The Hidden History of Halloween

When I wore the mask, I felt transformed into something more powerful than my four-year-old self. After Halloween night, my grandmother took it away because I persisted in wearing it. Neighbors were beginning to talk.

Years later I learned in an anthropology course that masks, chants and dancing are used to invoke spirits. “The person wearing the mask feels internally transformed and takes on temporarily the qualities of the god or demon represented by the mask” (Biedermann, Hans. Dictionary of Symbolism, p. 218)

Now I’m sick of Halloween. I’ve become sensitive to how casually Americans watch the daily orgy of slaughter called ‘the news.’ Real blood and corpses alternate with staged violence and comedy on HDTV screens.

Now I dread the time when rubber skulls pop up on neighbor’s lawns, and supermarkets look like they hired the set director from “the Killing Fields”.

But don’t worry. If skulls and rotting zombies don’t turn you on, Halloween has also become about kinky sex! How ’bout handing out candy to little girls dressed like Lady Gaga and little boys dressed in spandex tights.