Halloween: The space in between

Religious Studies Assistant Professor explores the history, myths, and meaning behind the spooky season.

To quote mean girls, “Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”

For many, Halloween has become a lighthearted night of costumes, candy and make-believe, a commercialized celebration of fear and fun. But beneath the costumes and candy wrappers lies a much older story, one that reveals how humans grapple with mortality, memory and the unknown.

We sat down with Religious studies Assistant Professor Jeremy Cohen to learn just how sinister it is. Since joining the university in 2021, Cohen has developed a reputation for all things involving death, dying, conspiracy and the occult. His work encourages students to confront uncomfortable questions about mortality and the ways societies try to embrace, avoid, or deny it.

“Halloween is more than a consumer holiday,” he says. “It’s a night that reflects our deepest anxieties about life and death, and how we ritualize those fears.”

Caught in the roots

Halloween’s origins reach far deeper than modern pop culture. The holiday can be traced back to Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter.

“It was a time for the community to gather and prepare for the dark season ahead,” Cohen said. “It was practical, but also deeply spiritual.” The practices that grounded the harvest festival, still ground it today

Samhain was understood as a time of transition, when the boundaries between living and the dead grew thin. “This was when the veil between our world and the supernatural was thought to collapse,” Cohen says. “The forces of darkness and death were believed to spill out into everyday life. Death was both welcomed and warded off.”

To protect themselves, the Celts lit large bonfires “to ward off evil, and malevolent spirits” he said, a Halloween tradition that remained until the 20^th century. The desire to protect oneself was prevalent through many traditions, including dressing up in animal skins and wearing masks to blend in, and confuse the evil spirits

But it wasn’t all evil. This was also a time to welcome home loved ones that were lost by setting out a place at the table for them. Before the eve of the 31^st, the Celts would extinguish all fires in their home, relighting them with an ember from the sacred bonfire, symbolizing renewal, warding off unwanted spirits, and lighting a way for the spirits of loved ones home. “The souls of the dead were thought to come back, revisit their homes and seek hospitality,” Cohen said.

From Samhain to Hallow’s Eve

By the 7th century, the celebration began to shift, as Christianity fully reached the Celts. Church leaders began integrating pagan festivals into the Christian calendar.

“Converting pagans was a really important thing for the church,” Cohen said. “They learned that blending their beliefs was far more effective than trying to replace them.”

This is where the beginning of All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day began to take form, taking the traditions of fires, parades and costumes from Samhain. Caring for the spirits of the dead became a day of revealing the saints of the church.

Some of the first references to Halloween we find as early as 16th century Scottish literature. In similar literature the connections of witches and the devil were being woven with Halloween. At this time, traditions of mumming was on the rise, where in costume, people would go door to door, reciting verses in exchange for food. Anyone who refused to offer food was threatened with mischief, sound familiar?

Halloween in North America

Halloween began to take its modern shape when European settlers brought these customs to North America. Irish and Scottish immigrants, many arriving during the potato famine and Highland Clearances, carried their folk traditions with them, blending with those already here.

“Carving turnips became carving pumpkins,” Cohen said. This shift could be a result of availability and preference, pop culture, or something else. “You can see traces of multiple cultures shaping the version of Halloween we know today.”

People were having public festivals, celebrating the harvest, and sharing stories of the dead. Dressing up in costumes, carving pumpkins and sharing ghost stories began to cause a stir of mischief, though Halloween remained a regional celebration until the late 19^th century.

Industrializing traditions

“With industrialization comes consumerism, and an opportunity to make a bit of money,” Cohen said.

Towards the mid-20^th century, we see the shift into a more familiar Halloween. Mass production made costumes and decorations more accessible. Homemade disguises gave way to store bought costumes and stories of dead loved ones became entertaining ghost stories. The weight of its history was replaced with a light-hearted time for fun, tricks and fear.

With this came the step back from the church. As stories of witches and wizards began to creep back into mouths on Halloween, fear mongering and demonization took its place back on the mantle.

“In a weird, but predictable way, the holiday was secularized, and then it almost gained religious significance again through the way it became demonized” Cohen said.

Satanic Panic

By the 1980’s, Halloween had become a major cultural event, and on the flip side, a target of fear.

“In the era of ‘Satanic Panic’ pop culture heavily influenced the associations that we make of Halloween and evil,” Cohen said.

He remembers the atmosphere vividly. “I was a kid in the 90’s, going to the grocery store and there were police officers at the end of the checkout lines taking children’s fingerprints,” he said. “There was this fear that satanic cults were kidnapping kids. The panic was real, even if the danger wasn’t.”

Tabletop role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons were rising in popularity among youth, and just as quickly, the propaganda against it rose too. Social movements like the heavy metal scene offered a popular alternative to everyday culture. Parents feared their children would be brainwashed or sucked into a satanic cult.

“Alternative cultures were labeled as dangerous,” Cohen said. “Explicit labels were put on albums and anything subversive was treated as corrupting, which of course, made young people want it even more.”

Transformation of Halloween

Today, Halloween remains both commercialized and for some, strangely liberating.

“Halloween gives people permission to step outside of everyday boundaries. You can play with identity, gender and fear. It’s a night where ordinary rules don’t apply,” said Cohen. Much like the Celts, who gathered around bonfires to face the coming darkness, modern celebrations allow us the liminality of stepping out of reality. It allows space to play and explore and transgress. You have a single moment every year where you don’t need to exist in the bounds of society.

Of course, criticism of Halloween, and it’s consumerist, disposable nature cannot be ignored. Empty store fronts filled with spirit Halloween’s pop up every September, fleeing town like a carnival.

“Yes, it’s a commercialized holiday, but Halloween remains about crossing thresholds.” Cohen said.  “It’s still a time of subversion and play, facing the things we fear most and finding meaning when the darkness comes.”