Origins Of Halloween

Origins Of Halloween (from the Rocky Mountain Family Council)

For a proper understanding of the modern American celebration on October 31st, we must look at three early celebrations that have come together to form today's Halloween.

The first of these precursors to Halloween goes all the way back to pre-Christian Ireland and Scotland to a celebration of the Druids or Celtic priests. The Celtic year began on November 1st with the festival of Samhain. On the eve of Samhain, October 31st, laughing bands of young people disguised in grotesque masks carved lanterns from turnips and carried them through the villages. It was sort of a harvest festival, and in addition, it was thought of as a festival of the dead. The druids believed it was on that night when the earth comes into closest contact with the spiritual world; and consequently ghosts, goblins and witches supposedly destroyed crops, killed farm animals and wreaked havoc on the villagers. As these spirits of the dead roamed around, villagers lighted bonfires to either drive them away or to guide the spirits of the dead back to their homes.

The second precursor to Halloween goes back to the Dark Ages in central Europe. There, the Christian church destroyed many of the temples of various pagan gods and goddesses, such as Diana and Apollo. However, this pagan worship was never completely eradicated and took on the form of witchcraft. One of the most important aspects of witchcraft is a number of celebrations each year which are called "Witches' Sabbaths." One of the highest of the Witches' Sabbaths is the High Sabbath or the Black Sabbath of Witches on October 31st. Much of the Halloween folklore of today such as black cats, broomsticks, cauldrons and spells come from the Black Sabbath.

The third precursor to Halloween goes back to the early Roman Catholic Church. The church had appointed certain days to honor each saint and basically ran out of days in the year for all their saints to have a day, so they decided to have one day to remember all the saints. They called it All Saints' Day. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory the third changed All Saints' Day from May 13th to November 1st, and in the year 834 Pope Gregory the fourth extended this celebration to the entire Roman church. This event was called Allhallowmass, and as you might suppose, there was a celebration on the evening before on October 31st, called All Hallow E'en, "all hallow" meaning all of the hallowed ones. As you might guess, the contraction of hallow and e'en is where the word Halloween is derived.

The modern custom of going door to door begging for candy while dressed in costumes called "trick or treating," goes back to the pagan new year's feast in Ireland. The spirits that were thought to throng about the houses of the living were greeted with a banquet. At the end of the feast, villagers disguised as souls of the dead, paraded to the outskirts of the village leading the spirits away. This was done to avoid any calamities the dead might bring. Another way the villagers tried to appease the dead was to set out bowls of fruit and other treats so the spirits would partake of them and leave them in peace. Later when the belief in ghosts and goblins declined, youths dressed up as ghosts and goblins and threatened to play tricks on those who failed to be generous with treats.

The jack-o-lantern, also known as will-o-the-wisp, fox fire and corpse candle, among other things, was believed to be a wandering soul which could not find refuge in either heaven or hell because of a particularly evil deed committed in its lifetime. The Finns believed that it was the soul of a child buried in the forest. A corpse candle is said to be a small flame moving through the air in the dark and is believed by the superstitious to be an omen of the observers imminent death.

According to ancient folklore from many places, a will-o-the-wisp wanders about swamp areas, enticing victims to follow. These strange fires were also known as "foolish fire," because only a fool would follow them. Today's pumpkin face is symbolic of that mocking spirit.

It is always wise to look into any customs associated with holidays and be aware of their roots.

Rocky Mountain Family Council
8704 Yates Drive, Suite 205
Westminster, CO 80031

(303) 292-1800

This resource may be reprinted without change and in its entirely for non-commercial purposes without prior permission from the Rocky Mountain Family Council.

Facts Are Stubborn Things

Al Gore received Academy Awards, or Oscars, for his “documentary”, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore’s film quickly became a gospel of sorts with the Church of Environmentalism, especially with the Global Warming denomination.

