Series Introduction: The 7 Desires of Halloween

“Badness is only spoiled goodness” –C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

All Souls Day by Jakub Schikaneder

I’ve been trying to decide why I like Halloween.  On paper, Halloween is the Vigil of All Saints, a very important feast in the Catholic Church.  So plenty to enjoy, right?  But if I’m honest with myself, I’m not thinking, “God, I’m so glad the Blessed Virgin, her Holy Spouse, St. Justin Matyr, St. Francis, and all the Holy men and women are praying for me to get to heaven” while I’m watching the residents of Halloweentown sing about things that go bump in the night.  The most I might manage is, “God, this Haunted House is so cool” or “Thank you God for this really creepy podcast that got me through the data entry part of my day job.”

Seriously, thank you.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with a secular holiday.  But my strictly secular enjoyment of Halloween bothers me.  Everyone from televangelists to your neopagan girlfriend in college are happy to lament the secularization of their respective winter solstice traditions.  Few lament Halloween has become “too secular” in the same sense that a spider who has already molted does not lament that its skin is too tight. 

"Phew, it was getting sweaty in there"

So I decided to see if there is anything left of God in my enjoyment of secular Halloween.  At first I thought I would do a discernment of spirits on Halloween, in the style of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.  However, when I started refreshing my memory of discernment of spirits, I realized that what I was doing was more akin to Bishop Robert Barron’s book Seeds of the Word (albeit with a lot less skill and study).  The philosophy of the books runs something like this: Because God created everything, nothing can be without echoes of Him.  Those echoes might be twisted by the enemy or the fallen nature of the world, but they are still there.  Thus, they can be found in everything from Marvel movies to Les Misérables. 

Well, not everything.  I mean--seriously--how else can you explain a series this bad?

I looked in my favorite Halloween stories for these echoes, and I did I find…something.  Seven great and powerful spirits rule our secular Halloween.  Emily C.A. Snyder would probably call them “Urges.” and C.S. Lewis would probably call them “Oyéresu.” I will call them “Desires,” since the practices of Halloween reflect our desire for them. Some of these Desires are quite friendly and serve God in an uncomplicated fashion.  Others have grown dark and dangerous in their exile.  I will start with the one I believe to be the simplest and most humble, despite its liking of flamboyance: Seasonality.

Let's begin!