Social media channels (especially the likes of Instagram and Facebook) are the great voluntary profiling system of the age. It seems that we have no hesitation in freely distributing our personal information, rants, raves, travel destinations, food and fashion choices or even our precise current location in the pursuit of the “thumbs up” of mass approval – as if by some warped social custom, the validation of our choices and actions was determined by peer review!
So it was with some degree of disappointment and much chagrin that I opened my Instagram feed to find a plethora of posts from dear Saints (who comprise the majority of my feed) celebrating, even revelling, in Halloween celebrations and festivities!
My initial shock was replaced by the sadness of the knowledge that most Believers who indulge in or allow their children to participate in Halloween rituals are ignorant of the spiritual dynamics involved. If they were, they would probably spend the night in mass prayer vigils instead.
It’s not all innocent fun dear friends. Not when you fully understand the spiritual dynamics at work during this dark pagan festival.
The History
The history of the Halloween festival dates back over 2000 years to the times of the Celtic druidic priests who celebrated a pagan spiritual festival called Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “sow-win”). Samhain marked the end of summer and the beginning of the dark winters.
The ancient druids believed that the veil between the physical world and the spirit world is “thinnest” during Samhain, allowing more interaction between humans and denizens of the realm of the second heaven – the abode of demons, principalities and rulers of darkness and hosts of wickedness.
Because the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead (they believed) was at its weakest – ghosts and ghouls (evil spirits that would cross over to snatch souls of the living who were ‘honouring’ their dead) could cross over into the world of Life.
In fact the Spanish/Mexican Day of the Dead (Dia De Los Muertos) is a holiday ritual that celebrates the reunion of the living and the dead.
Families create ofrendas (offerings) to honour their departed family members. The offerings are believed to encourage visits from the Underworld as departed souls hear their prayers.
The druids taught that these roaming spirits, loosed on Samhain, went searching for a body to possess. The frightened Celts would masquerade as demons, evil spirits and ghosts, hoping to convince the roaming evil spirits, they were another evil spirit, and leave them alone.
The Practice
The druids performed horrifying rites and other vile rituals during Samhain.
Their most repulsive activities involve child sacrifices on the night of Samhain which we now know as Halloween.
First-born sacrifices are mentioned in a poem in the Dindshenchas, which records that children were sacrificed each Samhain. 1
Acquiescent, incestual orgies of sons having intercourse with their mothers, brothers with their sisters, and husbands with their neighbours wives was part of the Samhain festivities – fuelled by copious amounts of mead (fermented honey and water).
It was truly a night of horror, abandon and debauchery!
The Druids also celebrated the festival of Beltane. The word Beltane literally means the “fires of Bel.” Bel is the same god called Baal, found over 80 times in the King James Bible.
There can be no doubt—Samhain night was a terrifying “covenant with death, and with hell” And let there be no doubt – Samhain was the original Halloween night!
You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death, with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement.
Isa 28.15
THE SANITISATION
As the Catholic missionaries swarmed Britain and Ireland seeking the mass conversion to Catholicism their orders from Pope Gregory III in 601 A.D. was to cunningly convert the Druid rituals into Catholic rituals.
The Catholics converted the ritual of Samhain into the festival of All Saint’s Day, with Pope Gregory expanding the festival to include all past saints as well as all martyrs.
The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-Hallows or All-Hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve(ning) and, eventually, Halloween.
A perverse and blasphemous twist to it all lates to the word “hallow” which means “holy, sanctify or consecrate.”
The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 begins, “. . . Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. . .”
The attribute “hallowed” belongs exclusively to God the Father who alone is Holy. (Rev 15.4)
There is nothing holy about a day celebrating darkness!
The Globalisation
Even though this festival was celebrated predominantly in the British Isles, it made its way across the Atlantic with the discovery of the Americas. It was not celebrated much in the New England colony because of the very strong Protestant roots.
It was only much later in the 19th century when hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants began to flood the New World seeking relief from the famine in their homeland that the traditions of Halloween celebrated in their native Ireland gained foothold in the Americas.
Once enmeshed in popular culture and sanitised by the the Irish Catholic community to reflect more tolerable practices (child sacrifice was probably frowned upon) this pagan festival was now in mainstream American culture ready to be exported globally as just a night of fun activity for children and any with a young soul!
But that is exactly what is on the line – entry to your soul!
The Spiritual Dynamics
If we strip Halloween down to its most essential elements, we find that it is a night when Celtic tribes communed with the spirits of the ancestral dead!
In fact one of the practices of Halloween is fortune telling or future prediction. Especially of young girls divining who they would marry. Guess what? This is not the gift of prophecy!
This is divination. Plain and simple. Only a fool would not see it for what it truly is. Divination is a spiritual abomination that defiles the recipient and in the process opens a getaway for a generational curse to operate.2
Communing with the dead is necromancy! Another abominable defiling practice condemned by God and punishable by being ex-communicated from His Presence.
Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow,
Proverbs 26.2
So a curse without cause shall not alight.
John Ramirez is an ex satanic high priest of New York City who was set free by the power of Jesus and is now a pastor who was mentored by David Wilkerson, founder of Times Square Church in NYC.
In an interview with CBN News, John warns that Halloween isn’t just about costumes and candy – there’s a much darker reality.
You have to be aware it’s a curse. You have to go back to the place where you started, that year that you started that Halloween thing, the celebration when you started having that encounter with the dark side. You have to go back to that same spot and renounce and renounce it in the name of Jesus Christ and ask God to forgive you for that so that God can have mercy and close that door so your whole family can move forward.