Many people have ignorantly fallen into this cultish trap of inaccuracy. Including then British Environment Secretary, David Miliband, who decided it would be a good idea to show An Inconvenient Truth in all British schools, because, as Miliband claimed, the scientific debate over man-made global warming "is over."

And then a funny thing happened, the facts got in the way.

But when Milibrand decided to push this load of crap onto British school children, a father, by the name Stewart Dimmock filed a lawsuit that claimed the movie contained "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush."

A British High Court judge Michael Burton agreed with the father and ruled Wednesday that Gore's fantasy should be shown in British schools only with “guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination.”

Interestingly, the Nobel Peace Prize panel announced today that Gore was awarded the peace prize for his efforts in producing the movie. Just a thought here, what does global warming have to do with promoting world peace? But I digress.

The Director of a think tank called New Zealand Centre for Political Research, contacted the president of the Academy and asked that the Oscar awarded to Gore’s film be taken back in response to the court ruling. The court found 11 serious inaccuracies in the movie.

According to WorldNetDaily.com, (click here to read the story) Muriel Newman, director of the think tank, told Academy President Sid Ganis and Executive Director Bruce Davis "the situation is not unlike that confronting sports bodies when their sports stars are found to be drug cheats. In such cases, the sportsmen and women are stripped of their medals and titles, with the next place-getter elevated. While this is an extremely unpleasant duty, it is necessary if the integrity of competitive sport is to be protected.”

WorldNetDaily.com also said that Newman “pointed to the British ruling, which requires teachers to tell students of 11 inaccuracies in Gore's film.”

Newman said; "The truth, as inconvenient as it is to Al Gore, is that his so-called documentary contained critical distortions that are quite contrary to the principles of good documentary journalism. Good documentaries should be factually correct. Clearly this documentary is not."

The court ruled the Guidance Notes that Teachers must disclose and make clear to students are:

* The film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.

* If teachers present the film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.

* Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
The inaccuracies, according to the court, are:

1. The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

2. The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The court found that the film was misleading: Over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

3. The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.

4. The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.

5. The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr. Gore had misread the study: In fact four polar bears drowned, and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

6. The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream, throwing Europe into an ice age: The Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

7. The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

8. The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt, causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.

9. The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting; the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.

10. The film suggests that sea levels could rise by seven meters, causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact, the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40 centimeters over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

11. The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government is unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

John Adams, 2^nd President of the United States said;

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

The Coming Face of America?

UPDATE October 11, 2007

'God' restored to U.S. flag certificates

Officials reverse policy after public outcry, Republican protest

Declares the headline from WorldNetDaily.com (click here to read the entire story)

It seems that Stephen T. Ayers, acting Architect of The Capitol changed the rule after “public outcry and protest from House Republican leaders”.

Ayers said in a statement;

"The Office of the Architect of the Capitol is a service organization. Flying the flags over the Capitol is an important constituent service for members of Congress. When one of our services or policies doesn't effectively serve members of Congress or the American public, it needs to be changed immediately."

The old rule said: "Personalized dedications are permitted, but limited to three hundred (300) characters. Please keep in mind, political and/or religious expressions are not permitted on the flag certificate."

The new rule, posted today, includes only the first sentence limiting the length of the dedication.

It’s nice to have a small victory for the little guy.

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Nancy Pelosi, dhimmi in Syria, religious censor at home in America.

What is a dhimmi? Click here to find out.

According to a news story from Cleveland.com (click here to read the story) an Eagle Scout from the Dayton, Ohio area requested that a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol be sent to his grandfather and the certificate inscribed with the message:

"In honor of my grandfather Marcel Larochelle, and his dedication and love of God, country, and family."

After the flag was sent, the Eagle Scout and his father contacted the office of their U.S. Representative Michael Turner, because they noticed the word "God" was left off the certificate that’s included with the flag.

Apparently, the Architect of the Capitol, Stephen T. Ayers, refuses to allow the inclusion of the word God on the certificates.

