Like dupes, slaves, or automatons, hundreds of thousands of shopkeepers and clerks were laboring on their usual "Halloween decorations" as October came on. Quickly, super markets, drug stores, department stores — many public places, and millions of houses and lawns became scenes of "Jack o’ Lanterns," witches, broomsticks, black cats, leering skeletons, weird, bleeding skulls, knives, daggers, spears and swords, bloody masks, fake spider webs and other symbols of the Devil and his demons, and macabre death.

Millions of yards of black and orange crepe paper was strung up on walls and ceilings. Replicas of corpses hanging from a gibbet dangled from chandeliers. Leering death’s heads and grinning skeletons festooned displays of masks and costumes.

Why? What’s it all about? Where did we get it?

You were born into a "ready-made" world. You had no say so in the customs, traditions, annual holidays and celebrations which are faithfully and continually marked on the yearly calendar. From your earliest childhood, your parents repeated the myths, lies, superstitions and silly folly they, themselves, had been taught as children.

The "tooth fairy" will deposit money under you pillow if, when you lose a baby tooth, you sleep on it. The "Easter bunny" will lay candied eggs in your nest if you are good, or a licorice whip if you are bad. "Santa" will squirm down the chimney (even if it is a tiny stove pipe!), and leave you some goodies from his bag of toys. And "bobbing for apples" and playing "trick or treat" on neighborhood families is such fun! Hunting for "Ishtar" eggs, which are nothing less than symbols of sex and fertility, "pretending" to be a ghost or demon is very attractive to imaginative little children.

Thus is it that, as the generations pass, millions of little children are gradually introduced to the myths, superstitions, lies, fairy tales and demonic observances of their parents and preceding generations.

You did not invent "Hallowe’en." You did not invent "Easter" (which is a celebration of "Ishtar" of ancient Babylon and "Oestara" of the Nordics, and nothing short of sun worship) with its bunnys and eggs. You did not "invent" Christmas and its myths. They were just "there," waiting for you to be introduced to them as wide-eyed little children; to be inculcated into your mind and memory by yearly repetition; by school classrooms, family gatherings, and church services.

Little did you know that a very ancient, apostate church followed the practice of adopting pagan ceremonies, then "adapting" them to "Christian" customs. Thus, even though Christ was actually resurrected on a late Sabbath afternoon, and put to death on a Wednesday afternoon, the "good Friday - Easter Sunday Morning" tradition was imposed. Even though Christ was most likely born in September, on the first day of the "Feast of Tabernacles," since the pagan sun worshipers appealed to "Solis Invictus" their "Invincible Sun" god to begin his northern journey once again at the winter solstice on December 25^th, the "Mass of Christ" was imposed.

But is there even an attempt to superpose atop the ancient pagan Druidic superstitions about death, Satan, Samhain, wandering souls, weird demons and headless "Jacks" some kind of "Christian" celebration? Yes, there was! It was called "The Evening of ‘All Hallows,’ or "All Saints," thus, "Hallowed Evening," or, for short, "Hallowe’en."

I shall never forget the Halloween night when I attempted to find out whether the marauding little band of "trick or treaters" who came to my doorstep had the slightest inkling of what they were about. My wife and I, in self defense (for we didn’t want the "tricks" and so, out of fear, as in a protection racket, we had to pay the blackmail to avoid our windows and screens being soaped, our trees "papered" or our dog strangled) decided to buy a box of apples. Not candy, or junk food, but healthful apples. We didn’t know, then, that apples became one of the most suspicious and dangerous of all "treats," since evil, perverted persons began delighting in placing needles or razor blades in them.

A large band of giggling "monsters" came to our door. When I opened the door, it was to see a group which looked like they included a member of the Ku Klux Klan in a hooded sheet, a grotesque little monster in a Nixon mask, some skeletons, ghouls, witches, and death’s heads.

There was much giggling and shuffling of feet as they all chimed, "Trick or Treat!!"

I said, "I’ve got something for each one of you — but first, you have to tell me what is the real meaning of Hallowe,en!" More giggling. The masks look at each other without changing expression.

"Come on," I prompted, "Surely you know why you’re out dressed like demons and goblins, going to people’s houses and demanding food or candy?"

Some said "I don’t know." Taken aback, they didn’t know what to say! Obviously, they were completely ignorant of the meaning of the night; didn’t know WHY they were doing what they were doing. They were just "having fun!"

Eventually, a little boy in the back of the group piped up, "I know! It’s the day when Columbus discovered America!"