John Ramirez, Prayer Link Interview
It’s Just Harmless Fun!
Is it though? While modern Halloween masquerades as childish fun and adult entertainment, as Believers it behoves us to understand the completely dark occult roots associated to it. Our participation in this type of ritual ceremony just does not measure up, or fall in line with the Word of God.
Are you willing to sacrifice the soul of your child or indeed your own in the name of frolic and frivolity?
Who lied to you? Did your pastor say “Oh it doesn’t matter really! It’s upto you!”
Well my friends s/he is very, very wrong!
Halloween is a celebration of evil.
Can a Christian Believer have any part of this darkness?
Indeed what part hath Light in this at all?
Is celebrating a dark high day anything that a Child of Light ought to be associated with?
After one’s own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht (May 1st) and Halloween.
Anton Levy – founder of the Church of Satan and author of “The Satanic Bible“
Satanic High Priestess – Blanche Barton, on The Church of Satan web site, says of Halloween:
“It [Halloween] gives even the most mundane people the opportunity to taste wickedness for one night. They have a chance to dance with the Devil . . . I see Satanists all over the world meeting in small groups this night and Hallowe’ens 500 years hence, to raise a glass to the Infernal Hosts. . .”
Seriously?? And some Christians think it’s just harmless fun! They are either beguiled, deluded, dumb or just ignorant!
THE TRICK OR TREAT EXCUSE
Oh, Pastor I’m not celebrating Halloween. I’m just dressing up as Thor and going Trick or Treating!
Yeah! I get that it sounds fun and appears innocent and all the neighbourhood kids are doing it. I get that you consider it’s just a costume party that you’ve been invited to and it would be fun to dress up as sexy witch or a scary character. But that is not really what’s going on here. So let me enlighten you.
(By the way – this also makes you accountable for what you know. So – fair warning!)
The masks & costumes have deep occult roots predating even the Samhain festivals. Wearing them was a way to either (1) attempt to fool the demon or evil spirit into thinking the wearer was one of them so as not to be attacked or (2) used by practitioners of dark arts to invite communion with dark beings to receive magical powers and advantages or information from the spirit world.
Trick or Treating was the practice of costuming oneself in the garb of underworld beings or images of deceased loved ones called “guising” (from “disguising”) and going from house to house demanding an exchange on behalf of the Underworld. The entire practice was actually called “souling“! and those who did it were called “soulers“!
The dark side of “Trick or Treat?” is represented by the knock on the door which then is summarily opened granting tacit permission to enter.
The sing song appellation “trick or treat?” is symbolic of the demon at the door requesting a sacrifice (treat) failing which a curse (trick) shall be directed at the household whose doorway has now been opened.
It is all passed off as harmless fun. It is anything but. All the roots of it are demonic.
The Ignorant Pastor
I once had a heated conversation with a pastor and his team as they attempted to convince me that the Apostle Paul had no issue with participating in such festivals [in defence of their youth group holding a Halloween party at church] – citing :
So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths…
Colossians 2:16 (NKJV)
Like the Galatians, the Colossians were Gentiles. They had never known God’s Way, and had not previously kept His Holy Days or Sabbath.
Paul was instructing the converts at Colossia to not come under condemnation with regards to feasts and festivals, and their observances, from certain Jews who wanted to enforce legalism.
But, the very next verse reveals Paul’s brilliant spiritual response:
… which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Colossians 2:17 (NKJV)
Do you find any substance of Christ in observing Halloween? I think not.
I DIDN’T KNOW ALL OF THIS! WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Well the first step is to pray and ask God to forgive you for opening a portal in your life to the demonic world. He is forever faithful to respond in love and mercy. Pray this prayer with me…
Father forgive me. I acted foolishly and in ignorance.
Father, according to Your word in 1John 1:9 it says, If we confess our sins, You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So I confess that I have been in error that has spiritual consequences.
Father save me from those consequences. I renounce any activity and participation in the evil celebration of Halloween. I now recognise that is was wrong. With godly sorrow and repentance in my heart, I ask You Father, to deliver me from the snare of the fowler and set me totally free. Your truth is a shield to me and under Your wings, I seek refuge.
By faith in Your word, I now receive and lay hold of Your forgiveness and cleansing. Father, by the blood of Your Son, Jesus, I repent and find comfort in Your forgiveness.
Lord Jesus, because I have set my love upon You, You will deliver me. You will set me on high because I have known Your Name. I will call upon You, and You will answer me. You will deliver me and set honour upon me.
I sever and cut off by the power of the Spirit of the Living God and the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ any generational curses and gateways that I have unknowingly activated and opened. I close them and in faith believe that You seal my life Holy Spirit from all evil. It shall have no hold over me and I renounce all access to my soul by any dark spirit. Let your Holy Presence be my only portion Lord Jesus.
Father, I give You thanks and praise and I believe it is done, in Jesus’ name, Amen!
Warn your friends. Stand up for what you now know. Don’t follow the crowd. Inform your pastors!
And the next time you get a knock on your door from the neighbourhood kids singing Trick or Treat – answer the door with the Word of God – the Scriptures – in hand and speak the Gospel of the Light of Jesus Christ into each of their lives unashamedly.
Walk in the Light. Always.
1 Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, p. 17
2 Defilement through divination brings a curse. Video teaching.
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