Halloween: Illuminati Symbols, Sacrifices, and Souls

Today we’ll consider a fresh analysis of the “Illuminati” pagan holiday known as Halloween and its symbols, sacrifices, and visitation of spirits; as well as its involvement in the “Illuminati” agenda.

We’ll reveal a deeper understanding of this controversial holiday which has long been alleged a day of dark satanic activity. The research below is supported with various sources that tie together many of the seemingly absurd ideas; only to find they are based in historical fact.

UPDATE

I gave a MUCH more detailed breakdown of this holiday on my podcast- Conspiracy Theories and Unpopular Culture now available! The episode is called Halloween Podcast Special: Occult and Illuminati Symbolism of Samhain!

 

Listen to “Halloween Podcast Special: Occult and Illuminati Symbolism of Samhain!” on Spreaker.

 

Who Celebrates Halloween? The Illuminati?….

Halloween, aka Samhain, is venerated by witches and the Church of Satan, which begs for further investigation. When we research it we find a multitude of origin stories and cultural myths regarding Halloween. There are tie-ins to blood sacrifice to the horned deity of Moloch, divination, and the belief in wandering souls of the dead. Much like the rest of our cultural “norms,” this day of celebration appears to have much darker roots.

In an attempt to remove prior “satanic-panic” frenzied theories, join along as I shed a bit more light on some of the “Illuminati” theories behind Halloween…

 

Samhain: The Pagan New Year

Described as the “witches’ greatest holiday”; the ritual period of Samhain runs from October 31st to November 1st as one of four annual Gaelic holidays in the British Isles & Scotland with Celtic pagan roots (the others are Imbolg, Beltane and Lughnasa). The witches believe it marks a day of death for their Horned God as well as the beginning of a new year. (SOURCE: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft)

The Golden Bough

In James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion, he describes a similar commemoration with Samhain as the ritual for the new year:

In ancient Ireland, a new fire used to be kindled every year on Hallowe’en or the Eve of Samhain, and from this sacred flame all the fires in Ireland were rekindled. Such a custom points strongly to Samhain or All Saints’ Day (the first of November) as New Year’s Day; since the annual kindling of a new fire takes place most naturally at the beginning of the year, in order that the blessed influence of the fresh fire may last throughout the whole period of twelve months.

This only further cements the idea that the day is ritualistic in nature. Some claim the time period of October 29th through November 1st represents a coveted time period for conducting blood sacrifices to certain deities of paganism…

Blood Sacrifices: Night of the Dead

Another popular concept for Halloween is the commemoration and visitation of the dead. The witches celebrate by partaking of a meal in which every bite is used to focus on a particular memory of a lost one. The transition period for the celebration of the dead was also believed to be when the dead revisited their homes (again- this sourced from Frazer’s The Golden Bough).

Another circumstance of great moment which points to the same conclusion is the association of the dead with Hallowe’en. Not only among the Celts but throughout Europe, Hallowe’en, the night which marks the transition from autumn to winter, seems to have been of old the time of year when the souls of the departed were supposed to revisit their old homes in order to warm themselves by the fire and to comfort themselves with the good cheer provided for them in the kitchen or the parlour by their affectionate kinsfolk.

Human Sacrifices

Many myths about human sacrifice appear when researching this topic. Wikipedia consolidates a few Irish mythologies as follows:

Some tales may suggest that offerings or sacrifices were made at Samhain. In the Lebor Gabála Érenn (or ‘Book of Invasions’), each Samhain the people of Nemed had to give two-thirds of their children, their corn and their milk to the monstrous Fomorians. The Fomorians seem to represent the harmful or destructive powers of nature; personifications of chaos, darkness, death, blight and drought.

This tribute paid by Nemed’s people may represent a “sacrifice offered at the beginning of winter, when the powers of darkness and blight are in the ascendant”. According to the later Dindsenchas and the Annals of the Four Masters—which were written by Christian monks—Samhain in ancient Ireland was associated with a god or idol called Crom Cruach. The texts claim that a first-born child would be sacrificed at the stone idol of Crom Cruach in Magh Slécht. They say that King Tigernmas, and three-fourths of his people, died while worshiping Crom Cruach there one Samhain.

