10-19-25 - A Dickens Halloween Carol
- Spiral Journey CUUPS Witches Ball Preview
The Witches are Back once again for
a preview of our 9th Annual Witch’s Ball
with our Spiral Journey CUUPS Chapter.
That is the Covenant of Unitarian
Universalist Pagans (yes, UU’s have Pagans),
UU’s are multifaith, so we also Christians,
Buddhists, Muslim’s, Atheists and many others
- which leads to some interesting conversations.
And one of these conversations leads
us to our Witch’s Ball this year.
Our starting point this year is with
famous UU Author Charles Dickens,
and his well known story of Scrooge in
“A Christmas Carol”. Now how did
we get from Witches and Halloween
to Christmas and Ghosts, well Ghosts,
OK that makes some sense, but
why A Christmas Carol.
If you think about it, Scrooge himself
undergoes a transformation, beginning
as a miserly bah-humbug to a man
filled with joy, love and charity in his heart.
Transformation is a central part of ritual,
the desire to create change in our world
and in ourselves. So perhaps the
Transformation of Scrooge could be
seen through a magical lens.
At least that’s what we are going to explore.
So this year’s ritual is both Dicken’s
story and not.
It borrows from the framework,
but reimagines it in a ritual where
We honor our past,
We live in our present
and We shape our future
And like Dicken’s we do that
with the visits of 3 spirits
Past
Present
And Future
Today we are going
to tell you all about the ritual,
without actually telling you the ritual.
We want to keep some surprises.
So let us begin our story.
Many of us are familiar with
these types of morality tales.
From Aesop’s Fables, to
After School Specials,
A Chrismas Carol joins them
with the essential elements.
Scrooge sees his life and the
consequences of his actions,
and in the end changes, for the better.
In our story, we meet “the Killjoys”,
a disillusioned group of misfits
who have lost the “spirit of halloween”.
And it is up to our Jacob Marley
(who we affectionately call Bob),
and 3 halloween spirits to find that
halloween spirit and the spirit of community.
But in this story, we are not just
reliving the past, present and future
of one man. We are celebrating the
Pagan community and the Halloween
spirit. So what would the spirits show
us as our Halloween past, present and future.
To begin with - We honor our past,
We honor our ancestors
and their traditions.
Especially this time of year as the
days get darker and cooler.
Our Ancestors would have known
real fear this time of year, as the
last crops are harvested, the last
livestock culled, hoping to have
enough to sustain them for the
coming months. We take for
granted today that we will survive
the cold months with all our
modern conveniences, but our
Ancestors created these rituals
and practices out of a need
to come together for their survival.
One of the most well known
traditions is the Ancient Celtic
Samhain, held on November 1st
(or rather All Hallow’s Eve
October 31st as their calendar
started at dusk as night comes
before the day). This began the
dark half of the year. It was a
liminal time in transition, and it
was believed on this night the
veil between the worlds of the
living and dead was thinned.
When the ancient burial mounds
were opened, great gatherings,
bonfires, and feats were held,
as well as offerings to the gods
to ensure their survival over the
harsh winter. The souls of the
dead were also thought to visit
their ancestral homes, so a
place setting and food might be
set out at the table to welcome them home.
Honoring our Ancestors can
be found throughout many cultures,
at different times of the year.
After the Romans conquered
the Celts in 43AD, they adopted
many of their festivals and
incorporated them into their own
religious celebrations. All Hallows
Day was one such example.
The Romans also celebrated Feralia
in late October honoring the Dead,
as well as Pomona, the Roman
goddess of fruit and trees, and
Vertumnus the Roman God of the
Seasons and plants may have
been celebrated around this time.
The Celts believed Samhain was
a powerful time for divination.
One of the most popular divination
practices the Romans blended with
their own. It involved trying to
bite an apple floating in water,
a ritual that evolved into the
modern game of bobbing for apples.
Day of the Dead "Dia de los Muertos",
is a well known Mexican Holiday
that occurs around November 1st.
Family and Friends gather together
to remember friends and family
who have passed. They often
share sweets of candy skulls,
tell amusing stories of the deceased,
and create ofrendas, which are
home altars with offerings of
food and marigold flowers.
Other practices include
Qingming Festival, a traditional
Chinese festival on the 104th day
after the winter solstice, and
Bon Festival, a Japanese Buddhist
custom, both celebrated to honor
the spirits of one's ancestors, and
honour their ancestors at grave sites.
There are many other ancient
traditions of ancestor worship
and veneration, from Egypt, India,
Korea, Ghana and South Africa.
The practice of honoring our
ancestors is universal.
As Christianity and the Catholic
Church began to gain influence
and power, many of these ancient
traditions were incorporated into
Christian practices, often as a means
of conversion. In the 7th century CE,
All Saints Day was established on
May 13th, and in a classic “if you
can’t beat em join em move”, was
later moved to November 1st.
This was a “Hallowed or Holy Eve”
which eventually evolved to “Halloween”.
The Celts also practiced mumming
or guising during the holidays, a
tradition of dressing up and going
to neighbors home with a reading or
music, usually in exchange for food.
Shakespeare even references the
practice in “Two Gentlemen of Verona”,
where beggars go “souling”, door to door.
Something we may find familiar in our modern
practice of trick or treating.
And that brings us to our
present traditions,
While We live in our present,
we borrow and reinvent the past
One of everyone’s favorite traditions
is Trick-or-Treating. As you have heard,
Halloween is a modern melting
pot of traditions. The concept of
dressing up in costume and going
door to door for “treats” is not new,
but an ancient practice.
