From  Lampholder Publications (sammie@hiwaay.com)
To:      heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: Halloween


                                      THE
                LAMPHOLDER NEWSLETTER

                 Halloween:   Trick or Treat?

"Howbeit then, when ye knew not G-d, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.  But now, after
that ye have known G-d, or rather are known of G-d, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements,
whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?  Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years" (Galatians
4:8-10).

Well, it's that time of year again!  People rush to find that special
orange pumpkin, search for the scariest costume, clothe the outside
of the house in an eerie arrangement of glowing monsters, sticky
spider webs, and a vast array of haunting, seasonal decor.  All of
this effort for the innocent fun of Halloween--perhaps?  We certainly
don't want to take away anyone's fun, but hundreds of years have
totally changed the real truth behind the masked disguise of
Halloween.  Many people are not even aware of Halloween's historical
origins, nor do they care.  Whether or not you choose to participate
in the celebration, you still might consider reading some historical
highlights on how it all began--the story behind the celebration
----And yes, Halloween is a seasonal celebration connected to the
movements of the heavens!---

    Long ago, the festivals of the L-rd were changed into Church
"holy days" (holidays).  The changes begn with Constantine (around
the year A.D. 325), when Christianity and Paganism united.  It was
Constantine's efforts to appease the masses.  A unification, of
sorts, that united all people of various backgrounds and beliefs into
one system that appeared to make everyone happy.  The Christians were
no longer persecuted but accepted, the Jews tolerated but ignored,
and the Pagans?  Well, they had their god(s), too, and so,
in the name of peace, followed the blending of all types of beliefs,
religions, philosophies, and cultures into one harmonious union that
was intended for the good of all.

                                 Festivals and Holy Days

     One of the ways to achieve harmony among religions was to
"correct" the festivals of the Lord by reinterpreting them into
"acceptable" days for worship.  One way of doing this was to revise
the Jewish Calendar system by converting the Hebrew festivals.  Now,
this wasn't easy because the Hebrew calendar aligned most precisely
with the movement of the heavens.  This was G-d's calendar given to
mankind, and this calendar aligned exactly with the Precession of the
Equinox (PE).   The best way to describe the PE is to look at the
"hands" on a clock.  The hands on a clock move from East to West,
right to left, and this is the same way the PE move in the heavens. 
Interestingly, it is also the way to read Hebrew, from right to left.--
The reason?  Because G-d ordained the heavens and time according to
His time-line.

     This new calendar consisted of a blending of the old with the
new, and had four cardinal days (time-periods) set aside for "holy
days."  They were fall (Autumnal Equinox), winter (Winter Solstice),
spring (Vernal Equinox), and summer (Summer Solstice), and determined
the four major festivals celebrated throughout the year.

     The Autumn Equinox - day and night are equal in length
     It is a time for celebrating the harvest, endings, the dying of nature,
     and the dark night of the soul.  The Autumnal Equinox also marked
     the beginning of the pagan  year.  This was the celebration that came
     to be known as Halloween.

     The Winter Solstice - shorter days and longer nights
     It is the time period representing the Feast of Saturnalia (by the Romans)
     honoring the god/planet Saturn.  The Feast of Saturnalia occurred from
     December 17 to the 24th.  This was a time of debauchery, orgy, and drunkenness.
     On December 25th, the Romans celebrated the birthday of the "sun god."  They
     believed that the sun died during the winter months and after the Winter Solstice,
     when the sun reclaimed the lengthening of the day, it was "born" anew.

     The Vernal Equinox - day and night are equal in length
     It was a time to celebrate the joys of spring, new life, and the resurrection
     of nature over death.  The Vernal Equinox is an ancient festival celebrating
     the death and rebirth of the gods Tammuz and Damuzi.  This was time to
     celebrate the rites of fertility done through orgies and laciviousness, and worship
     to the gods/goddesses of feritility in human/animal sacrifices.   The use of colored
     eggs, "May Poles," rabbits, etc., were prominently used in festival worship.

     The Summer Solstice - longer days and shorter nights
     The Britains called this a "Midsummer Night."  It was a time of great
     abundance revealed in celebrations of drunken abandonment.

                            A Celebration of Death

     From the earliest of times, as far back as B.C.E. 400, the
ancient Celtic civilization gathered to celebrate the festival of the
god of death, "Samhain," during the dark night of the soul, October
31st, where the souls of the wandering dead were thought to manifest
themselves to the living   This was a celebration of the Autumnal
Equinox as a time of harvest, the culmination of Summer, and the
dying of nature.  It was a festival to bring FEAR over the minds of
the unenlightened.

     At the stroke of midnight, the Celts offered  human sacrifices
to the god of death.  It was during this night, the soul passed from
death to a new birth just as the clock sounded the midnight call
ushering in a new day.--  A time of death to the old year and birth
to the new, and so began the ancient Celtic New Year.

