The ghost in the machine: Tracing Halloween's dark and surprising evolution.

Written by Madie vHO

Halloween is a tradition that has been celebrated for many years. If you’re reading this article, you may be wondering how Halloween all started or how it’s still thriving today. Well, that is what I am going to be talking about in this article. For a little bit of background, Halloween is a holiday that has been celebrated for a very long time, and many people know about it. It began so long ago, but some people are still unsure of how it all started.

Halloween began because of ancient Celtic festivals. They celebrated Samhain, which was a day that they believed the “boundary” between the living and the dead crossed. During these festivals, they wore costumes and lit bonfires to scare off evil spirits. The church began to call it “All Hallows’ Eve,” which was meant to become a Christian holiday. The church's festival and the Samhain traditions began to blend, which eventually created Halloween. As Scottish and Irish immigrants began to bring their traditions to the US, it slowly went from an extremely superstitious holiday to one that brought communities together. With this came the traditions of trick-or-treating and even pumpkin carving. 

Ancient Celtic Traditions

It became so popular because it gives a way for people to become more creative and express that creativity, have harmless, “scary” fun, and it brings so many different communities together. Children and adults can have fun by dressing up, enjoying creepy movies, and going to spooky events. The curiosity of the unknown and the creative outfits and decorations have helped it thrive for a very long time, as well as the fact that it keeps on growing and adapting to new things and traditions over time. It blends old, ancient customs with new ones by only changing the tiniest bit each time. It is such a memorable holiday that so many people adore and enjoy.

The reason that Halloween most likely won’t stop being celebrated is because it is so popular with the decorated homes, scary movies, and so much more that would be almost impossible to erase. It also continues to grow in popularity and by tradition. It is too burnt into our society to entirely disappear. It would take years and years for it to even begin to disappear from society, let alone be forgotten. Instead of the holiday disappearing, it will most likely continue to grow while adding new trends and celebrations. 

Present Halloween Traditions

That is how Halloween began and why it will most likely never stop being celebrated or forgotten. With so many YouTube videos, TikToks, and many people talking about the holiday, it is burned into our society and stuck here. If it were to be “erased,” it would take so many years of deleting it from the internet and waiting for the older generations to pass on, so it can’t continue. Even then, it may still be told through stories to the younger generations to continue to be passed down.

Photo taken by HISTORY.COM