Mood Music

Ready to get your Halloween spook on? See if these tunes help get you in the mood:

Boris Pickett & the Crypt Kickers do "The Monster Mash":


John Zacherle, the Cool Ghoul, and "Dinner With Dracula":

Michael Jackson's "Thriller":

Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" from "The Exorcist":

Halloween: Popes and Druids, oh my...

Most folk know that Halloween has morphed from the the old Irish festival of Samhain, which was the night when the world of the dead intersected with that of the living. To keep the spirits from roaming the earth (and to keep themselves from wandering into the otherworld) the farmers would gather around a bonfire, some dressed in masks and costumes, in an effort to get through the night with their ancestors by hook or crook.

But what many don't know is that the holiday thrived and survived thanks to the papal theory that "if ya can't beat 'em, join 'em."

In the middle ages when the economy was agrarian, pagan harvest rites like Samhain continued unabated no matter how much the Church tried to squelch them. All focused on the dead; after all, it was tied into the season when the earth's bounty began dying.

Surprisingly, it's thought by many that the All Hallows (Saints) holiday, the church's effort to co-opt the pagan rites, wasn't first aimed at the Irish, but the Romans.

In the early seventh century, the Romans celebrated the Feast of the Lemures, which featured rituals such as bean offerings to the dead, walking around in circles at midnight, banging brass pots and asking your departed relatives to stay wherever they were. And it culminated on May 13th, not the end of October.  

Pope Boniface IV decided to usurp the pagan's dead day with a Christian holiday, and declared an All Martyrs day on the same date. It seemed to work; after a century or so, Popes Gregory III & IV decided to try the same trick and moved the holiday to November 1st, not only to counteract Samhain but several other autumn pagan rituals common in Northern Europe. They renamed it All Hallows Day. (It was actually celebrated at the same time, as the Church holiday began at sundown.)

Our most recognizable Halloween custom sprang from the church-sponsored holiday. Catholic dogma taught of a nether world for the dead called purgatory, a not-so-pleasant half-way house on the way to heaven. And since the souls there couldn't do much to advance their cause, their fast track to the Pearly Gate was greased through prayers from the living.

So a custom sprang up called "souling." Beggars would door knock for sweets - a fruit cookie of sorts called a "soul cake" - and in exchange for the pastry promised to pray for departed souls. That practice morphed into today's trick or treating.

The church also introduced the association of witches with the holiday. They weren't really part of the culture until the witch hunts of the Middle Ages, although their familiars seem to have a long history of causing panic. The black cats were especially dreaded by the superstitious because all that could be seen of them at night were their seemingly disembodied glowing eyes.

But many of the customs remain from the old days as the church couldn't entirely dig out the pagan roots of Halloween.  Skeletons were used from the beginning, some even being propped up on window sills to keep the dead at bay. Ghosts and the undead, of course, were the reason d 'etre of the pagan rites. Costumes and masks were worn by the Druids and their followers. And the jack-o-lantern was handed down through Irish folklore.

So there it is. Halloween is a tangled weave of Christian and pagan ritual and belief. Still, it's kinda hard to imagine that a bag of candy and Freddy Krueger was what the Vatican and Druids had in mind all those centuries ago. C' est la vie.

A Couch Potato Halloween

Another quick PSA - TV Tango has a listing of all the October Halloween shows being aired during the 2011 Devil's Night season by the major networks & cable biggies. So if the weather outside gets frightful, you can get your ghoul on in front of the tube. It's pretty inclusive, ranging from Freddy to Charlie Brown.

Jack O' Lantern

Image from the BBC Pumpkin Gallery
Irish legends tell us that the Jack O'Lantern was named after a neer-do-well named Stingy Jack who tricked the devil into paying for his drinks (or trapped him in a tree, or...well, there's quite a few devilish predicaments noted in folklore.)

They're all resolved when Old Scratch promises not to take Stingy Jack's soul. Jack, though, didn't quite cover all his bases. When Jack died, the devil, true to his word, let him pass by and journey toward the Pearly Gates.

St. Peter took one look at the Book, and informed Jack that he was at the wrong doorway. Jack reported to Lucifer, and found out the joke was on him; the Devil still refused to let him into his realm.

Unable to enter heaven or hell, Jack was compelled to walk the shadows of the earth for eternity. When he complained that he couldn't see, Old Nick tossed him a burning ember from Hades, guaranteed to never go out.

Jack scooped out a turnip (his favorite snack; he would steal one whenever he could, and always had one stuffed in his pocket) and to this day, it lights his way.

The Irish began to refer to his ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," and then, simply "Jack O'Lantern."

And the ol' Jack O' Lantern would prove handy for all varieties of spooks, not just Stingy Jack. Irish lore claims that if a demon would encounter something as fiendish looking as itself, it would flee in terror. So the folk from the Emerald Isle would carve a gruesome countenance on a hollowed-out turnip and set it out on All Hallow's Eve to keep the roaming undead away.