     In A.D. 834, Pope Boniface IV moved the celebration of "All
Saints Day" from May to the 1st of November.  The day before became
All Hallows' Evening, or Halloween.  You may also remember that
October 31st is Reformation Day in celebration of Martin Luther
posting his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the church
(this action, among others, essentially began the Reformation).   All
Saints Day was an attempt to rid the people of the festival of
Samhain along with its sorcery and occult divination.  All Saints Day
was a time to honor those martyred by Rome, but not recognized (by
the Reformers) as a scriptural holy day.

     Pope Boniface IV failed in his attempts to replace the festival
of death with All Saints Day, because today Halloween is more popular
than ever before.  In fact, many people begin Halloween as "the
holiday" season leading up to Christmas.  This is evidenced on many
neatly landscaped lawns in the form of a Santa Claus dressed as a
witch or as black cats dressed in reindeer formation pulling a sleigh.

     The name "Halloween" came to us by way of the British Isles. 
All Saints Day was known as "All Halloweds" honoring Christian
martyrs.  The festival of Samhain always occurred the night before
All Saints Day or, as it came to be known, All Halloweds Eve (or All
Halloweds E'en).  All Halloweds Eve passed down to us today as the
name of Halloween.

                 Pagan Practices Forbidden in the Old Testament

"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his
daughter to pass through the fire [human sacrifice to god(s);
[Satan], or that useth divination [fortune-telling; calling upon the
spirit world to know the future; one who interprets omens],
or an observer of times [astrologer], or an enchanter [power gained
from evil spirits to control the mind or will of another; one who
casts spells, evil omens, or curses], or a witch [witchcraft],
Or a charmer [one who uses sorcery or magic; one who manipulates the
elements and unseen forces; a medium or spiritist],
or a consulter with familiar spirits [one who seeks advice, wisdom,
or council from evil spirits], or a wizard [male witch; warlock], or
a necromancer [one who seeks council from the dead].  ...For all
that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord..." (Deut.
18:10-11).

           Halloween: The Dark Night of the Soul

   The celebration of Halloween holds a far greater mystery, a much
darker side, than what would normally appear on the surface.  Who
better to explain its ancient customs and practices other than
with the literary assistance of one formerly "enticed by the craft?" 
--The name, by choice, will remain anonymous......

      The history of the ancient Druids is shaded in mystery and
originates thousands of years ago from the practices of the
Babylonians.  Although later history traces much of the customs
through the early  Britains and Gauls, the ancient religious'
practices remain somewhat of a mystery.  The predominant forms of
worship were derived from the elements of the seasons through the
Solstice and Equinox, and the two predominant elements of nature,
"fire" and "air."

    Interestingly, when the first pilgrims arrived on the shores of
America, pagan festivals were forbidden.  --It wasn't customary to
honor the Festival of the Dead nor the Feast of Saturnalia.  The
pilgrims followed a strict, unyielding adherence to their ancestral
forms of worship, but they gave no opening to the ancient paganistic
celebrations that were later introduced into Church society.  It
wasn't until the Middle Ages, when the ancient Druidic and Celtic
customs saw a revival in America through the celebration of
Halloween.  The Celtic immigrants from the British isles brought
their folk customs and pagan superstitions with them, including
Samhain the Festival of Death.  This occurred simultaneously with a
resurgence of witchcraft and Satanism in America.

       Superstition helped to clothe the practice with astounding
supernatural manifestations such as in the belief that on All
Halloweds'  Eve, witches flew threw the sky on brooms with black cats
poised delicately on the broom-tip as lookouts to guide them through
the night.
 
       Eventually, the church, weakened by complacency, no longer
fought  against the practice of witchcraft but more or less tolerated
its  existence.  And as remains to this day, the time near the
Autumnal  Equinox was by far the most important night of the year.

       Thousands of years have come and gone, yet Halloween still
remains today as the official celebration of Summers' end and
beginning of the Fall festivals.  Halloween marks the seasonal
worship of the Autumnal Equinox, the setting of the Pleiades, and an
alternative for the Jewish New Year (Rosh HaShanah) and the Day of
Atonement (Yom Kippur) during the month of Tishri.

       Ancient civilizations' associated the seven stars of Pleiades
(constellation of Taurus) with immortality of the soul and the star
Alcyone representative of the sun-god, the center of the universe by
which all things in the heaven revolved.  The Pleiades held the future
(through divination), death, endings (with the setting of the
Pleiades celebrated in the fall; November/December), new birth and
beginnings (the rising of the Pleiades celebrated in the spring;
March/June).  A good example of the rising and setting of the
Pleiades can be found directly in Scripture in Amos (5:8):  "Seek
him [seek the Creator - not the creation] that maketh the seven
stars [the Pleiades] and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death
[setting] into the morning [rising], and maketh the day dark with
night...."

