In the city of Detroit, there was once a tradition known as Devil’s Night, where on the night of October 30th looting and violence occur where abandoned buildings were looted and that got so out of hand that it became known all around the world as a night of misrule and disorder [1]. In the violence of Detroit’s Devil’s Night, or in the macabre zombies of Mexico’s Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), we see the true nature of Halloween in its undiluted form. We see the necromancy of shamanistic beliefs in the permeable boundary between living and dead, in the fascination with ghouls and vampires and other forms of undead monstrosities.

Halloween is seldom seen in that clear a light. Few things are. It is easy to find the darkness of death and perverted views of the afterlife to be bothersome and disturbing when seen in their undiluted form. It is not easy to see the same level of darkness in little children dressed up in costumes. For one, the children do not themselves understand the whole history and cultural and religious significance of such matters. For another, the innocence and cuteness of children tends to cut against the evil meaning of such matters that are beyond the comprehension of children, but not beyond the culpability of their parents. After all, as little as the kids know, the parents should know better, even if most do not reflect on the meaning of things or are aware of the long history of the most common costumes and their symbolism.

In many pagan religions, the transition between autumn and winter is often viewed as marking a place where there is some sort of transition and interaction between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The fact that most people claim not to believe in an animist underworld of shadowy spirits makes their practice of celebrating a day that supposedly opens up some sort of portal between the world of the living and the world of the spirits and the afterlife. The Catholics celebrate this time of year with All Soul’s Day, where prayers are offered to the supposed souls of the dead in Purgatory, a shadowy and non-biblical world of the dead. Plenty of other religions have similar such festivals, which is not too surprising. The belief in spirits of the dead having an active influence on the world of the living, as well as the belief in intermediate stages of “undeath” between death and life, are beliefs that are very popular in our culture, even if they are not articulated as part of our religious beliefs in any formal fashion.

As it happened, I was a bit puzzled by how Halloween was celebrated by those around me. For one, I didn’t realize we had that many kids in the neighborhood as showed up between toddler age and teenage to pick up the candy given out by my roommates. For another, I didn’t realize what chili had to do with this day, as I had lunch at our office’s chili cook-off, which was full of pretty tasty chili. I suppose I should not think too much about such matters but rather just enjoy the food, but I’m not generally someone who can enjoy without thought or reflection. Not surprisingly, there is a lot about this particular celebration that repays careful study with a sense of unease. So much of life is full of such unease, though.

[1] http://michiganradio.org/post/how-detroit-kicked-devils-night-curb