Satan or saints? The spiritual tug-of-war over Halloween

Halloween was never something I thought that deeply about until recently. If I’m being honest, for years I rolled my eyes at the rigid Christian parents — holier-than-thou stick-in-the-muds — who refused to let their kids participate in any Halloween traditions, especially costume-wearing and trick-or-treating.

I grew up in a Christian home with parents who had strong convictions about darkness but still allowed me and my siblings to enjoy Halloween festivities. Our parameters were simple: no horror movies, no haunted houses, no costumes that represent evil, and no trick-or-treating at homes with macabre decorations.

‘So many people think Halloween is about candy and it’s about dress-up, but they don’t question the meaning behind it.’

Some of my favorite childhood memories are from Halloween.

When she could find the time, my mom, a skilled seamstress, would handmake our costumes. One year, she hand-stitched me a sequin and tulle fairy dress. Another year, she made my little brother Larry the Cucumber from "VeggieTales." He looked like Shrek’s awkward cousin, and I was forced to let him tag along for trick-or-treating — a total vibe kill when you’re 11 years old and going as a fierce leopard queen of the savanna. Twenty years later, my family still howls in laughter at the image of the two of us, a majestic jungle cat trailed by a strange pickle.

After returning home with pillowcases bursting with candy, my brother and I would stay up late sorting through our plunder and making valuable trades. He liked the fruity stuff; I was a chocoloholic, so it worked out. We made these exchanges while we watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and “Casper.”

When I grew older, I would help my mom get my little sister ready for trick-or-treating. I’d curl her hair, paint her nails, and delicately apply sparkly eyeshadow until she was the best princess in the neighborhood.

By all measures, Halloween at my childhood home was sweet and fun.

In my early adult years before my husband and I had a child, we kept the same guidelines. Our front porch was decorated exclusively with pumpkins and orange string lights. If we went to a costume party, we dressed as something benign, like Peter Pan and Wendy (he’s still salty with me about the green tights). We handed out candy and hyped up every princess and Power Ranger who came to our door. If our friends invited us to see a horror movie or go to a haunted house, we politely declined.

For years, this is how we did Halloween, and I always arrogantly assumed that we were doing it right — threading the needle perfectly so that no darkness got into our bubble.

But everything changes when you have a child. The second your doctor places that perfect baby in your arms, the lens through which you see the world morphs. Suddenly, there is danger lurking around every corner. Your mind is incessantly flooded with bone-chilling what-ifs. Your spirit gets more sensitive and begins picking up on things — lyrics, innuendos, hidden agendas — it never noticed before.

The weight of responsibility gets 1,000 times heavier as you realize: I am not only responsible for protecting this human being physically, I’m also charged with nurturing and guarding their soul.

And so when Halloween rolls around, you start asking questions you never asked before.

Questions like: What if my toddler sees a scary costume or yard display and has nightmares? What if allowing him to trick-or-treat exposes him to terrors he otherwise would’ve remained ignorant of? What if I start traditions I regret later?

These questions gave way to deeper spiritual inquiries: Is there an uptick in demonic activity on Halloween (even in well-lit suburban neighborhoods)? Am I sending my son out onto demon-infested streets by allowing him to trick-or-treat? By participating in Halloween in any capacity, am I attempting to whitewash a day that glorifies darkness? Is it possible for Christians to partake in Halloween and still glorify God? At what point have we crossed the threshold from innocence to fraternizing with evil? Is there such a threshold when it comes to Halloween?

These queries then birthed a whole different set: By only partaking in the innocuous parts of Halloween (granted those exist), might we be a positive example for others who don’t know Jesus? Could setting parameters around Halloween teach my child how to be light in the darkness — in the world but not of it? Might the plastic monsters in people’s yards eventually be a tool to introduce our son to the real monsters? Are candy and costumes wholesome practices 364 days of the year but grave moral evils just on October 31? If that’s the standard I hold to, am I not being a bit legalistic?

RELATED: Why Christians should stop running scared from Halloween

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Full transparency: I’m not sure where I fall on this issue. I am struggling because I think my parents did an exceptional job protecting us from darkness while still allowing us to have fun and make awesome memories.

If possible, I would like to re-create the same experiences for my children.

However, we were kids in the 1990s. We didn’t have access to global information in the palm of our hands. My mom wasn’t privy to the dark pagan origins of trick-or-treating and costume-wearing.

But today, we can find the answers to literally anything in mere seconds thanks to high-speed internet, smart devices, and artificial intelligence — another big moral question mark. Many discerning Christians have begun looking into the origins of things they thoughtlessly engaged in for years, including Halloween. They’re deeply disturbed by what they’re finding.

Social media has also given everyone who wants it a platform. Practicing witches are all over Instagram and TikTok. They’ve busted the myth that witches wear pointy hats and concoct bubbling potions in the dark forest. Turns out, they’re sitting next to you at the coffee shop, browsing grocery store aisles in your hometown, and creating spreadsheets in the cubicle next to yours.

Halloween is a frequent subject on “WitchTok,” a virtual community that has amassed billions of views. Oct. 31 is a day when modern witches revive the ancient pagan rituals that influenced Halloween. And they’re doing it boldly — consulting with demons, worshipping at satanic altars, and casting curses and spells. One can only guess what they’re doing off camera.