The story and the use of a Jack O' Lantern crossed the Atlantic with the Irish Catholics of colonial Maryland, who soon discovered that a pumpkin was a heck of a lot easier to carve than a turnip, and that as an added bonus, the innards made a pretty tasty pie, too.

The tales and use of the Jack-O'-Lantern are at least two thousand years old.

The first were simple faces carved in hollowed turnips used as night lanterns. They were designed to both frighten away evil spirits and to guide and protect the living.

The symbolic protection provided by the Jack O' Lantern would carry over. Night watchmen in the mid-1600s were called Jack O' Lanterns, or the men with the lanterns, guarding the dark medieval cities and hamlets. The eerie connotation carried on, too - a Jack O' Lantern was another name for a will-o'-the-wisp, better known as ghost lights.

So hey, when you're carving out that split-toothed goblin with the triangular eyes, put a little soul and artistry into it - you're the latest link in a tradition that dates back millenniums.

Houdini's Halloween Seance

Thanks to Wikipedia
Hungarian-born Harry Houdini (nee Ehrich Weiss) was the world's greatest conjuror of magick, performing deeds beyond human comprehension. But he wasn't in any way, shape, or form a believer in the paranormal. His tricks were all cunningly designed, and his body was trained to withstand rigors that would make a Navy SEAL squeal "momma!"

Houdini lived in an age when Spiritualism ran rampant. He battled mediums in court, because he could easily see through the tricks they used to fool the gullible. After all, Harry probably invented a couple of them. He duplicated the medium's act, debunking them in the witness box and on public stages.

In fact, he was an original member of the Scientific American committee that offered a cash prize to any medium who could successfully contact the dead. No one has ever collected on the dare.

His friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ended in a bitter breakup because of their opposing views on Spirituality. Doyle was a great supporter of spooks interacting with the material plane; the Great Houdini thought contacting the spirit world was just pure hokum.

Oddly, Harry debunked a seance that Doyle attended so well that Sir Arthur though Houdini himself wasn't exposing, but channeling, the supernatural. You just can't win.

On Halloween, October 31, 1926, Harry Houdini joined the netherworld spirits he had spent so much effort fighting, dying of a ruptured appendix. He was buried in a coffin he used in his show for one of his bits of derring-do.

Houdini was interred in the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, New York, with the crest of the Society of American Magicians inscribed on his gravestone. To this day, the Society holds its "Broken Wand" ceremony at his resting place every Halloween, the anniversary of his passing.

But the great escape artist, despite his skepticism, had one more trick up his sleeve. Before his death, he set up a code that he'd contact his wife Bess with if he could somehow wriggle through the wall separating the living from the dead. She would pass the same code on to him if she died first.

Partially, he hit upon the idea because he never passed on a challenge. But practically, Houdini came up with the encryption so that Spiritualists couldn't claim to have made contact with their great nemesis once he was on the other side and couldn't defend himself in this earthly vale.

The cypher was based on an old vaudeville trick and something that only he and Bess would know. The message was, "Rosabelle-answer-tell-pray, answer-look-tell-answer, answer-tell". Sounds kinda mysterious, but for an old show biz couple, it was simplicity exemplified.

The inside of Bess' wedding band was engraved with "Rosabelle", the name of a popular song she sang in her act when they first met. The other words represented an alphabetic code used by the magician and his assistants to pass asides without the audience knowing. In stage shorthand, the rest of the message spelled out "Believe."

Bess Houdini held annual seances on Halloween for ten years after Houdini's death, but Houdini never showed. Oh, once a Reverend Ford claimed to be in contact with Houdini and his mom, code and all, but it ended up that Bess had inadvertently let the message slip to newspaper writers the year before.

In 1936, after a last unsuccessful seance on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel, she put out the candle that she had kept burning beside a photograph of Houdini since his death, later saying "ten years is long enough to wait for any man."

Then again...at the moment she snuffed out the candle, a violent thunderstorm broke out overhead, with boomers, lightning, and a torrential downpour. They would later learn that the cloudburst didn't occur anywhere else in Hollywood, just above the Hotel. Was it a freak storm or did he show up after all?

Anyway, the tradition of holding a seance for Houdini continues by magicians throughout the world to this day.

The yearly Houdini Seances are most notably held at the Houdini Museum in Scranton by magician Dorothy Dietrich, who had sat for them at New York's famous Magic Towne House. Bess had asked Walter Gibson to carry on the tradition after her fruitless decade, and before Gibson died he asked Dietrich to continue the mystic circle after him.

And yes, the seances have joined the modern age of internet magick. The museum is asking that serious channelers ("no kooks, please," it requests of participants) try to contact Harry and e-mail the results to the museum.

A web seance...we think it's time to let the Great Houdini get some rest. Maybe he finally got himself into one spot where he can't escape. But then again...

