on File, Inc., New York, 1990 p. x) The Catholic festival of All Saints Day was also known as All Hallows Day, with the word "hallow" replacing "saints." The day before All Hallows Day (October 31) was recognized as All Hallows Eve. Eventually, All Hallows Eve became Hallows Eve; hallow’even; hallow’en and ultimately today’s Halloween. All Saints' Day perpetuated the pagan Samhain of November Eve. (Bonwick, James, Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions, Dorset Press, 1984 (1986ed), p.87) Many traditional beliefs and customs associated with Samhain . . . continued to be practiced on 31 October, known as the Eve of All Saints, the Eve of All Hallows, or Hallows Even. It is the glossing of the name Hallow Even that has given us the name Hallowe’en. (Santino, Jack editor, Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN 1994 p. xvi) In 835, Pope Gregory IV "blessed" All Saint’s Day as a sacred "day of obligation," consequently on that day, the Catholic Church officially "ordained" Halloween. Halloween owes its very life and breath to the "blessing" of the Catholic Church. Samhain would have breathed its last breath many years ago if not for the "ordination" of the Catholic Church. Few holidays have a stranger or more paradoxical history than Halloween. Technically, it is the vigil of All Saints Day, observed by Roman Catholics . . . Halloween has clear connections with the rites of the druidic priests. . . (Douglas, George William, revised by Helene Douglas Compton, The American Book of Days, The H.W. Wilson Company, New York, 1948, p. 741) A perverse and blasphemous twist to Halloween concerns the name "Halloween." The word "hallow" means "holy, sanctify or consecrate." The popular Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9 begins with, ". . . Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. . ." The label "hallow" belongs to God the Father—Hallowed be thy name. Halloween was a night sacrificing young children to the worship of Baal. It is no accident that the name of history’s most hellish night, glorifying "death and hell," wears God the Father’s holy name of "hallow." The blasphemous name of "Halloween" clearly bears the fingerprints of Lucifer as found in Isaiah 14:12, ". . . I will be like the most High." • THE OCCULT & HALLOWEEN • While Halloween masquerades as childish fun and frolic, it’s serious business in the occult world. Witchcraft, Wicca, Satanism and paganism believe, on the night of Halloween, devils and spirits are unleashed. They perform their most hideous and potent rituals on the night of Halloween. Samhain: This is the "Witch’s New Year" and the primary Sabbat from which all others flow. (RavenWolf, Silver. Teen Witch, p. 42) Halloween is one of the four major Sabbats celebrated by the modern Witch, and it is by far the most popular and important of the eight that are observed. . . Witches regard Halloween as their New Year’s Eve, celebrating it with sacred rituals. . . (Dunwich, Gerina. The Pagan Book of Halloween, p. 120) Halloween is also among Satanism’s most cherished days. Anton LaVey, founder of The Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible writes: After one's own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht (May 1st) and Halloween. (LaVey, Anton Szandor. The Satanic Bible, p. 96) Satanic High Priestess Blanche Barton, on The Church of Satan web site, praises Halloween: It [Halloween] gives even the most mundane people the opportunity to taste wickedness for one night. They have a chance to dance with the Devil . . . I see Satanists all over the world meeting in small groups this night and Hallowe’ens 500 years hence, to raise a glass to the Infernal Hosts. . . The Satanic Calendar decrees for Halloween: "One of the two most important nights of the year. . . Blood and sexual rituals. Sexual association with demons. Animal and human sacrifice—male or female." (www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/satanic_calendar.htm) Former occultist Johanna Michaelsen reveals, "Halloween is also a prime recruiting season for Satanists." (Michaelsen, Johanna. Like Lambs to the Slaughter, p. 192) • THE ORNAMENTS OF HALLOWEEN • The ornaments decorating Halloween came directly from the Druids and the occult. The popular associations of Halloween are derived from ancient Celtic and Druid pagan religious customs. (Mather, George A. and Larry A. Nichols. Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult, p. 237) Samhain was a vital part of Celtic culture, its rituals were passed from generation to generation through the oral tradition of the Druids. The genesis of many of America’s Halloween traditions can be found in these ancient celebrations . . . (Bannatyne, Lesley Pratt, Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History, Facts on File, Inc., New York, 1990 p. 6) WITCHES are the reigning Queen of Halloween. If you’ve been lullabied by the gospel of Halloween that witches are harmless folks, wake up, witches worship the devil: In many instances, according to the confessions of the witches, besides their direct worship of the devil, they were obliged to show their abhorrence of the faith they had deserted by trampling on the cross, and blaspheming the saints, and by other profanations. (Spence, Lewis. An Encyclopedia of Occultism, p. 433) The witches held a party at Hallowe’en and the women . . . sold their soul to the devil, would put a stick in their beds anointed with the fat of murdered babies. . .(Douglas, George William. The American Book of Days, p. 569) Although witches vigorously protest they have no dealings with the devil, under the heading, "A Witch’s God," the popular witch’s training manual, Witchcraft: Theory and Practice, plainly states: A Witch’s God. . . He is . . . Lord of the Underworld [Hell] . . . He is named . . . Baphomet . . . Lucifer . . . Baal. . . (Angeles, Ly de. Witchcraft: Theory and Practice, p. 60) The Lord God’s judgment upon witches should not be taken lightly. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Exodus 22:18 JACK-O’-LANTERN: If Witches are the Queen of Halloween, the smiling jack-o’-lantern is the King. The demonic jack-o’-lantern leaves most historians baffled tracing its spooky origin. One popular tale, tells of Jack who tricked the devil in a deal for his soul. But the origin of the jack-o’-lantern is much more sinister. It arrives from the Druid’s ghastly reverence of the severed human head! They proudly decorated their houses and temples with bloody severed heads. The Druids believed the head housed the soul, hence the light or candle in the skull. The original jack-o’-lantern was not a pumpkin or turnip, but a severed human head! Trophy, charm, or ornament, the human head figured prominently in Celtic life. Warriors hung enemy heads on their houses as a show of prowess, and Druids, believing that the head harbored the soul, placed skulls in sanctuaries to ward off evil. (National Geographic, May 1977, p. 603) . . . they hang the heads of their enemies from the necks of their horses, and, when they have brought them home, nail the spectacle to the entrances of their homes. . .(Strabo, Geography) It is believed that faces, rather than other images or symbols, were originally carved onto the pumpkin because they gave the jack-o’-lantern the look of a head. The Celts of ancient times believed that the head was the most sacred part of the human body, for it housed a person’s immortal soul. (Dunwich, Gerina. The Pagan Book of Halloween, p. 32) . . . the jack-o’-lantern is generally presented in its traditional form as a festive euphemism for the death’s-head, the triangular nose hole and rictus grin being the "dead" giveaways. (Skal, David J. Death Makes a Holiday: The Cultural History of Halloween, p. 38) Carved and illuminated by a candle, they are symbolic of death and the spirit world. (Thompson, Sue Ellen. Holiday Symbols and Customs, p. 256) TRICK OR TREAT is another Druid inspired custom. Every year on Halloween, many children throughout the world dress up in costumes and go door to door in a ritual known as trick or treating . . . unaware that their innocent masquerade is actually the remnants of a Druidic religious practice from times most ancient. (Dunwich, Gerina. The Pagan Book of Halloween, p. 11) Whatever the wrinkles, the root assumption is the same: trick or treat had its beginning in the Celtic dawn. (Santino, Jack. Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 82) MASKS & COSTUMES: Masks and costumes carry a long history in the occult and demon possession. Masks are contacts to the spirit world to invite the spirit to "possess" them. In rituals, a person wearing a mask of a god or spirit often feels possessed by the supernatural being. . . (World Book 2005, p. 263) The person wearing the mask feels internally transformed and takes on temporarily the qualities of the god or demon represented by the mask. (Biedermann, Hans. Dictionary of Symbolism, p. 218) BAT: "One of the animal shapes commonly used by these demons (or "familiars," as they were often called) was the bat. Bats and their blood were also used in the casting of spells (especially those of black magick), the brewing of potions. . ." (Dunwich, Gerina. The Pagan Book of Halloween, p. 29) OWL: "On Halloween night, demons in the form of owls were said to