Obviously, he had heard somewhere of "Columbus’ day," and, now knowing when it fell on the calendar, improvised. I chuckled, and then, in a very brief thumbnail sketch, told them, "No, this is the evening before the ‘day of all hallows,’ or the saints of the Roman Catholic Church. You see, they assigned one day of the calendar to each one of their "saints,’ and when they had more saints than three hundred and sixty-five, they simply lumped them all together on November 1^st, and called it ‘All Saint’s Day.’ They chose November 1^st, because this was the day celebrated by the pagan Druids of Ireland, who believe that ‘Samhain,’ the lord of the dead — who is like Satan, the devil — would consign the souls of their departed loved ones to the bodies of animals, and they sought a lighter sentence. To do this, they would placate the evil spirits by offerings of food, or even by sacrificing cats. They put jack o’ lanterns in their windows to frighten away evil spirits, and lit f bonfires, and had all sorts of superstitions associated with that night — especially their belief that witches and demons were abroad. It’s called ‘Hallowe’en’ because it merely means ‘hallowed-evening,’ or the evening of ‘All Hallows.’

The grotesque masks simply leered at me. They then leered at each other. More embarrassed shuffling of feet and some giggles. I then handed each of them an apple — I know that must have been a really "yukky" kind of "treat" to them; they would far more have preferred a big fat "Baby Ruth" candy bar, and they fled.

A couple of station wagons with mothers anxiously awaiting them with the motors running then received the little horde, and off they went to the neighbor’s driveway. Could it have been that, with my brief speech, I was more frightening to the little children than they were to me? Why would I do such a thing? After all, as a little boy, I had delighted in Halloween. My parents didn’t believe in it, and told me I should not participate, and told me exactly why I should not, but, to a little kid of about 8 or 10, such lectures are to be shrugged off. There is something much too exciting about wearing a mask. And them, there is all that free candy!

So, with a used bar of soap in my hand, and a "mask contrived of a couple of rags around part of my face like a stage coach bandit, I marauded as many homes in my near neighborhood as I could, and made it a point to soap the windows of people I didn’t like.

Being "like the others" is a very powerful force.

I didn’t hold it against the children. After all, they were not deliberately doing anything evil. Their parents were to be blamed, because they, too, had merely "gone along with society," and had not bothered to research WHY they did the things they did.

If you ever decided to look up the origins of Hallowe’en, here is what you would find: "HALLOWE’EN, or All Hallows Eve, the name given to the 31^st of October as the vigil of Hallowmas or All Saint’s Day. Though now known as little else but the eve of the Christian festival, Hallowe’en and its formerly attendant ceremonies long antedate Christianity. The two chief characteristics of ancient Hallowe’en were the lighting of bonfires and the belief that of all nights in the year this is the one during which ghosts and witches are most likely to wander abroad. Now on or about the 1^st of November the Druids held their great autumn festival and lighted fires in honor of the Sun-god in thanksgiving for the harvest. Further, it was a Druidic belief that on the eve of this festival, Saman [Samhain, or Satan the Devil], lord of death, called together the wicked souls that within the past twelve months had been condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals.

"Thus it is clear that the main celebrations of Hallowe’en were purely Druidical, and this is further proved by the fact that in parts of Ireland the 31^st of October was, and even still is, known as Oidhche Shamhna, "Vigil of Saman." On the Druidic ceremonies were grafted some of the characteristics of the Roman festival in honor of Pomona held about the 1^st of November, in which nuts and apples, as representing the winter store of fruits, played an important part. Thus the roasting of nuts and the sport known as ‘apple ducking’ — attempting to seize with the teeth an apple floating in a tub of water — were once the universal occupation of the young folk in medieval England on the 31^st of October. The custom of lighting Hallowe’en fires survived until recent years in the highlands of Scotland and Wales. In the dying embers it was usual to place as many small stones as there were persons around, and next morning a search was made. If any of the pebbles were displaced it was regarded as certain that the person represented would die within the twelve months" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Vol. XII, p. 857,858).

There is a vast amount of literature available to prove the absolutely PAGAN origins of the customs surrounding "Hallowe’en."

It is fascinating that the term "Shaman" was used to indicate a communicator with spirits in cultures all over the earth; from the vast Siberian forests to the North American plains, where many of the "Indian" tribes referred to their "medicine man" as the "Shaman."

Ralph Linton, in his book, "Halloween Through Twenty Centuries," wrote, "The American celebration rests upon Scottish and Irish folk customs which can be trace in direct line from pre-Christian times. Although Halloween has become a night of rollicking fun, superstitious spells, and eerie games which people take only half seriously, its beginnings were quite otherwise. The earliest Halloween celebrations were held by the Druids in honor of Samhain, lord of the dead, whose festival fell on November 1^st."