According to Prairie Ghosts, some say that the shade of Houdini roams where his old Laurel Canyon home once stood. Those that pay a visit on Halloween claim to see a dark figure standing on the spectral staircases or walking in the garden grotto.

Many believe that this shadowy shape is that of Harry Houdini himself. The magician always said that if it would be possible for him to come back, he would. Maybe he has.

The Halloween Story

Credit to Wikipedia
Halloween traces its roots back to the Celts, who celebrated their New Year on November 1, signifying the end of harvest and the beginning of winter, the transition time between fertility and death.

They believed that on October 31, known as Samhain, the boundary between the living and the dead opened wide, and the spirits were free to cause havoc and bring on sickness and poor crops.

While those dang spooks caused nothing but trouble for the earth-bound, the Celts also thought that their presence made it easier for the Druids to see into the future. Their prophecies helped shape the Celtic plans for the upcoming year.

They’d all gather around sacred bonfires, torching crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic gods while listening to Druid mumbo-jumbo. Imbibing ale and wine was also a crucial part of the ceremony. Something about opening up to the subconscious state, hehe.

The Celts dressed up for these rites, wearing animal heads and skins to masquerade themselves to the impish spirits. When they headed home, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred Druid bonfire to help protect them during the long winter.

By A.D. 43, the Romans became the new boss. During the four centuries that they ruled Britannia, two of their festivals were blended into the mix.

One was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and that probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is still carried on today.

Then the Vatican got involved in the ninth century. Pope Boniface IV made November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It was the old switcheroo, giving a wink-wink OK to the Celtic festival of the dead by sanctioning a related, but church approved, holiday instead.

The celebration was called All-Hallowmas, from the Middle English Alholowmesse, meaning All Saints' Day. The night before was called All-Hallows Eve and somewhere in the mists of time, it became known as Halloween.

Later, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three inter-related celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called "soul cakes" if they would pray for the family's dead relatives.

The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church to replace the olden habit of leaving food and wine for the roaming spirits (and also a way to promote a little charity among neighbors). The practice, called "going a-souling" became the domain of children, who would haunt the neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money. It lives on as trick or treating.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. On Halloween, when it was believed all over the Isles and the Continent that ghosts came back to the physical realm, people feared that they would meet up with the restless and mischievous undead if they left their homes.

To avoid being recognized by these ghosts as mere humans to be trifled with in whatever ghoulish manner possible, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would think they were kindred spirits out for an evening‘s boo.

As European immigrants came to America, they brought their Halloween customs with them.

Not much of a party broke out in the early years. The Puritans frowned on anything that sounded like fun. It was much more common a celebration in Maryland and the southern colonies, far removed from the Mayflower blue noses.

There, the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and American Indians meshed, creating a distinctly American version of Halloween.

The first celebrations featured big public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would get together and swap stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance, and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. Just ask Ichabod Crane.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, these autumn affairs were commonplace, but Halloween wasn‘t a national headliner yet. That didn’t happen until a flood of Irish washed over the U.S. shores, fleeing the 1846 potato famine. They put Halloween on the American map.

Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to make Halloween into a holiday more about neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks, and witches. Pansies! At least the Holy See believed in spirits, angels and demons. Not so for the button-down Protestants.

At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day, focusing on games, foods of the season, and festive costumes. Parents were barraged by newspapers, ministers, and community leaders to take anything "frightening" or "grotesque" out of Halloween celebrations.

Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century. Hmmmph.

By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become an accepted civic holiday, with parades and town square bashes. The adults had successfully snatched the fun away from the kiddies for themselves, but that would change after WW2.

Because of the high number of young children born during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from community-wide shindigs like the Fourth of July and into the classroom and home, where the youngsters could reign.

Soon the practice of trick-or-treating also came back. It was a cheap way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. You could give out a treat or get tricked, usually by a barrage of well-aimed eggs. A new American tradition was born.

BTW, the tradition of the jack o’lantern goes back to Ireland, and has a pretty popular tale to go with it.

It can be traced back to the legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into its trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip.

Why is it a pumpkin now instead of a turnip? Did you ever try to hollow out a turnip? Actually, the pumpkin was associated with the harvest in America way before Halloween was introduced here, so it's a natural for the season. Plus it is a heck of a lot easier to carve a smiley face on than a turnip.

Halloween is celebrated in several other countries of the western world, most commonly in Ireland, Canada, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and in parts of Australia.

Today, Americans spend nearly $7 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday. From the Celts to your local rug rats…Halloween.

(H&H would like to say that he spent hours poring over Druid runes, visited the Vatican library, and interviewed a Wiccan or two. However, he can’t. Being in a rush to get to the Halloween party down the street - the neighbors make a yummy witches brew - H&H took the low road and more or less stole the History Channel’s history of Halloween, added a few snippets from Wikipedia, and morphed it to his usual bewitched standards. Hey, whatever works. Happy Haunting!)