have traveled with Witches and their cats . . . some were even believed to be Witches in disguise. . . (Interestingly, the owl was called a strix by the Romans—a word that means "Witch.")" (Dunwich, Gerina. The Pagan Book of Halloween, p. 43) "BLACK CATS were associated with darkness and death . . . they embodied demons who performed the witches’ task of maleficia against their neighbors. . . Black cats are said to be the devil himself." (Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, p. 49) APPLES: "The practice of bobbing for apples at a Halloween party comes form our Pagan ancestors, who highly valued apple magick." (RavenWolf, Silver. Teen Witch, p. 42) SKULL: "An interesting symbol, the skull . . . It is prominent in Witchcraft and Demon worship as a celebration of death." (Burns, Cathy. Masonic and Occult Symbols Illustrated, p. 388) • THE OBSCENE IN HALLOWEEN • Halloween has always wallowed in the obscene. Its horrid history is paved with vandalism, destruction and wickedness. The sickening depravity of razor blades in apples and poisoned candies of the 1970’s was a clear testimony to the evil of Halloween. Some say that Halloween brings out the evil side of human nature in certain individuals. The number of vandalism acts committed each year on Halloween certainly seems to support this. . . (Dunwich, Gerina. The Pagan Book of Halloween, p. 23) Halloween has always been a night of perversion and inversion—a night where misrule rules and decadence masquerades as decency. Halloween’s "best kept secret" is its romantic love affair with homosexuals. Halloween was the golden key that unlocked the homosexual’s closet of perversion. Halloween’s spirit of inversion, bestowed the homosexuals one utopian night to publicly flaunt their decadence and perversion. It is an opportunity to act out one’s desires or fantasies. . . Halloween is unquestionably a night of inversion. (Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, p. 137) Halloween has always been a night of misrule and the outrageous. In recent years, it has been adopted by the gay community in America. . . (Morgan, Sheena. The Real Halloween, p. 42) The Halloween machine turns the world upside down. One’s identity can be discarded with impunity. Men dress as women, and vice versa. Authority can be mocked and circumvented. (Skal, David J. Death Makes a Holiday: The Cultural History of Halloween p. 17) Halloween has done more for the current acceptance of homosexuality than any other event. Years of huge homosexual Halloween street parades of gaudy perversion and decadence in New York’s Greenwich Village, Washington, D.C,’s Georgetown, New Orleans’s French Quarter and the infamous Castro Street in San Francisco almost single handily detonated the current homosexual explosion. Greenwich Village has a long, albeit erratic, history of impromptu Halloween celebrations, and there is undoubtedly a link between the recent emergence of such carnivalesque celebrations and the increasingly public nature of gay culture. . . (Santino, Jack. Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 194) Yet it has been the gay community that has most flamboyantly exploited Halloween’s potential as a transgressive festival . . . Indeed, it is the gay community that has been arguably more responsible for Halloween’s adult rejuvenation. (Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, p. 132) For gay people, Halloween is a moment of utopian wishfulness . . . (Santino, Jack. Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 211) • THE OMEN OF HALLOWEN • While many deem Halloween as harmless fun and fantasy, Halloween subtlety disarms our (and especially our children) discernment of witches and the occult. Halloween’s magic potion of "fun and frolic" transformed witches, demons, devils and evil incarnate into "fine folks." Over 1.2 million practicing and proud witches live in America. Witchcraft currently is the fastest growing religion in America. At some time, nearly every little girl becomes a witch on Halloween. Witch RavenWolf delights when a vulnerable little girl dresses as a witch on Halloween: Today, just about every little girl in our society, at one time or another, has chosen to costume herself as a Witch. . . If you choose a Witch’s costume this Halloween . . . Hold your head up and wear your Witch’s garb proudly in their honor. (RavenWolf, Silver. Halloween: Customs, Recipes & Spells, p. 64) Occult historian Jean Markale discloses Halloween bids more than childish dress-up. It is a pagan "initiatory journey" guided by someone [Satan] "hidden in the shadows," and none "return from Halloween innocent": The passage into the world