This is all going on while children stuff themselves with Snickers and Skittles.

On the flip side, social media has also given voice to ex-occult members who are exposing the dark art’s sinister secrets. These Christian converts pull no punches about Halloween: It’s a hard no.

Many of them describe personal experiences with rituals, hauntings, and “demonic weddings” on Oct. 31. They almost unanimously implore believers to abstain from the holiday to avoid opening spiritual doors to evil.

I recently saw this Instagram post from Christian music artist Forrest Frank:

In the video, ex-occultist and former satanic church leader Riaan Swiegelaar warns that Halloween is “the highest day on the satanic calendar” and “the night of the year where there is the most human sacrifice on the whole planet.”

“So many people think Halloween is about candy and it’s about dress-up, but they don’t question the meaning behind it,” he said.

Swiegelaar went on to suggest that anyone who participates in Halloween by opening their doors and engaging in the traditions will be “affected” by the darkness.

An ex-satanic priest turned evangelist named John Ramirez, who spent over two decades engaging in unspeakable horrors on Halloween, warns that participation in any capacity is like having a one-night stand with Satan. He even goes so far as to claim that pumpkins, not even Jack-o’-lanterns, outside our doors are an invitation for demons to enter.

Do I take their word for it? Even though my childhood memories don’t align?

Do I lean harder into the Christian or pagan roots of Halloween? Can I participate in some traditions given they were shaped by All Hallows’ Eve, the vigil before All Hallows’ Day, a Christian feast established by the early church to honor saints and martyrs?

Or do I turn my porch light off and barricade my family indoors because Halloween was also influenced by the pagan fire festival of Samhain, a night steeped in death and the demonic? Ancient Celtic peoples made offerings and sometimes even sacrifices to the dead, practiced divination and necromancy, and danced around great bonfires to keep evil spirits at bay. Samhain is where costume-wearing and trick-or-treating got their start.

However, both traditions are a bit of a mixed bag. Ancient pagan practices blended with medieval Christian traditions to eventually become the candy-driven, costume-obsessed hallmarks of modern Halloween. Samhain was the night Celts believed the veil between the living and the dead was thin. Spirits that crossed the barrier needed appeasement, so people offered gifts, usually food, to quell their wrath — a precursor to passing out candy.

One could argue that Christians, by turning demonic practices into veneration and community-oriented festivities, brought light where there was darkness.

However, British and Irish Christians then put their own spin on these practices with “souling,” where the poor went door-to-door on All Hallows’ Eve, offering prayers for the dead in return for food, which further shaped the trick-or-treating we know today.

The tradition of costume-wearing has a similar trajectory.

During Samhain, Celts would disguise themselves using animal skins or masks to confuse or ward off malevolent spirits. By the medieval period, after Christianity had spread across Ireland and Scotland, these practices were reshaped into what became known as “guising.” Children dressed up and went door-to-door, performing songs, poems, or tricks for food or coins. This was widely accepted by Christians as part of All Hallows’ Day festivities.

So while Samhain birthed the concepts of trick-or-treating and dressing in costumes, Christians had the final say. The early church redirected pagan impulses of worshipping and fearing the dead to honoring them as part of the “communion of saints.” Or did they merely sanitize sin? I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Many Christians who condemn Halloween today point back to the pagan origins of these traditions as evidence of why believers should abstain. They’ve definitely got a point. Samhain was — is — dedicated to the demonic.

However, one could argue that Christians, by turning demonic practices into veneration and community-oriented festivities, brought light where there was darkness. Again, it depends on how you look at it.

I do find it interesting that the majority of Christians who are bent on seeing the entirety of Halloween as irredeemably evil don’t bat an eye when December rolls around and Christmas trees go up. Christmas trees have the exact same history as Halloween’s favorite traditions: It began as a pagan practice of worshipping nature spirits, and then Christians adapted it into a “holy” holiday tradition.

I asked a close friend of mine who falls in this category (no Halloween but Christmas trees are fine) her thoughts on this. She told me Halloween in general is a celebration of darkness, whereas Christmas is not.

It’s a fair point, but I still wonder if mainstream Christmas is not a celebration of a different kind of darkness — greed and materialism.

“It’s just the whole Halloween vibe. It doesn’t sit well with my spirit,” she told me.

There, I think, is where everyone should find their answer: in the Spirit, which convicts us all differently. I’m reminded of the apostle Paul’s words to the early Gentile Christians in Romans 14, who were arguing over disputable matters of conscience, like consuming food offered to idols and observing certain holidays. He told them, “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” Perhaps the same wisdom applies here.

This year, my husband and I have decided to abstain from Halloween and use this time when our son is still too young to remember anything to pray about what our future Octobers should look like.

My spirit is certainly disturbed when I see our next-door neighbor turning his yard into what I can only describe as a temple of darkness — monsters and fiends of all varieties awash in a sickly red glow. I then look over at the cluster of pumpkins on my own front porch and wonder: Are he and I guilty of the same crime?

Until I have my answer, I’ll keep pondering, praying, and letting the Spirit — not the season or even my cherished memories — tell me what belongs in our home.