Although Halloween is often recognized for candy, costumes and creepy stories, its history dates back thousands of years to the Pagan celebration of Samhain, which is still celebrated by Pagans and Neo-Pagans all over the world.
Samhain, meaning summer’s end, is a celebration of harvest and the beginning of the spiritual New Year for some Pagans, said Rev. Bekki Shining Bearheart, creator of the Church of Earth Healing.
“It was a time when the Celts, and many others, perceived that the veil between the worlds was thin,” Bearheart said. “Our potential for communicating with our ancestors was much greater at that time.”
Halloween is often known for its Pagan roots, but Christmas and Mexico’s Day of the Dead also hail from Pagan traditions, Bearheart added.
Many festivals and holidays are based on Pagan beliefs because festivals were central to worship and important to the people of the past, said Thomas Carpenter, Charles J. Ping professor of Humanities and professor of Classics and World Religions at Ohio University.
“People objected (to the banning of festivals) because they had always had these festivals,” Carpenter said. “Essentially what happened was that Christianity embraced Pagan festivals and turned them into Christian festivals.”
Festivals are still an important part of Paganism today.
Wisteria, an event campground, community and nature retreat in Pomeroy, Ohio, holds many Pagan festivals throughout the year and was also home to Pagan Spirit Gathering from 1997 to 2008.
Pagan Spirit Gathering is one of the oldest and largest Summer Solstice gatherings in America, said Rev. Selena Fox, co-founder of Pagan Spirit Gathering and high priestess and senior minister of Circle Sanctuary.
The Pagan Spirit Gathering is a weeklong gathering with educational classes, workshops, seminars, discussions, music, rituals and “a magical marketplace for Pagans of all ages,” Fox added.
“We bring together people from many different paths of Paganism, and we emphasize the beauty of diversity,” she said. “What they have in common is following a path of spirituality that celebrates nature and seeks to live in harmony with other humans and the greater circle of nature of which we are all part.”
The word Pagan, as it developed in the first century, refers to people who were not Christians, Carpenter said.
“The word itself means a rural person,” he said. “It was a pejorative term for people who believed in the ‘old gods.’”
Paganism consists of a variety of different paths that are all rooted in indigenous versions of different cultures, Bearheart explained. Neo-Paganism is a term used to describe our reclamation of the pre-Christian beliefs and religions of our ancestors, she added.
Bearheart and her husband Rev. Crow Swimsaway said they identify with shamanic healing.
“I see my healing work as things that are ways for me to make a positive difference in the world,” Bearheart said. “All of it has a deep commitment to the divine in all things.”
Paganism can be described without adjectives because it’s eclectic, said Badger Johnson, a 2011 Ohio University graduate and an AmeriCorps service member.
“I think part of the Pagan identity for me is about reclaiming the sacred from an alienated culture and remembering the day people used to be in touch with nature,” Johnson said. “At the same time, for me, it harkens back to my ancestors, but it’s also cosmopolitan.”
Sabrae Jason, an Athens resident who has practiced Paganism for 26 years and is a founding member of the open Pagan outreach organization the Circle of Gaia Dreaming, said she mostly identifies herself as a witch. Sabrae Jason is the pen name she uses when writing online.
The identity of a witch is close to the European shamanic practitioners and shouldn’t be viewed with a negative connotation, Jason said.
Many of the negative connotations associated with witches and Paganism come from Hollywood stereotypes and movies such as Practical Magic, she said.
“Another piece of (misconceptions) is that we don’t have a Satan figure,” Jason said. “We don’t worship him.”
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