Last Halloween when the doorbell rang, I was greeted by an
adorable bunch of little kids doing their level best to look like
gruesome witches and vampires. I bent down as I distributed
apples and oranges in response to lusty cries of "trick or
treat!"

"You kids want to know something?" I asked very softly.

"Yeah!" came the unanimous chorus.

"With the Lord Jesus there is no trick. He loves every one of you
very much.

Several little faces beamed up at me through their ghoulish
makeup. "That's neat!" exclaimed one little girl. "Yeah!" chimed
in a few others.

"This is Jesus' night," I said. Why, I'm not really sure. I was
poignantly aware of the fact that it is a night the devil has
made a point of claiming for himself.

"No it's not!" snarled a hidden voice. "It's Jason's night!"

A boy who was taller than the rest stepped out from the shadows.
He was wearing the white hockey mask of Jason, the demented,
ghoulish killer in the movie Friday The 13th and was brandishing
a very realistic-looking hatchet. I have to admit that the boy
gave me a start, but I stood my ground and dropped a banana into
his bag.

"No, Jason, this is still Jesus' night!" I repeated.

Jason evidently resented the competition, however, for he ripped
our mailbox right out of the ground and left his banana squished
on the stair.

Most of us in the United States have grown up observing Halloween
in one form or another. From the time we're in preschool we make
drawings or cutouts of sinister black witches - the haggier the
better. We make paintings of gruesome black cats with gleaming,
evil orange eyes; we hang up smirking paper skeletons with
dancing limbs; we glue together ghost and bat mobiles; and we
design demoniacal faces for our pumpkins.

For several years now, on thoughtful kindergarten teacher in
Southern California has even provided ghosts for her pupils to
commune with at Halloween. I spoke with one of the mothers from
that school who told me that her little boy was sent home with a
note from the teacher informing the parents that their child
would be bringing home a "special friend" the next day. The child
was to nurture his "friend," name it, feed it and talk to it -
all as a part of a special class project that was designed to
"develop the child's imagination."

The next day the little boy came home with a sealed envelope
along with explicit instructions that his parents were NOT to
touch it; only the child was allowed to open the envelope. Mom
said, "You bet!" and promptly opened it up. Inside was six inches
of thick orange wool string with a knot tied a quarter of the way
up to make a loop resembling a head. The mimeographed "letter"
that accompanied it read as follows:

Haunted House
001 Cemetery Lane
Spookville

Dear Customer,
Thank you for your order. Your ghost is exactly what you
ordered. You will find that your ghost is attached to an
orange string. DO NOT untie the special knot until you are
ready to let your ghost go.

Your ghost will tell you when it is hungry and what it
prefers to eat. It will sleep in the air beside you all
day. It especially likes quiet places where there are
cobwebs, creaky boards and corners.

If you follow the above directions, you will have a very
happy ghost.

Yours Truly,
Head Ghost

The mother, a Christian, didn't cotton to the idea of her son
taking in a pet ghost, however housebroken. So she confiscated
the thing and put it in the garage on a shelf until she could
decide what to do with it. The next day his sister was in the
garage on an errand, unaware of the matter of the "ghost string."
Suddenly she was frightened by the sense of a threatening
presence around her. She heard the sounds of a cat hissing in the
corner and something like a chatty doll mumbling incoherently at
her. Later that night they threw the "ghost string" into the
garbage pail and prayed to bind and remove the entity. They were
never bothered by the presence again. This family had no trouble
whatever believing that a spirit had indeed been sent home with
their little boy and that it didn't much like having been
assigned to a Christian household.

The Halloween ghosts were given out again last year by the same
teacher. The mother managed to get hold of the envelope, orange
ghost-carrier and all, and sent it to me. It is possible of
course that the teacher meant nothing sinister by it. Perhaps to
her it was just a cute exercise in imagination for her
kindergartners. Nevertheless, in light of the stated intent of
many "transpersonal" educators to introduce children to spirit
guides, I can't help but be a little curious about any teacher
who sends the children home with imaginary friends.

Even in the church, Halloween is a time of spooky fun and games.
Any number of good, solid churches, ever mindful of their youth
programs, will sponsor haunted houses designed to scare the wits
out of the kids. In Bakersfield, California, Youth for Christ's
Campus Life, Pepsi, Burger King and a heavy-metal rock radio
station are yearly sponsors of "Scream in the Dark," an event
held every night for about a week before Halloween. At least
20,000 people brave the chilly corridors and dark passages every
year to face ghoulish figures, terrifying tunnels and screams in
the dark.

A certain Assemblies of God church in Tampa, Florida, got more
than it bargained for in that department a couple of years ago
when it borrowed a coffin from a local mortuary for use at a
Halloween fund-raiser and found a long-forgotten corpse still in
it.

