HALLOWEEN AND ZOMBIE - A DATE WITH EVIL SPIRITS
Halloween and Zombie - A Date with Evil Spirits
C A U T I O N
The Bible says: “I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too.”—New International Version
Many Americans celebrate Halloween on October 31. Celebrations include costume parties and trick-or-treating.
Ghosts, vampires, bats, black cats, cobwebs, werewolves, witches, and zombies: These have long been associated with the evil spirit world.
It is agreed that you do not like horror and would like to avoid anything that sounds horror. However, the horror strikes sometimes without your knowledge or anticipation. There are the above symbols that terrify us as the sun sets. The darkness is always scary in life. As a child, you must have pulled the blanket over your head to avoid the scary night.
A Zombie is a person or reanimated corpse that has been turned into a creature capable of movement but not of rational thought, which feeds on human flesh: a world overrun by zombies a horde of mindless zombies craving brains. One can become inflicted with this malady by being bitten by zombies.. .
What is common in Dracula and Zombie? Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula unscrews the coffin nails and emerges out of the grave in the misty, foggy moonlit nights amidst the howling of werewolves and bites the victim to bleed with his compass tooth inflicting deadly injury to the victim's neck, and bitten victim turns as another member of Dracula community. The Zombies multiply their group by its bite and hunger for human flesh.
Some of the horror genre movies send the shivers down your spine and it plays with audiences primal fears.
Beginnings of Halloween celebration: The first originated from the Festival of the Death practice in Europe and all surrounding areas by Catholics of that time.
HALLOWEEN :
The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows
Halloween had begun from an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, once found all over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November 1st on our present calendar. The date marked the beginning of winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and stored. The date marked both an ending and a beginning in an eternal cycle.
The festival observed at this time was called Samhain. It was the biggest and most significant holiday of the Celtic year. The Celts believed that at the time of Samhain, more so than any other time of the year, the ghosts of the dead were mingled with the living, because at Samhain the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the netherworld. People gathered to sacrifice animals, fruits, and vegetables. They also lit bonfires for the dead, to aid them on their journey, and to keep them away from the living. On that day all manner of beings were aboard: ghosts, fairies, and demons--all part of the dark and dread.
The festival observed at this time was called Samhain. It was the biggest and most significant holiday of the Celtic year. The Celts believed that at the time of Samhain, more so than any other time of the year, the ghosts of the dead were mingled with the living, because at Samhain the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the netherworld. People gathered to sacrifice animals, fruits, and vegetables. They also lit bonfires for the dead, to aid them on their journey, and to keep them away from the living. On that day all manner of beings were aboard: ghosts, fairies, and demons--all part of the dark and dread.
Samhain became the Halloween we are familiar with when Christian missionaries attempted to change the religious practices of the Celtic people. In the early centuries of the first millennium A.D., before missionaries such as St. Patrick and St. Columcille converted them to Christianity, the Celts practiced an elaborate religion through their priestly caste, the Druids, who were priests, poets, scientists, and scholars all at once. As religious leaders, ritual specialists, and bearers of learning, the Druids were not unlike the very missionaries and monks who were to Christianize their people and brand them evil devil worshipers.
As a result of their efforts to wipe out "pagan" holidays, such as Samhain, the Christians succeeded in effecting major transformations in it. In 601 A.D. Pope Gregory the First issued a now-famous edict to his missionaries concerning the native beliefs and customs of the peoples he hoped to convert. Rather than try to obliterate native people's customs and beliefs, the pope instructed his missionaries to use them: if a group of people worshiped a tree, rather than cut it down, he advised them to consecrate it to Christ and allow its continued worship.
In terms of spreading Christianity, this was a brilliant concept and it became a basic approach used in Catholic missionary work. Church holy days were purposely set to coincide with native holy days. Christmas, for instance, was assigned the arbitrary date of December 25th because it corresponded with the mid-winter celebration of many people. Likewise, St. John's Day was set on the summer solstice.
Samhain, with its emphasis on the supernatural, was decidedly pagan. While missionaries identified their holy days with those observed by the Celts, they branded the earlier religion's supernatural deities as evil and associated them with the devil. As representatives of the rival religion, Druids were considered evil worshipers of devilish or demonic gods and spirits. The Celtic underworld inevitably became identified with the Christian Hell.
The effects of this policy were to diminish but not totally eradicate the beliefs in the traditional gods. Celtic belief in supernatural creatures persisted, while the church made deliberate attempts to define them as being not merely dangerous, but malicious. Followers of the old religion went into hiding and were branded as witches.
The Christian feast of All Saints was assigned to November 1st. The day honored every Christian saint, especially those who did not otherwise have a special day devoted to them. This feast day was meant to substitute for Samhain, to draw the devotion of the Celtic peoples, and, finally, to replace it forever. That did not happen, but the traditional Celtic deities diminished in status, becoming fairies or leprechauns of more recent traditions.
The old beliefs associated with Samhain never died out entirely. The powerful symbolism of the traveling dead was too strong, and perhaps too basic to the human psyche, to be satisfied with the new, more abstract Catholic feast honoring saints. Recognizing that something that would subsume the original energy of Samhain was necessary, the church tried again to supplant it with a Christian feast day in the 9th century. This time it established November 2nd as All Souls Day--when the living prayed for the souls of all the dead. But, once again retaining traditional customs while attempting to redefine them had a sustaining effect: the traditional beliefs and customs lived on, in new guises.
Many supernatural creatures became associated with All Hallows. In Ireland, fairies were numbered among the legendary creatures who roamed on Halloween. An old folk ballad called "Allison Gross" tells how the fairy queen saved a man from a witch's spell on Halloween.
