This is an excerpt from my new book "The Red Mark On God’s Forehead".
Of all the celebrations believers participate in, nothing makes me shake my head in disbelief more than Halloween. Christmas and Easter have a Christian veneer on them, and Valentine’s Day is at least supposedly about love and romance, but Halloween is laid out in all of its satanic glory of who and what it really represents. Making some flimsy excuse that it’s about honouring the Saints and calling it All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day on November 1, like the Catholic Church has done, is absurd. Halloween is about evil spirits, full stop. There’s nothing remotely associated with the God of creation in it. It has everything to do with Satan and the kingdom of darkness. There’s not even a pretense that it has anything to do with Messiah, yet believers by the millions participate in it. I was at a pastors’ conference a few years back in November, and while sitting at a table with other couples and feeling somewhat frisky, I declared to them that I didn’t understand how Christians, especially pastors, could allow their kids to participate in Halloween, knowing that it was an overtly satanic holiday about death. I did this because I wanted to see their reaction (I’ve been known to do that periodically). Sure enough, the younger pastor and his wife, who had young children, were both very quiet. By the look on their faces, I knew they had done just that. Another pastor’s wife and children within the same denomination celebrated Trunk or Treat one year and posted the photos on Facebook. This is where people line up their cars and give children treats out of their trunks, instead of having them knock on doors. The pastor’s wife and son were dressed as pirates, and they had a mock coffin complete with skeleton in their trunk. She boldly proclaimed they were doing this as an outreach into the community to celebrate Jesus and promote their church. When my wife called her out on Facebook and asked her why she was attempting to represent the Lord using symbols of death, she responded by snapping back, “What’s your problem?” and proceeded to unfriend her. Another stellar example of Christian love.
Halloween is a druidic holiday. The druids were the priestly class of the Celts, a lovely bunch of people who worshipped nature and were quite fond of human sacrifice. Halloween was originally called Samhain (pronounced Saw-win in Gaelic). Samhain is the Celtic lord of the dead, and this festival was known as the feast of the dead. It was a harvest festival to usher in the “dark half of the year.” Samhain is the most important pagan festival of the year, the second being Beltane, which is May 1. Both are high sabbats (witches’ holidays) and involve human sacrifice. Wiccan High Priestess Doreen Valiente said:
“Halloween is one of the four Great Sabbats of the witches that everyone has heard about. To witches, Halloween is a serious occasion, however merrily celebrated. It is the old Celtic Eve of Samhain.”
Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan and author of the Satanic Bible, states:
“After one’s own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht (May 1st) and Halloween.”
It was believed that at on October 31, time stood still and the barrier between the physical and spiritual worlds was the thinnest, so spirits could easily breach the barrier; therefore, they had to be placated as they roamed about looking to either bless or torment people. Food was left outside for these spirits so they wouldn’t harass the families. This is where the origins of “trick or treat” came from. If the offering wasn’t sufficient, the spirits would ruin their future crops. Bonfires were lit, and who doesn’t love a good bonfire? Except they were offered to the sun in hopes it would come back. Originally, they were called “bone fires” because they contained the bones of either animals or children that had been sacrificed. Yellow ribbons were tied around oak trees (which were worshipped by the Druids) by families in the hopes their children would be spared. Gives a whole new significance to the 1973 song by Tony Orlando and Dawn, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree.” Apparently it wasn’t just a song about the guy needing a sign from his girlfriend as to whether she still wanted him or not. Paganism and the occult are everywhere in our culture.
Jack-o’-lanterns stemmed from a legend involving a wretch named Stingy Jack, who outsmarted the devil twice. After he died, he wasn’t allowed into heaven or hell, so he was condemned to roam the earth forever as a spirit. He did ask the devil for an ember from hell to light his way, and he put that into a carved-out pumpkin so that when people saw strange lights they would say it was “jack of the lantern.” The tradition would be to carve out a pumpkin or gourd and use the fat from the sacrifices of animals or children as fuel. It’s appropriate that the face on a carved pumpkin looks demonic.
Bobbing for apples is another fun event people usually do at fall country fairs, and it’s often associated with Halloween. The tradition started when the Druids would fill a cauldron full of boiling oil and make prisoners bob for apples. Many died in the process, but if you happen to survive with horrendous pain, you were then put into a giant man made of wicker with all the other survivors and lit on fire to complete the sacrifice. The Burning Man Festival, a nine-day occult-themed celebration of art that occurs in the Nevada desert every August, gets its inspiration from this horrendous practice. The highlight of the entire affair is the giant statue that has a different pagan or esoteric theme every year that is lit on fire at the end of the festival. In 2017, a man ran into the flames of the burning statue and died, thus bringing the tradition back to its origins.
Halloween is one of the two highest days of the satanic year and therefore requires a human sacrifice. Hundreds, even thousands, of children and animals disappear every year leading up to October 31. Nothing infuriates God more than the offering up of the most defenseless members of society as a sacrifice to Satan and his demonic army. God tells Moses in Deuteronomy 18:10:
“There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, a soothsayer, one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who consults the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is going to drive them out before you. You are to be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations, which you are going to dispossess, listen to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so.”
The worship of Molech involved a huge statue of a half-bull, half-man (a minotaur, another chimera) with arms stretched out. Babies were placed into its hands and would then roll into the blazing furnace of its chest. The drum beats had to be loud enough to drown out the screams of the burning children. The sacrifice of children today through either abortion or after birth is the highest crime one can commit against God, and Halloween is one of the bloodiest days of the year.
No matter what we call it, or how cutesy the costumes might be, Halloween is the outright worship of Satan. When I was about thirteen or fourteen and going out trick or treating for one of my last Halloweens before I was too old, I intentionally dressed up as a vampire because I wanted to go as something that represented the true spirit of the holiday. I understood what Halloween was about and wanted to make it authentic. As with any other pagan holiday, it doesn't matter how you dress it up (pun intended), it doesn’t change what it’s about. Any participation in it violates God’s commands not to be involved in these things in any way. Nothing can justify it. One young mother replied to my wife several years ago when she questioned her for handing out candy to trick or treaters by saying that she wouldn’t be demonstrating God’s love if she didn’t open the door for them. That is outright foolishness. Perhaps having a prayer meeting that night, or even fasting that day for the protection of the children, might be a little more loving. If you have participated in Halloween in the past, know that we’ve all made our mistakes, but repenting of it and committing to having nothing do with it again would be what God desires of you.
Holidays are wonderful things, as they are a celebration of something. God’s festivals given to us in Leviticus 23 are rich in meaning and intended for us to meet with Him and rejoice in His faithfulness. However, through outright disobedience, the Body of Messiah has forsaken these appointed times by God and instead adopted ones that are putrid to Him. They were originally dedicated to other gods and involved every kind of abhorrent practice, especially human sacrifice. No amount of good intentions or warm feelings from memories can change that. If we’re going to be holy because He is holy, believers need to keep away from what is defiled in the world, and that includes religious holidays not ordained by God.
“Samhain,” History, last modified October 19, 2021, accessed April 18, 2022, https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain.
Joe Schimmel, “Halloween: A Satanic Holiday,” Good Fight Ministries, accessed April 18, 2022, https://www.goodfight.org/articles/cults-occult/halloween-satanic-holiday/.
Ibid.
Les Hewitt, “Stingy Jack and the History of the Jack-o’-Lantern,” Historic Mysteries, last modified October 27, 2015, accessed April 18, 2022, https://www.historicmysteries.com/the-legend-of-stingy-jack/.