Representative Turner and more than 100 of his Republican colleagues sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week. The letter said in part;

"The Architect's policy prohibiting "God" from appearing on certificates for flags flown over the U.S. Capitol puts at risk our religious freedoms and heritage.”

In response to the letter, Pelosi said the policy was adopted because "people were asking for statements that not only were religious, beyond using the word God, but political as well." She said the official policy is to send a certificate that lists nothing beyond the date the flag flew over the Capitol and the name of its recipient. She said that members of Congress who request flags on behalf of constituents can "add whatever they wish" to the certificates, "whether it is a political statement or a religious statement."

She also said; "It's not about being anti-religion. It is just about what the architect thought was appropriate for him to proclaim in a certificate."

Oh really? Is the Architect of the Capitol now an official religion policy maker? Is he now the official religious censor? Nancy Pelosi apparently thinks he is.

Representative Turner said he’ll continue collecting more signatures for his letter asking Pelosi to overturn the policy, he said; "if the speaker and the architect continue to implement their censorship program, we will drop legislation to compel the architect to return to granting inscriptions permitting the acknowledgement of God."

Turner said members of Congress review the appropriateness of messages that constituents request with the flags, and their discretion should be sufficient.

Turner also said;

"We have the responsibility for these common sense issues that might arise with flag inscriptions and this one is basic, the architect has decided the word 'God' is offensive. This rule should not be allowed to stand."

And he is right, on both points.

Nancy Pelosi defended this censorship and yet last Sunday she claimed that she prays everyday for President Bush. Yeah, right.

If you recall, Pelosi took a trip to the middle east in March/April 2007. She met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, West Bank, and with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus.

The picture above was taken on Tuesday April 3, 2007 when she attended muslim services in the Ommayad Mosque in Damascus.

Notice the headscarf she wore. She willingly chose to cover herself up in perfect submission to allah. But she will deny Americans their chance to glorify both God and country in writing, on a simple certificate.

Surprised?

I’m not.

"I Won't Wear That Pin On My Chest"

“Obama Stops Wearing Flag Pin”

shouts a headline to an Associated Press story. (Click here to read the full story.)

Obama was interviewed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa by KCRG-TV. He also told the television station that he doesn't like how the pin has come to represent patriotism in America.

Obama said "I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," instead, he will tell the American people what patriotism truly is, and how to express it.

We shouldn’t be so surprised that he won’t wear an American flag, after all, he was educated in madrasas when he was young, and madrasas are infamous for teaching hatred for any non-islamic beliefs or anyone who is an infidel. I know Obama claims to be a Christian now, but according to the prophet Mohammad, it’s okay to lie, as long as it profits islam.

Sorry Abu Obama, but your true allegiances are starting to show.

Money, Money, Money!

Yesterday, a Reuters headline read;

CLINTON LEADS 2008 MONEY CHASE

Apparently Clinton raised $27 million in the third quarter for her run for the 2008 presidential race. She led all of her Democrat rivals and is continuing to build up her strength. She is considered to be the front-runner of her party of fools.

But then, as the photo shows, she knows how to schmooze with the right constituencies.

Quaint Or Deadly?

Suppose you’re waiting at a bus stop along with several other commuters.

A man walks up wearing a mask and hood.

Your stomach cramps up into a knot, you realize that you may be robbed, you may be stabbed, or shot. You may not see a weapon, but you assume he has one.

It’s out of the ordinary; it’s odd, if a man walks up to you wearing a mask. Most folk’s reaction would be one of apprehension and fright.

Now, a similar scenario, you’re waiting for the same bus, along with several other people, but this time it’s a woman wearing a burqa, her face completely hidden, except for her eyes. The burqa is full and flowing. You can’t tell if she has a weapon or not.

But, of course, she doesn’t. She’s harmless. She’s a muslim, her religion is islam, you know, the RELIGION OF PEACE. Almost all of our government leaders and all the “mainstream” news agencies say that muslims are peaceful, religious, they’re just like us.