Another author, Ruth Kelley, in her book "The Book of Halloween," wrote that the Druids believed souls "....passed from one body to another at death...they believed that on the last night of the old year (October 31^st) the lord of the dead gathered together the souls of all those who had died in the passing year and had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals, to decree what forms they should inhabit for the next twelve months. He could be coaxed to give lighter sentence by gifts and prayers."

The Druids, like many a religious leader today, managed to concoct a doctrine which repulsed and frightened their adherents about the fate of loved ones; a doctrine which inevitably caused an outpouring of "gifts" into the coffers of the priests, the Druids.

One is forcibly reminded of the beliefs commonplace among modern nominal "Christians" that gifts to their church help to alleviate protracted suffering or interminable anxiety as the souls of their dear departed allegedly progress through various stages of spiritual purgation.

As I was writing this article, I heard the announcer on "Good Morning America" say a segment of their program would be "how to protect your children on Halloween." There was not the slightest hint that children should not be participating in such a Satanic ritual, but, instead, cautions for parents because of many potential dangers.

The dangers are many. After all, modern-day Satanists and self-professed witches and believers in "wicca" regard the evening of October 31's as their "Samhain," or "New Year’s. It is a very important date for Satanists. Kidnapping and ritual murders are not unknown in our lands; the ritual slaughter of animals and evisceration is also not unknown. In past decades, children have been horribly injured, and some have died, as a result of needles and razor blades in apples, drops of LSD on candy, poisons, such as strychnine, arsenic, and acid have been injected into the goodies children collect and eat.

Parents, regardless of the utterly pagan origins of the practice, allow their children to enact the ancient rituals, pretending to be demons; agents of Samhain, demanding gifts and "treats" in exchange, in the modern version, for protection from harm to persons or property.

Neighborhoods in thousands of cities and towns are the scene, not just on the "Eve of All Hallows," bur for two or three nights in a row of automobiles crowded with children as their mothers shepherd them about, hoping to load their big shopping bags with all kinds of goodies which they haven’t earned, don’t deserve and shouldn’t eat, and which will, aside from the pimples, bad teeth, and assorted diseases they might cause, quite possibly kill them.

But like a cold front from Canada, inevitable, inexorable, comes the command from tradition, "You WILL indulge in this pagan ceremony, no matter what!" Dutifully, millions of parents say "Yes lord" to Samhain, who is Satan, and cheerfully indulge themselves in his ready-made celebrations.

Time was when Halloween was viewed as "for the children." Most adults only performed the rite of handing out the "treats" to avoid the "tricks" of having their outhouses turned over, their cattle run off, or tied to the front door knob, their cats strangled, or their windows soaped. Not any more. Now, Halloween is orgy time. Now, millions of adults seize upon Halloween as an excuse to act out every ghoulish fantasy ever imagined. Dressing up in the weirdest, most threatening or horrendous garb they can find or manufacture; mummies, ghosts, goblins, sado-masochists, murderers, demons, devils, cats, witches or skeletons, they booze, pop drugs, and cavort to heavy metal in a wild orgiastic abandon called a "Halloween party."

In tens of thousands of bars, lounges, clubs and private homes, orgies reminiscent of the Bacchanalian orgies of ancient Rome are conducted.

Today, with the influence of all the "splatter movies," the costumes are increasingly bizarre. Many feature blood and dismemberment, and, inevitably, one will see a weirdo wrapped in bandages which conceal his head, carrying a lighted "Jack o’ lantern" instead, as he masquerades of the headless "Jack," "Jik," or "Joker," the capricious, wanton trickster who in turn is a type of Satan.

Why do people do it?

Because it’s FUN, they say!

Of course, all of this makes no difference whatsoever if there IS NO GOD! Are you willing to bet your eternal life there is not? God’s existence can be PROVED, and proved scientifically! For many years, I taught college classes on the proofs of God from paleontology, geology, biology, archaeology, and the Bible.

If you have not yet written for it, send immediately for my brochure, "EVOLUTION — A WHALE of a Tale," which shows how symbiosis demolishes the theory of evolution.

The Bible is the word of our Creator, Who gives us every breath of air we breathe, and Who has the power to either save us or condemn us to eternal destruction in Gehenna fire.

God thunders at His people, "LEARN NOT THE WAY OF THE HEATHEN!" (Jeremiah 10:2). When God called His people out of Egypt, which is a type of Sin; Pharaoh being a type of Satan, He said, "

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