ALL ABOUT SPOOKS

by Rel Davis

Throughout history, rulers and religions have tried to rewrite history to suit
their own ends.  There seems no limit to the deception used by otherwise
righteous people, when it comes to establishing a false history.

This is, of course, most evident in the annals of the church in its attempt to
discredit the ancient religions.  Ancient gods were canonized, enemies became
saints.

Some examples:

The two primary saints of the Mexican church are Our Lady of Guadelupe and San
Juan de los Lagos.  Neither existed as real persons.  Guadelupe is none other
than the ancient ruling goddess of the Aztecs, and San Juan was the tutelary
god of Mexico city, ruler of the lake on which the city was built.

Patrick was a protestant reformer in Ireland.  In order to convert the nation,
the church made him a saint.  (There was also a predecessor god named something
like Patrick, the mythical creator of the island, whose mythology was mixed up
with the real Patrick.)

Two enemies of the organized church in the medieval period were Juan de la Cruz
in Spain and Francis of Assisi.  Both preached the "alumbrado" heresy.  But
they were popular and had many followers.  After their deaths, these heretics
were made into saints.

November 1 was a church holiday called the Feast of All Saints (or, in Old
English, All Hallows).  The day originally fell sometime in May, but the church
decided to move it to the end of November in an attempt to take the steam out
of the popular Samhane festival, a pagan festival of winter-come.

All Hallows was a time to look back on the saints (most of whom were fictional
anyway) and to be pious.

Samhane was a time to burn bonfires, have a feast, dress up in costumes and
scare people, and sit around a fireplace telling stories about spirits coming
back from the dead.

In this particular contest, the score seems to be Spooks 1, Church 0.  The
people would rather have fun than be pious.

Like Christmas.  The celebration of the birth of Christ, which according to the
Bible came in the spring (when sheep came through Bethlehem), was moved to the
Winter Solstice in order to compete with the Saturnalia, the Roman festival of
celebration, the Yuletide of the northern peoples, and the Persian Rebirth of
the Sun.

The Mass of the Birth of Christ (Christes' masse) was supposed to be a solemn
remembrance of the sacrifice of God having to become a human.

The pagan holidays involved: gift-giving, fires, feasting, trees and candles,
mistletoe and singing.

I believe the score for Christmas is Pagans 3, Church 0.

You can re-write history, but it's a lot harder to take the spirit from the
soul of a people.

Spooks are intrinsic to this time of year, the celebration of the coming of
winter, the end of harvest, the death of the sun.  To our ancestors, winter was
a frightening phenomenon. Food must be stored up to last through the cold
months.  The weak would often not live through the harsh period of snow and
frost.  An extra cold winter, a loss of food stores, could mean the end of the
community itself.

Samhane was a meaningful festival.  The people celebrated the end of harvest
and the stocking of sufficient supplies for the coming winter.  They lit fires
in honor of the sun, which they knew would be reborn again in the spring.  And
they thought of those who had gone before -- those who died in the preparation
of the food, the hunt, or those who died in past winters.

If the sun were to die and be reborn, why not deceased friends and family?
Perhaps on this last day of plenty, these departed loved ones would come back
for a visit.  So when the Church moved its "Feast of All the Martyrs" to
November 1 in the eighth century, the people converted it into a feast of all
the dead, which was what Samhane was anyway.

All Hallows' day was November 1, but All Souls Day was October 31, according to
the ancient tradition.  And the night between, the night when the spirits of
the dead would come back to visit, became known as All Hallow's Even, or
Halloween.

Why honor the dead?  The Christian religion remembers its dead mainly through
prayers to get the departed out of purgatory. But I believe the ancients were
correct in insisting on one day for just remembering all the departed.

We remember the dead because they are a part of ourselves. The spooks may or
may not be real entities.  There may or may not be actual spirits of departed
souls.  But the reality is that all the people you've ever known are a part of
you right now.  They live on -- in mannerisms, in turns of speech, in values,
in everything you do.  The ghosts remain with us long after the physical person
departs.

When these relics of the dead become hurtful to us, as when we act to our own
detriment, unthinkingly following the dictates of the departed, we might say
that we are indeed haunted by ghosts.  And our denomination probably needs a
ritual of exorcism to help rid individuals of the hauntings of such spirits as
cause psychosis and neurosis.

But most of the relics of the dead are positive ones -- parts of our
personality which distinguish us from others: for no one else had the same
parents, the same relatives, the same teachers.  These "hauntings" we need to
remember with joy and gratitude, being thankful for having known the loved
ones, and for the opportunity to share their lives through our own.

The relics we carry from our family and friends are also a form of immortality
for them.  As long as you keep using that pet phrase of your grandmother, she
remains (in part at least) alive.

The ancient festival of the dead does have meaning, if we care to recognize and
use it.

Thank heavens the re-writers of history have not succeeded for this and many
other holidays.  The ancient gods and goddesses live on in the
folk-celebrations of otherwise Christian festivals.

We may join in the sentiments of Wordsworth:

Great god I'd rather be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn! So might I standing
on this pleasant lea, Have sights that would make me less forlorn. Might see
old Proteus rising from the sea Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

I have come over the years to prefer the pagan view: of a life worth living, of
a world worth saving, of gods and goddesses worthy of poetry.  Of seasons worth
remembering.  Of elements worth fearing.  Of spirits worth honoring.

Blessed Be!

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