A Reuters news story out of Islamabad, Pakistan, reported that someone wearing a burqa blew herself or himself up killing at least 15 people, and wounded 19 others.

Javed Iqbal Cheema, a spokesman for the Pakastani Interior Ministry said; "A burqa-clad bomber -- either it was a woman or a man in a burqa -- set off explosives when police approached.”

(click here to read the news story.)

That attack demonstrates the problem with political correctness and it’s tolerance without question, towards ALL religions and religious garb. The authorities in Pakistan don’t even know if this terrorist was a man or a woman. The victims at that bus stand couldn’t tell that the “burqa-clad bomber” was wearing a bomb.

It seems to me that there are more and more muslim women in America who insist on wearing their headscarves anytime, anywhere. And they’re getting more and more elaborate in the layers they wear. How soon will we start to see more and more burqas on American streets? It’s already happening in muslim strongholds like Dearborn, Michigan, and Church Falls, Virginia.

You may recall the case in Florida a few years ago, where Sultaana Freeman, an American-born muslim convert, demanded that she be allowed to wear her hijab for her Florida driver’s license. The hijab covered her entire face, except her eyes, obscuring all other facial features.

The State of Florida denied her request, and Freeman took the State to court. She contended that the State, by ordering her to remove the hijab, infringed upon her right to observe her religion.

Sultaana Freeman was born in Washington, D.C. in 1967 as Sandra Keller, and converted to islam in January 1997. At first, she only wore a headscarf, but started wearing a niqab, or, a full face veil, several months later.

In December of that same year, Freeman obtained a driver’s license from the State of Illinois, wearing the veil. She did so with the pretext of showing off her new found faith.

Freeman began wearing the niqab regularly, concealing her face while at work and everywhere else in public.

In February of 2001 Freeman obtained a Florida driver's license and was allowed to wear the face veil in the license photograph.

But apparently, someone at the State level questioned the wisdom of that decision. In November and December of 2001, the State sent Freeman two letters demanding a new photo without the veil, or her current license would be cancelled prior to its expiration date.

On January 7, 2002, the State of Florida cancelled Freeman's license after she refused to be re-photographed. She filed a lawsuit two weeks later and was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In late May of 2003, the trial took place in Orlando, Florida, and Circuit Court Judge Janet C. Thorpe ruled against Freeman. The judge said in her ruling that;

"Although the court acknowledges that plaintiff herself most likely poses no threat to national security, there likely are people who would be willing to use a ruling permitting the wearing of full-face cloaks in driver's license photos by pretending to ascribe to religious beliefs in order to carry out activities that would threaten lives."

Judge Thorpe’s ruling makes perfect sense in a post 9/11 world.

Interestingly, the rules and regulations in some muslim nations are in sharp contrast to Freeman’s claims of religious expression. For example; in Saudi Arabia, women aren't even allowed to drive. In Iran women wear a traditional chador, that doesn’t cover the face. In Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures.

But how does this case relate to the suicide bomber wearing the burqa? Absolute freedom of religious expression in public can be a very dangerous thing. Literally. I am a Christian, but I cannot and I do not aggressively subject those with different theological beliefs to my point of view. If you ask, I will tell you that Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life. I will tell you that no one can come to the Father, that is, His Amazing Grace and eternal salvation, except through Jesus. But if you say no thanks, I will leave you alone. The consequences of your choice will be up to God, not me. If you say no to islam, a bomber in a burqa may blow you up.

Pre-9/11, I could not have cared less if a woman was stupid enough to wear a burqa because of her barbaric and uncivilized religion. In a Post 9/11 America, someone wearing a burqa should be viewed as a possible terrorist threat.

An interesting side note here regarding Sultaana Freeman, in 1998 she was arrested in Decatur, Illinois for battery of one of her foster children and her foster children were removed from her custody. Freeman pleaded guilty and received 18 months of probation. Freeman wore her veil for her mug shot, but she was forced to take a second mug shot without the veil.

Religion of peace, eh?