       The future fortune of the village, through good or bad omens,
came through the rising and setting of the stars of the Pleiades and
the gods of the night.  During the dark night of the soul, a great
festival occurred near the Autumnal Equinox, an eerie counterpart to
the modern-day Harvest Festival, where huge "bone fires" surrounded
the villages illuminating the night sky with a bright, reddish
orange glow--the familiar colors of the harvest.  Bone fires
originated far earlier than the celebration of Samhain, but were
carried over into the Halloween night of festivities later by the
Druids and Celts.  The element of "fire" acted as the altar of
sacrifice and the blood of the sacrificial victims (both human and
animal) fueled the inferno (similar to the High Priest sprinkling
blood on the Ark of the Covenant during the Day of Atonement).  The
bone fires' two-fold purpose was to both appease and drive away the
bad spirits that wandered the earth during the dark night of the
soul.

       The sacrificial victims were led through the streets of the
village by the priests who ceremonially offered them to the Lord of
Death, Satan.  From the death agonies of the "living" victim placed on
the altar of sacrifice, the priests divined the future of the
village from the way the soul departed the body.  This custom
originated in Babylon where the Babylonian priests' prayed to the
symbolic deities (Nimrod) to inquire (divine) the will of the gods:

"O Great ones, gods of the night...O Pleiades...." (1)  The victims
were furiously consumed by the roaring flames, and in the morning,
all that was left were the bones and ashes.  Today without realizing
it, people everywhere practice a similar ritual (hopefully, nix the
sacrifice) during the Harvest Festival, not as "bone fires," but as
"bon fires."

       Another custom was the marking of the body with strange,
ritualistic markings especially carved near the stomach area (if
female).  It was the ancient Druidic "TAU" symbol of  fertility,
death, reincarnation, and written with the letter "T" or the "tau
cross," an ancient symbol for Tammuz, the dying and rising divinity
associated with fertility cults.  This same shape can be found in
the Hermetic use of the "ouroboros" representative of the "tree of
life."  The primeval representation of the renewal of life processes
within its own substance; i.e., the rebirth from its own ashes--both
living forever--thus representing eternity.  It also depends on the
direction of the "T-cross" (i.e., towards the head or towards the
feet).  In fertility cults, this symbol would appear over the womb
area or near the heart.  Today, some might wear it in the form of a
cross on a chain which hangs near the heart.  -- Usually, the shape
would be over the womb area (crux ansata - a symbol of life), and
not as a perfect circle.  Sometimes a point, or a comma, is used to
form the shape of the "T" representative of the tongue of fire,
placed for the symbol representing a spirit-being or messenger, to
signify his (the spirit's) more than human character.  In alchemy
the practical solution for the use of the ouroboros was a
representation of the "dissolution of the body by fermentation; ie,
death" (Berthelott).

       Initially, the ancient priests carried a hollowed turnip with a
lighted candle made with the fat of an animal or human.  The symbol of
the hollowed turnip carried the "Jock (or Jack) of the Lantern"
whose likeness (image) was carved into the outer core of the turnip.
The Jock (or Jack) was the guiding spirit of the lantern who
dwelled in the light of the burning fat.  Wearing a symbolic mask
and dressed in a black, hooded robe and skins of sacrificed animals
(sometimes a human body-part was also used as a token), the priests
carried the Jock spirit on a dangling rope before them to guide the
soul of its carrier through the darkness of night (replicated from a
similar procession occurring during the Jewish festival of lights).
This procession was of special significance when lighted on the eve
of October 31st, to celebrate the ending of the seasons through the
setting of the Pleiades.  The Jock  O'Lantern provided the light, the
spirit-guide for the souls of the walking undead.  Later, in
America, pumpkins replaced turnips because they were harvested
during the Fall, readily available, and easier to carve than
turnips.
 
       During the dark night of the soul, the hooded priests walked
through the streets passing from house to house with a special demand
of food, drink, or an added bonus, the virgin sons and daughters of
the villagers to offer as sacrifice to the spirits of the night.

Sometimes the villagers would also dress in costume to hide (mask)
their identity from the evil spirits especially in efforts to
protect their children.  In this way, the evil spirits were fooled
into thinking the villagers to be evil spirits also and not harm
them.  The villagers created special amulets for good luck.  The
sweet taste of the "apple" became the favorite because it pleased
the evil spirits and brought good luck to the villagers (bobbing of
apples evolved from this belief).  The ancient Druids' believed that
witches, demons, and spirits of the dead roamed the earth on the eve
of November 1st.  If the village willingly complied with their
demands, the priests passed by, but if the village failed to produce
something of value, the priests placed the "Jock O'Lantern" outside
the door post of the house to be released as a curse upon the
dwellers.  If this be the case, the village is cursed and the spirits
left to wander the streets to ravage homes and bring destruction
upon its residence.  This custom has been passed down to us in the
form of  "Trick or Treat."

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