The Lawndale Christian Church in Lawndale, California, offers
discount coupons for "The House." The advertisement reads: "You
are entering at your own risk. Young children strongly
recommended NOT to enter The House. Children under 12 must be
accompanied by an adult. Persons with heart conditions, health
problems or pregnant women are not allowed."

Church-sponsored horror isn't a particularly new phenomenon. My
husband's Lutheran church in New York always sponsored a "Chamber
of Horrors" when he was a boy, complete with fluorescent
skeletons, scary pop-ups, peeled grapes to simulate dead eyeballs
and a bowl of cold spaghetti that was supposed to be... well, you
know.

Halloween has become a full-fledged national children's play day,
but for hundreds of thousands fo people in the Western world
Halloween is a sacred time, the ancient pagan festival of fire
and death.

The origins and traditions of Halloween can be traced back
thousands of years to the days of the ancient Celts and their
priests, the Druids. The eve of October 31 marked the beginning
of the Celtic New Year. The Feast of Samhain was a fearsome
night, a dreaded night, a night in which great bonfires were lit
to Samana the Lord of Death, the dark Aryan god who was known as
the Grim Reaper, the leader of the ancestral ghosts.

On this night the spirits of the dead rose up, shivering with the
coming cold of winter and seeking the warmth and affection of the
homes they once inhabited. And even colder, darker creatures
filled the night: evil witches flying through the night,
hobgoblins and evil pookas that appeared in the form of hideous
black horses. Demons, fairies and ghouls roamed about as the
doors of the burial sidh-mounds opened wide, allowing them free
access to the world of living men. These loathsome beings were
usually not in a particularly good mood by the time they arrived,
and it was feared that unless these spirits were appeased and
soothed with offerings and gifts they would wreak mischief and
vengeance by destroying crops, killing cattle, turning milk sour
and generally making life miserable.

So it was that the families offered what was most precious to
them: food - a "treat" that they fervently hoped would be
sufficient to offset any "trick" the ghostly blackmailers might
otherwise be tempted to inflict.

The ancient Celtic villagers realized, however, that merely
feeding the spirits might not be enough to speed them on their
way. The ghoulies might decide it would be rude to eat and run,
as it were, and might just be tempted to stick around. That
simply would not do. So arose the practice of dressing in masks
and costumes; villagers disguised themselves as the creatures,
mystically taking on their attributes and powers. The "mummers,"
as they were called, cavorted from house to house collecting the
ancient Celtic equivalent of protection money, and then romped
the ghosts right out of town.

They carried jack-o'-lanterns to light their way - turnips or
potatoes with fearful demonic faces carved into them, which they
hoped would duly impress, if not intimidate, the demons around
them.

As part of their ancient New Year's ritual, massive sacred
bonfires were lit throughout the countryside of Wales, Ireland
and France - fires from which every house in the village would
rekindle their hearth fires (which had been ritually
extinguished, as they were at the end of every year). The
villagers would gather and dance round and round the bonfire,
whose light and heat they believed would help the sun make it
through the cold, dark winter.

But the great fires served another purpose as well: On this night
unspeakable sacrifices were offered by the Druid priests to the
Lord of Death. In his Commentaries, Julius Caesar speaks of the
great wicker images "in which the Druids were said to burn scores
of people alive."

Last Halloween, I watched a rerun of "Garfield's Halloween
Adventure." Garfield, the feline comic strip character, is
thrilled at the realization that Halloween is a night when he
gets to rake in free candy. "This is the night I was created
for," he exclaims, with as much enthusiasm as Garfield ever seems
to muster.

He decides to sucker poor unsuspecting Odie, an exceedingly dumb
doggie, into going with him so that Garfield can double his
personal candy haul. Well.... maybe he'll give Odie one piece of
candy for his troubles.

Then suddenly Garfield pauses in his Machiavellian musings and
wonders, "Am I being too greedy? Should I share my candy with
those less fortunate than I? Am I missing the spirit of
Halloween?"

Wouldn't it be nice if that were in fact the spirit of Halloween!

The spirit of Halloween is more accurately discerned in the
horror movies and videos traditionally released in honor of the
season. Cinematic thrillers so popular with teenage boys today
like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Thriller, Faces of Death,
Nightmares on Elm Street, and any number of other slasher, blood-
and-gore, murder-and-terror flicks are truer to the original
spirit of Halloween - the spirit of murder and death - than is
the sight of Linus sitting all night in his "sincere" pumpkin
patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

Modern witches would vehemently deny that their celebration has
anything to do with the demonic horrors depicted in such films as
Friday the 13th. To them, Halloween is one of the four greater
Sabbats held during the year. Halloween for them is a time of
harvest celebration - that season in which the Great Goddess goes
to sleep for the long winter months, giving way to the Horned God
of Hunting and Death, who will rule until her return on the first
of May. It is a time of ritual, a time for ridding oneself of
personal weaknesses, a time for feasting and joyful celebration.
It is also a time for communing with the spirits of the dead.

