HALLOWEEN:

	We cannot separate Halloween from its origin with the Druids. This is untrue. Christians have quite successfully separated Christmas from its Pagan origins in the winter solstice. Many, perhaps most, Christian seasonal days of celebration have Pagan roots which are unknown to most people. Many dozens of Christian saints were originally Pagan gods and goddesses; yet few realize this today.
	Ancient Greek and Roman authors "dwell heavily on their [Druids] frequent and barbaric human sacrifices." In reality, all modern and ancient discussions of the Druids' alleged human sacrifices can be traced back to a single passage by Julius Caesar in a book about the Gauls. He wrote that the Druids employed the death penalty for persons convicted of murderer, theft, robbery and other crimes. This compares favorably with England at the beginning of the 19th century; they punished 222 offences by hanging (or worse). 4 Caesar goes on to assert that if the Gauls ran out of criminals, they substituted innocent people. There is good reason to believe that this addendum is simply a bit of wartime propaganda invented by the author. Caesar was involved in a military campaign against the Gauls at the time that he wrote this passage. He might have easily have been tempted to exaggerate the viciousness of his enemy, in order to inflate his own accomplishments. Truth is often the first casualty of war.
	The Druids used magic "to raise storms, lay curses on places, kill by the use of spells, and create magical obstacles." Actually, the Druids were the professional class of Celtic society. Their duties included that of modern day priests, ambassadors, educators, judges, physicians, engineers, politicians, etc. As priests, they did bless and consecrate places, but we have not been able to find references to them engaging in black magic. The references to Druids engaging in evil sorcery probably had its origins in the Middle Ages and Renaissance when Witches were believed to kill people, raise storms, damage land etc through the use of curses. All of these accusations are groundless; the Church invented them in ancient times to justify burning heretics at the stake. Evidence of evil activities was extracted by torture and is thus totally unreliable. 5,6 They have become free-floating legends today. They are frequently picked up and used to attack a variety of benign religious groups, ancient and modern.
	Druids in the 16th century were still engaging in ritual murder. This is unsubstantiated nonsense. Over the past 10 centuries, a variety of groups have been accused of ritual murder, including Jews, little people, Druids, Roman Catholics, Satanists and Wiccans (known popularly as White Witches). All of these unfounded claims can be traced back to the 2nd century CE when similar hate propaganda was circulated by Romans, accusing Christians of engaging in human sacrifice. These stories and urban legends have been with us for millennia; just the names of the perpetrators and victims change.
	Modern day Druids still engage in human sacrifice. This is unsubstantiated religious hate propaganda. Ken Lanning of the FBI has complied a list of three dozen mostly religious groups which have been called Satanists and associated with ritual abuse and murder. They include Buddhists, Church of Scientology, Hindus, the Masonic Order, the Occult, Rosicrucians, Santeria, Voodoo, and dozens of others. There has never been a US court case involving hard evidence of ritual human sacrifice motivated by religious beliefs. The only reference to human sacrifice that we have uncovered was by the Solar Temple group. This was a splinter religious group with Roman Catholic Christian and New Age beliefs. There are numerous Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Christians who claim that they once belonged to a Satanic group, rose to a position of great power in the organization, and engaged in evil, criminal acts, including murder and cannibalism. Many of these have been independently investigated; to our knowledge, all have been shown to be frauds and hoaxes.
	The Druids celebrated OCT-31 with many human sacrifices. This is creative fiction, not based on the historical record.
	Halloween is a Druidic festival honoring their sun god and Samhain, the lord of the dead. Identifying Samhain as a Celtic god of death is one of the most tenacious of errors associated with Halloween. The mistake is seen throughout Fundamentalist Christian literature and has even been picked up by secular media. Most Conservative essays on Halloween contain this error. In reality, Samhain means "end of summer". The Celts observed two seasons: summer and winter. They may have had an obscure deity called Samhain; however he was not a major god, a sun god or a god of the dead.
	Ancient Celts gave out food on Halloween in order to appease the spirits of the dead. They feared that the spirits would harm them if sacrifices were not made to appease the God Samhain. The reverse is closer to the truth. The ancestral dead were believed to rise from their tombs on Halloween, "bringing gifts to the children of their living descendants." 7
	Modern day Satanists put razor blades, drugs, poisons, needles etc in Halloween treats in order to kill or injure children. This is one of the most tenacious of Christian urban folk tales.  Many cases of such poisonings have been reported by the media; all or essentially all are hoaxes.

Jack Chick publishes a series of cartoon tracts. ₈ Most have salvation as their theme; three deal with Halloween:

	"The Trick" describes how a group of Satanists (interchangeably  called Witches in the tract), need to "prepare more children to worship and serve our father" (Satan). This involves placing razor blades, crushed glass, pins etc. in candy given out at Halloween. Poisons and drugs will be used to create "total sacrifices." (murder of children). That Halloween, the TV newscast talks about many children being taken to hospital. Becky, an ex-witch who now serves Jesus explains that the ancient Druids sacrificed humans on Halloween. They would go through the neighborhood and demand a child or virgin for sacrifice. She says that "The children who are mutilated and murdered every Halloween are no accident. They are carefully planned sacrifices to Satan, carried out by those who serve and worship him." 9
	"Boo" describes how a group of youths rent a camp to hold a Halloween party. They decide to sacrifice a cat. But Satan breaks in with a chainsaw and kills most of them. He goes into the town, but is stopped and runs away when he comes across a Christian praying. Halloween is described as the most solemn ceremony of the year to Satanists and Witches. They show an apparently naked woman lying on an altar who is about to be stabbed to death. The caption reads that Satanism is increasing and with it, there are more human sacrifices. They repeat the fable about the original Druids demanding victims for human sacrifice on this night. Again, "Satanists" and "Witches" are two terms that are used interchangeably throughout the tract. 10
	"Happy Halloween" describes how some youths visited a haunted house on Halloween. They met an evil Witch, and narrowly missed being captured by some rather scary individuals. Timmy was accidentally killed in an unrelated car accident, and went directly to Hell where he will exist for eternity, being continuously tormented. His friend Bobby was so shocked by this experience that he became saved and thus believes that he will go to Heaven at his death. The comic strip is available on-line 8

	Alexandria Wicca
	Druidic Craft of the Wise (Actually Druidism is not a part of Wicca)
	Church of All Worlds
	Church and School of Wicca.

In his essay, "Should Christians celebrate Halloween?" he explains that children will open up a spiritual doorway that may lead to demonic possession or oppression by going house to house, trick or treating. He makes some additional points: ₁₂

	Halloween is the Number One satanic 'helliday' of the year. Actually, a Satanist's main day of celebration is his/her own birthday.
	Halloween is still celebrated as an ancient pagan festival of the dead by witches all over the world. Actually, the festival is primarily a harvest celebration, and a time to foretell the future.
	During Halloween, gods (actually demons) are worshipped with human sacrifice. Presumably, this refers to the belief that Satanists, Wiccans, other Neopagans etc. ritually sacrifice humans. This is simple religious hatred and misinformation intended to whip up bigotry against minority religions.