The Ghosts of Halloween Past, Present, and Future
Halloween is admittedly one of my favorite holidays. As a youngster I gravitated toward T-shirts with skulls and other “scary” designs (much to my mother’s chagrin), and I loved horror films and candy. So of course I enjoyed the one day of the year when all these things were considered normal and in fact encouraged.
Halloween has always been a festival of fun in my lifetime. But as anyone who has done any light Googling on the topic can tell you, Halloween was not always a fun holiday. For the Celts, Samhain was taken very seriously as knowledge of future weather and crop events was critical to survival. The ancient Romans, and later the Roman Catholic Church, similarly took this time of year seriously with religious rites and observances meant to ward off evil spirits and honor the souls of the departed. The turning of the seasons toward winter (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least) was a time for anxiety and fear, and rightly so, since people tended to die of malnutrition, cold exposure, and the diseases brought on by them.
Now, Halloween has become more a time for merriment, with only a tiny sprinkling of mischief and the macabre. Lately the costumes, formerly worn by only adults in the distant past, and in my lifetime by mostly children, are being put on our pets who are at best blissfully unaware of anything other than the heightened degree of attention they are getting. The costumes themselves are more a reflection of what has transpired in popular culture over the previous year, than any kind of otherworldly masquerade. You are much more likely to see a comical or heroic character from a recent movie or TV show than any ghost, goblin, or monster.
I’m fascinated by the way Halloween evolved, from a serious life-and-death ritual where we tried to consult with good ghosts and scare away bad ones, to a celebration of (and perhaps a commentary on) popular culture and consumerism. It makes me wonder how humans of the future will treat the things that give us angst today. Will future people celebrate Tax Day with parties, feasts, and costumes? And what will the Halloween of 2071 look like? Will our pets finally be spared from the involuntary costume wearing, and the holiday become all about dressing our robots in statement-making attire? Will drones trick-or-treat for batteries?
Here endeth the lesson on Halloween past, present, and future.
Bike Newbie 