Excerpts from:

http://www.cephasministry.com/stand_and_comfort_halloween.html

#1 The History Of All Hallow's Eve

•  Many present-day Halloween customs are directly descended from the Celtic peoples of the British Isles and France. From 200 B.C. to 200 A.D., these tribes shared an organized religion - Druidism.
•  October 31st, a joint feast honoring Sanheim and the Sun God, was the most important religious event of the Celtic year. The new year began on November first, and on its eve, time appeared to belong neither to the old year nor to the new. The Druids believed that sins of the evil dead could be expiated through gifts and sacrifices to Sanheim, who had the power to decree in what form their existence would continue, as animals or humans. The sacrifices were grisly. Horses were burned, as they were sacred to the Sun God. Black cats, which were either friends of witches or transformed into witches themselves, were also thrown into the fire. But for Sanheim, Lord of the Dead, humans were sacrificed. Men were imprisoned in wicker and thatch cages built in the shapes of animals or giants, and put into the fire. By observing the way they died, the Druid priests saw and pronounced omens of the future.
•  "The singers and dancers went from house to house in blood-curdling masks and costumes which may have been meant to protect them against evil and which were probably also tangible representations of what lurked unseen in the night.
• "It is these masks and disguises which have descended to children, who visit the neighbors for the offerings which once belonged to the dead and play small malicious tricks on those who refuse them" (The Powers Of Evil).
•  Although the formal Druid religion eventually died down, its beliefs and rites were continued by groups of people throughout the centuries. One of these, worship of the horned god, was continued by the wicca, or witches, across Europe. Witches' Sabbaths were held several times a year, with the main celebration on October 31st.
• Halloween didn't arrive in America in full force until the 1840s, when thousands of Irish families fleeing the potato famine arrived.

Thought of the day:

People will celebrate anything if you make it fun.