O Allison Gross, that lives in yon tower
the ugliest witch int he North Country...
She's turned me into an ugly worm
and guard me toddle around a tree...
the ugliest witch int he North Country...
She's turned me into an ugly worm
and guard me toddle around a tree...
But as it fell out last Hallow even
When the seely [fairy] court was riding by,
the Queen lighted down on a gowany bank
Not far from the tree where I wont to lie...
She's change me again to my own proper shape
And I no more toddle about the tree.
In old England, cakes were made for the wandering souls, and people went "a Souline'" for these "soul cakes." Halloween, a time of magic, also became a day of divination, with a host of magical beliefs: for instance, if people hold a mirror on Halloween and walk backward down the stairs to the basement, the face that appears in the mirror will be their next lover.
When the seely [fairy] court was riding by,
the Queen lighted down on a gowany bank
Not far from the tree where I wont to lie...
She's change me again to my own proper shape
And I no more toddle about the tree.
In old England, cakes were made for the wandering souls, and people went "a Souline'" for these "soul cakes." Halloween, a time of magic, also became a day of divination, with a host of magical beliefs: for instance, if people hold a mirror on Halloween and walk backward down the stairs to the basement, the face that appears in the mirror will be their next lover.
Virtually all present Halloween traditions can be traced to the ancient Celtic Day of the Dead. Halloween is a holiday of many mysterious customs, but each has a history or at least a story behind it. The wearing of costumes, for instance, and roaming from door to door demanding treats can be traced to the Celtic period and the first few centuries of the Christian era, when it was thought that the souls of the dead were out and around, along with fairies, witches, and demons. Offerings of food and drink were left out to placate them. As the centuries passed, people began dressing like these dreadful creatures, performing antics in exchange for food and beverages. This practice is called mumming, from which the practice of trick-or-treating evolved. To this day, witches, ghosts, and skeleton figures of the dead are among the favorite disguises. Halloween also retains some features that harken back to the original harvest holiday of Samhain, such as the customs of bobbing for apples and carving vegetables, as well as the fruits, nuts, and spices cider associated with the day.
Today Halloween is becoming an adult holiday or masquerade, like Mardi Gras. Men and women in every disguise imaginable are taking to the streets of big American cities and parading past grinningly carved, candlelit jack-o'lanterns, re-enacting customs with a lengthy pedigree. Their masked antics challenge, mock, tease, and appease the dread forces of the night, the soul, and the other world that becomes our world on this night of reversible possibilities, inverted roles, and transcendence. In so doing, they reaffirm death and its place as a part of life in an exhilarating celebration of a holy and magic evening.
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Halloween in United States
Many Americans celebrate Halloween on October 31. Celebrations include costume parties and trick-or-treating.
One cause that ties up with Halloween is collecting donations for the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Children trick-or-treat on Halloween night might carry small cardboard boxes with the UNICEF logo and collect coins instead of the usual candy. The money collected is then given to UNICEF and used to help needy children worldwide.
Halloween is not an official holiday. Government offices and businesses are open as usual and public transit services run on regular schedules. If you drive around in the late afternoon or evening, it is important to keep a careful lookout for children who are unaccustomed to being out on the street after dark. If they wear dark costumes or masks, they may be less easy to see than normal. They may also be excited and dart unexpectedly between vehicles or behind bushes.
There are also a range of objects associated with Halloween. These include blood, fire, gravestones, pumpkins, bones, and skulls. They all have connections with death, the spirit world, or protecting property from evil spirits. Many of these objects are now available in stores as decorations for the Halloween season.
Halloween pumpkins, or jack-o’-lanterns: In medieval Britain, “supplicants moved from door to door asking for food in return for a prayer for the dead,” and they would carry “hollowed-out turnip lanterns, whose candle connoted a soul trapped in purgatory.” (Halloween—From Pagan Ritual to Party Night) Others say that the lanterns were used to ward off evil spirits. During the 1800s in North America, pumpkins replaced turnips because they were plentiful and easy to hollow out and carve.
While discussing the genre of horror films, it reminds me of the “Mallu” nightmare demon the beautiful, long-haired, and clad in white saree the “YAKSHI” who seduces the men and kills them. The Yakshi is also known as “Yakshini “ in some parts of India. The victim will be attracted by the beautiful back with long hair and her haunting song and jasmine flower intoxication to follow the Yakshi to a deserted wood forest and then turn towards the victim to show her horrific claws and skeleton face to scare him to death.
In my childhood days visiting a graveyard in the night used to be a greater challenge to meet. In moonlit nights it was believed that the accidental death or suicidal death souls would be wandering in the graveyard and they would consume the human body. People used to go to nearby areas of the graveyards with other companies and fire torches in their hands. When you hear about a particular bungalow without any human life in it, it will be infested by ghosts and there are evil spirits as inhabitants in those haunted houses and will be pelting stones, one was advised to carry a cross to frighten and make the evil spirits at bay.
Though I never believed in black magic, the tantriks or priests of evil spirits used to make a moolah for themselves from the innocent neighborhoods.
There is an upcoming Lunessence festival starting in Tres Piedras, New Mexico. One of the programs is “Zia Zombie.”
It is slated to be great fun, art, and horror topped with excitement for the participants, and an event not to forget soon.
Even though I do not believe in evil spirits and black magic, it develops goosebumps and butterflies in your tummy.I was tossing with the idea of writing a Blog about Halloween or Yakshi for quite some time and now the dream has materialized.
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