Halloween Bugaboos and Really Scary Things

Are you afraid of Halloween? I mean the actual holiday itself, not the old movie. I mean this as a sincere question. I live in a conservative corner of northwest Pennsylvania, sort of a Bible-belt-lite, and around here, there are churches so worried about the evils of the actual holiday that they earnestly offer alternatives to the impressionable youth,  with cryptic names like “Trunk-n-Treat” (I still haven’t figured out what the trunk is supposed to be) or celebrate thinly veiled (pun unintended but still works) “Harvest Festivals” where little kids are allowed to dress up in church-approved costumes while getting candy and a hefty dose of proselytizing. I suppose I could go on about how Halloween itself historically traces back to actual harvest festivals, but that’s for another post.

Before I go any further, let me declare for the record that I am not one who enjoys horror movies or any sort of violence as entertainment. I abhor violent video games, and think animal abusers should be locked up.  I do not even really celebrate Halloween beyond putting up a few jack-o-lantern decorations around the house. I don’t care for fake-blood splattered seasonal haunted houses, even if they do raise money for charity. This year, now that we have an empty nest, we plan to avoid the thunderous herds/hordes that descend upon our neighborhood in the annual sugar-fest of actual trick-or-treat night and maybe go to a movie instead. For me personally, it’s huzzah for beautiful autumn and a big giant “meh” for Halloween.

I am not, however, afraid of it, and I hope you aren’t either. It astonishes me that churches feel the need to offer an “alternative” to the mainstream, presumably Satan-induced festivities.  Seriously? Seriously??  In centuries past, before modern science explained things like solar eclipses, bacterial plagues and mental illnesses, ascribing all the scary things of life to an evil figure like Satan allowed people to make sense of the world. It also allowed the religious hierarchy to persecute innocent people (mostly women, of course) under the guise of them being in league with the big bad dude downstairs. In the 21st century, it’s time to call Satan what he really is: a psychological projection of our own fears that has historically been hijacked for purposes of controlling the masses. Boo!!

At its best, Halloween invites us to contemplate our own mortality, remember our ancestors, and sip some hot cider while we cozy up by the glow of a jack-o-lantern.

At its worst, it is a silly bugaboo, a psychological projection of the fears of fundamentalists (Omg, there are people who think differently than we do! They must be evil) that has been hijacked for purposes of indoctrinating the masses of kids who just want candy. If Satan existed, he would be found in CIA black sites and Nazi concentration camps, not in plastic cauldrons or bed-sheet ghosts.

There are plenty of scary things in the world, even things I would call evil. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that the line between good and evil passes through every human heart, and given world history, I would have to agree. Evolution has left us with primitive survival instincts and group-cohesion instincts that can drift toward violence if left unchecked by good judgement from our ethical prefrontal cortexes.

Moving from the global to the personal, the REALLY scary things out there include war, genocide, especially religiously motivated genocide, climate change (yes, really), mass extinction, the destruction of the natural world, pollution, poverty, corporate greed, racism/sexism/homophobia, sexual assault, child abuse, cruelty to animals, and how we have a tendency to dehumanize those with whom we disagree.

Nowhere on that admittedly incomplete list do I find a holiday that involves costumed kids and large amounts of high-fructose corn syrup. Okay, maybe from a dental point of view it is a little bit scary.

So, no fear! No fear. Dress up. Have fun. Be safe. Most of all, be kind. Be strong. Be loving. Be brave. Pick an issue from the list of really scary things, and do your small bit to make the world better. Don’t let the fear-mongers and fundy preachers have the last word.

Boo! Happy Halloween.