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No longer haunted
It’s that time of year: houses are decked out with spooky decorations, treats are laid out for trick-or-treaters, and children make or buy their costumes for Halloween night. According to many scholars, Halloween hearkens back to early pagan and Christian festivals, when ghosts of the dead were thought to roam the streets and gifts were laid out to pacify these souls, as well as to ensure a good crop the coming year. But what about today, when a holiday celebrating all things scary and ghoulish has become almost as popular as Christmas and Easter? Is Halloween a good thing?
Mary Baker Eddy tells us in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that “… children should be assured that their fears are groundless, that ghosts are not realities, but traditional beliefs, erroneous and man-made” (p. 352). She goes on to state that “the age has not wholly outlived the sense of ghostly beliefs. It still holds them more or less,” before assuring us that “when we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, ‘forgetting those things which are behind’ ” (p. 353).
It is obvious that children should not be taught that ghosts are real, or something to be feared (although there’s probably nothing wrong with silly Halloween decorations!)—but what about the ghosts that adults entertain? The memories of painful experiences and stressful situations; the “what ifs,” the “if onlys,” the “shoulda, coulda, but didn’ts” of adult life that may haunt and rob us of our peace of mind?
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About the author
Hal Shrewsbury lives in San Antonio, Texas.