of Halloween is truly an initiatory journey. One does not return from it an innocent. But making the journey alone does not mean there was no guide, no initiator, someone who prompted the quest and who, sometimes hidden in the shadows, watches over the comings and goings of the neophyte through this labyrinth that is the Other World. (Markale, Jean. The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween, p. 127) Dr. David Enoch, former senior consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and the University of Liverpool, states: Halloween practices open the door to the occult and can introduce forces into people’s lives that they do not understand and often cannot combat. . . (Parker, Russ. Battling the Occult, p. 35) • OPPORTUNITIES OF HALLOWEEN • Halloween is the soul winner’s dream. Rather than going to a wicked rock concert, or Mardi Gras, or a parade to witness – on Halloween they come to you! On Halloween lost children (and parents!) come to your door for a treat! Give them a real treat – the gospel of Jesus Christ! As you hand them some candy, give them a tract. The frightful night of Halloween can be a fruitful night for Bible believing churches! Parents are looking for a safe alternative to Halloween. Have a real "Fall Harvest"! Advertise it; build it up; put some time and prayer into it! Encourage kids to dress up as "Bible characters." Have games and goodies for the kids. And here’s the harvest part: Provide some tables and refreshments for the parents. Have some covert "soul winners" quietly mingle among the parents to converse and tell them of the wonderful Lord Jesus! Some may object such tactics on Halloween as "partaker of his evil deeds" (2 John 1:11), but Christian friend, Satan is "the god of this world" (2 Cor. 4:4); and "the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John 5:19) – not just the one night of Halloween! Our days of the week wear the names of pagan gods: Moon-day, Zues-day, Woden’s-day. Thor’s-day, Freyja-day, Saturn-day, Sun-day. Ever look on that dollar bill displaying the satanic all-seeing "eye of Lucifer" in the pyramid? This earth is the devil’s turf (Luke 4:6). You can’t escape his wicked influence. But as David took Goliath’s own sword and cut his head off (1 Sam. 17:51), we can take one of Satan’s "swords" and cut some souls from hell. Use this Halloween as an opportunity for the Lord Jesus. ". . . The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;" Matthew 9:37 "And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. . ." Jude 1:23 Friend, I want to ask you the most important question you'll ever answer: Have you ever received Jesus Christ as your Savior? Not joining a church, not religion, not baptism, not good works, not sacraments — but trusted Jesus Christ and Him alone, as your Savior. If not, Friend you could be — one year, one month, one hour, one minute, one heartbeat — away from eternity in a lake of fire! Revelation 20:15 says, "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Friend, God does not want you to go to hell. 2 Peter 3:9 says, "The Lord is. . . not willing that any should perish. . ." Jesus loved you so much He died on a rugged cross, to pay for YOUR sin, and to keep YOU out of hell! Revelation 1:5 says, ". . . Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." Friend, don't EXIT this message, until you MAKE SURE you've received Jesus Christ! I assure you — if you die without Jesus Christ — it'll be the biggest mistake you'll ever make! DO NOT TAKE THE CHANCE! Friend, If you've never been saved, don't wait another minute! FRIEND, YOU CAN BE SAVED THIS VERY MINUTE! It's simple to be saved ... Know you're a sinner. "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:" Romans 3:10 "... for there is no difference. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" Romans 3:23 That Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins. "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, ..." 1 Peter 2:24 "... Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood," Revelation 1:5 And the best way you know how, simply trust Him, and Him alone as your personal Savior. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16 WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE SAVED? Pray this prayer, and mean it with all your heart. Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and unless you save me I am lost forever. I thank you for dying for me at Calvary. I come to you now, the best way I know how, and ask you to save me. I now receive you as my Savior. In Jesus Christ name, Amen. NOTE: Most of the tracts on this page are available in printed format. To order printed tracts.