While the witches spend the Halloween season tucking in their
goddess for her long winter sleep and frolicking in joyful
communion with the spirits of the dead, there is another
religious group that is equally serious about its Halloween
celebrations: the satanists. Halloween to them is a more sinister
and direct celebration of death and Satan. Unlike the witches,
most of whom do not even acknowledge the existence of Satan, the
satanists are quite candid about exactly who the dread Lord of
Death happens to be, and they celebrate Halloween as one of his
two highest unholy days.

As is the case among witches, different "denominations" of
satanists have their own peculiar traditions, beliefs and
practices on this night. For some of them Satan is not a real,
specific entity, but rather the personification of evil resident
within all men.

Other satanists however - cult satanists - understand that Satan
is very real indeed. To them the sacrifices he demands are not
symbolic at all. They believe that the blood sacrifice of
innocence that Satan demands as the ultimate blasphemy and sign
of devotion to himself must be very literal indeed.

At Halloween the sacrifices of some of these satanic cults are
unspeakably vicious and brutal. Lauren Stratford, in her powerful
and important book SATAN'S UNDERGROUND, relates the horror of the
practices of the particular satanic cult that victimized her for
many years. It was their practice to begin the Halloween
ceremonies five weeks before the night of Halloween. In the fifth
week the group performs the ritual murder of a tiny infant or a
very young child. The child is often the offspring of a female
member of the coven or a victim who has been impregnated for the
purpose of turning her child over for the sacrifice. Because of
its innocence and frailty, a tiny child is viewed by these
satanists as the perfect sacrifice to their master. The infant is
seen as representative of the Christ child, and it is He whom
they are blaspheming.

The night of Halloween another child, as well as an adult female,
will be slaughtered. Not all satanist groups participate in
activities of this kind, but some certainly do.

Halloween is thus a day in which virtually everything that God
has called an abomination is glorified. Christians have no
business participating in that at any time, much less in the name
of fun.

There are any number of creative alternatives that can be
provided for children on Halloween without participating in the
ancient religious traditions of the witches and the satanists.

Parents or churches could hold parties and have kids come as
Bible heroes. Some families view the occasion as a witnessing
opportunity and hand out gospel tracts with the treats. Some
churches are now sponsoring "Bible houses," which kids go through
to hear different Bible stories read or acted out - a godly
alternative to the haunted house.

Christian parents can also make a difference in the way schools
attended by their children celebrate Halloween. In the fall of
1987, The Eagle's Forum reported a story about parents in
Colorado who protested the traditional celebration of Halloween
in several public schools on grounds that it is a "high holy day
in the satanic religion, and as such is an inappropriate holiday
for schoolchildren." One mother said that she "would like to see
the same measures applied to the Halloween parties as have been
taken with the Christmas parties."

One thing that Halloween should NOT be for the Christian is a
time of fear. It should be a time to rejoice in the fact that
"the son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy
the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8, NASB). Spend at least part
of this night worshipping God by singing hymns. Above all, spend
time in prayer and intercession for the children.

Too many of our children have been vulnerable to a spirit of fear
and to the occult because we have for so long believed Halloween
to be an innocent season of fun. But Halloween is not at all
innocent. After the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in England in
1951, the witches and satanists experienced a revival which is
currently in full swing.

You might not know too much about witches or satanists or Jason
or Freddie Krueger, the killer in the horror film NIGHTMARE ON
ELM STREET. But I guarantee you that most of your kids do!

---------------------------------

Johanna Michaelsen is concerned about the effect of the occult on
children today. This article is taken from her new book titled
LIKE LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER, which is published by Harvest House.
Other chapters in the book look at occultism in the classroom,
yoga, spirit guides, toys and what parents can do. The book is
available at most Christian bookstores.

---------------------------------

Johanna Michaelsen is the author of The Beautiful Side of Evil
and Like Lambs to the Slaughter. An expert on the occult, she
lives in Southern California.

---------------------------------

Reproduced by Computers for Christ #22 (The Light), Silver
Springs, FL, (For electronic distribution only!) with permission
from the following sources:

Charisma Magazine, October, 1989, pgs. 46-54, published by Strang
Communications, Altamonte Springs, FL.

Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR.

Johanna Michaelsen, Torrance, CA.

Please do not remove these credit lines if you distribute this article.

Thank you!