Another Halloween favorite,
the pumpkin Jack-o-lantern
also came from ancient celtic practices.
All Hallow’s eve was a day for
spirits to walk the earth and cause
mischief, so to protect themselves
and their crops, the ancient celts would
light bonfires, and hollow out gourds
like squash and put lights in them to
ward away these mischievous spirits.
So how did these traditions make
their way to the Americas?
The answer lies in our melting
pot history. Immigrants, primarily
from Ireland in the mid 1800’s,
fleeing famine, brought with them
many of their folk traditions.
Ghost Stories, apple bobbing and
fortune telling were common
around Halloween.
And of course, raucous celebrations,
and mischief, which also borrowed
from English Guy Fawkes day were
beginning to be a problem
by the early 20th century.
Schools and the Boy Scouts of America
attempted to deter these pranksters
around the 1930s by organizing
carnivals and local neighborhood
trick or treating outings. And it worked,
pranks decreased and more tricksters
switched to treats.
And as kids went door to door for treats,
those doors began to light up with
jack-o-lanterns carved in scary faces.
We mentioned earlier the
connection with lights and the dead,
either to ward them away or guide
them back to their resting place.
The name, jack-o'-lantern, comes
from an Irish folktale about a man
named Stingy Jack
(or Jack of the Lantern), who is a
trickster condemned to walk the earth
in between life and death,
with a piece of coal in a turnip
to light his way.
As with many cultures, the Irish
and English customs were adapted
in the Americas, and the squash
gave way to the carving of pumpkins.
The word pumpkin is actually
a description of a rounded squash,
not a specific plant. What we think
of today as a pumpkin has its origins
in indigenous cultures in the Americas.
And since it was much easier to carve
than other gourds, the pumpkin
became a favorite for our
modern jack-o-lantern.
Like the modern Jack-o-lantern,
we continue to evolve our
holiday traditions
And as modern witches and
practitioners - We shape our future
The term Witch has been used as
an insult and a weapon by the powerful.
But it has also given people agency,
knowledge and respect.
It is a complicated word
with a complicated history.
And to add to that complication,
words like Pagan, Heathen, Wiccan,
and so many others that have shaped
our history and our identity.
Words can change their meaning,
based on who makes the label, and why.
Healers, and often the wise women
of society were valued for their
knowledge of herbs and healing
practices. But throughout history,
we see how that knowledge and respect
clashed with the established
power structures in society.
The Catholic and Protestant leaders
used Church Doctrine (such as the
1486 Doctrine the “Malleus Maleficarum”
or Witches Hammer) to create
mass hysteria and justify their actions.
Accusations could be used for political
or financial gain and some to settle
a score, and seize property.
Burning a so-called Witch was one
way to fix a problem. One person’s
healer is another person’s troublemaker.
In the Bible Exodus 22:18, is often
quoted, “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
But the King James translation misses
the mark, as the Hebrew context is
more akin to poisonous or harmful practices.
Words matter, translations and
their distributors matter too.
Who tells our stories, matters.
And these stories change over time.
As the old laws of Witchcraft were
repealed, movements like Modern
Wicca in the mid 1950s brought the
rituals of witchcraft to a wider audience.
And as early figures like Gerald Gardner,
Doreen Valiente, Alex Sanders,
and Raymond Buckland started to
create their own traditions and practices.
These practices were fueled by
a growing counterculture of feminism
and environmentalism.
And the ways we use the word Witch
began to expand beyond a Euro-centric lens.
Although many practitioners may
not use the word Witch themselves.
African, Latin American and
Native American traditions have
their own sacred practices and
healing knowledge, which they brought
with them as they were
displaced and enslaved.
And in some cases evolved over time
to blend with the religions of their
oppressors to create something new,
rooted in their ancestry.
And in the LGBTQ+ communities,
much like our deities are, we evolved
more fluidity in our practices.
We began to look beyond the binary
of male and female, gods and goddesses.
Today, there are countless books,
movies, podcasts and other media sources
to find our own brand of “witchiness”.
And ours should reflect our community “warts and all”.
So find your own “witchiness”,
and get in the spirit with us as
We honor our past,
We live in our present
and We shape our future.
With our Halloween Carol.
at this year’s Witch’s Ball next Sunday October 26th 6-12
Sources:
https://www.history.com/articles/history-of-halloween
https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2021/10/the-origins-of-halloween-traditions/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/jlu33f/the_origins_of_halloween/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Halloween
https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/halloween_1.shtml
https://www.britannica.com/topic/ancestor-worship
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/religion-and-philosophy/veneration-dead-ancestor-worship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead
https://www.history.com/articles/halloween-trick-or-treating-origins
http://www.historicinterpretations.org/blog/october-16th-2015
https://www.history.com/articles/history-of-the-jack-o-lantern-irish-origins
https://dowsingfordivinity.com/2018/11/06/the-two-chalices-ritual/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_paganism_and_LGBTQ_people
https://bi.org/en/articles/the-queer-overlap-of-witchcraft
https://www.essence.com/culture/black-witches-feature/
https://daily.jstor.org/feminisms-hidden-spiritual-side/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wicca
https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/wicca-witchcraft-origins-history-meaning/
https://wiccaliving.com/history-of-wicca/
https://www.history.com/articles/history-of-witches
https://seohelrune.com/2024/11/01/the-origin-story-of-the-witch/
https://www.history.com/articles/how-churches-used-witch-hunts-to-gain-more-followers
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