The Celts were alleged to have sacrificed humans and animals in large bonfires (aka bailfires or ba’alfires in honor of the Horned God Ba’al). They did this to try breaking the spells of witches, which runs somewhat counter to the traditional stories of the Druid “wicker man” burnings in which they’d offer a sacrifice to the gods in a large wooden man, or the aforementioned Wikipedia myths. Frazer’s studies suggest that these weren’t just regular people, but rather witches that were being sacrificed.

At the same time we must bear in mind that among the British Celts the chief fire-festivals of the year appear certainly to have been those of Beltane (May Day) and Hallowe’en (the last day of October); and this suggests a doubt whether the Celts of Gaul also may not have celebrated their principal rites of fire, including their burnt sacrifices of men and animals, at the beginning of May or the beginning of November rather than at Midsummer. We have still to ask, What is the meaning of such sacrifices? Why were men and animals burnt to death at these festivals?

If we are right in interpreting the modern European fire-festivals as attempts to break the power of witchcraft by burning or banning the witches and warlocks, it seems to follow that we must explain the human sacrifices of the Celts in the same manner; that is, we must suppose that the men whom the Druids burnt in wicker-work images were condemned to death on the ground that they were witches or wizards, and that the mode of execution by fire was chosen because burning alive is deemed the surest mode of getting rid of these noxious and dangerous beings. The same explanation would apply to the cattle and wild animals of many kinds which the Celts burned along with the men. They, too, we may conjecture, were supposed to be either under the spell of witchcraft or actually to be the witches and wizards, who had transformed themselves into animals for the purpose of prosecuting their infernal plots against the welfare of their fellow-creatures.

 

Horned God and Triple Goddess

Another connection here is that of sacrifice to the horned god. In pagan cultures they worship the stag god because it represents the hunt and the animal giving up its life in order to keep others alive. He is the consort to the Wicca Triple Goddess which is also focused on during Samhain through the Crone goddess. (information sourced from Whispering Worlds)

Frazer elaborated more upon the idea of sacrifice through fire (technically referred to as a “holocaust”) in which he associates many traditions of similar nature. Some of these are from pagan cultures which would support the idea that they would sacrifice a human to a pagan deity; and not a practice for burning witches:

Now, in the fire-festivals which we are discussing, the pretence of burning people is sometimes carried so far that it seems reasonable to regard it as a mitigated survival of an older custom of actually burning them. Thus in Aachen, as we saw, the man clad in peas-straw acts so cleverly that the children really believe he is being burned. At Jumièges in Normandy the man clad all in green, who bore the title of the Green Wolf, was pursued by his comrades, and when they caught him they feigned to fling him upon the midsummer bonfire. Similarly at the Beltane fires in Scotland the pretended victim was seized, and a show made of throwing him into the flames, and for some time afterwards people affected to speak of him as dead. Again, in the Hallowe’en bonfires of Northeastern Scotland we may perhaps detect a similar pretence in the custom observed by a lad of lying down as close to the fire as possible and allowing the other lads to leap over him.

Sun Worship

The practice of setting fires is conjectured to have roots in worship of the sun- which ties us into many themes of “Illuminati” conspiracies (the “illuminated” ones). Frazer offered up an explanation on this solar theory in The Golden Bough:

But we naturally ask, How did it come about that benefits so great and manifold were supposed to be attained by means so simple? In what way did people imagine that they could procure so many goods or avoid so many ills by the application of fire and smoke, of embers and ashes? Two different explanations of the fire-festivals have been given by modern enquirers. On the one hand it has been held that they are sun-charms or magical ceremonies intended, on the principle of imitative magic, to ensure a needful supply of sunshine for men, animals, and plants by kindling fires which mimic on earth the great source of light and heat in the sky. This was the view of Wilhelm Mannhardt. It may be called the solar theory.

So it seems we find a link between fires, sacrifice, sun-deities, and ritual magick; common themes we can associate with much of the symbolism seen in our entertainment today.

Divination

The origins of Halloween’s divination practices come from Samhain as well since the Celts were using it on this day of the new year in order to predict their fortunes:

Another confirmation of the view that the Celts dated their year from the first of November is furnished by the manifold modes of divination which were commonly resorted to by Celtic peoples on Hallowe’en for the purpose of ascertaining their destiny, especially their fortune in the coming year; for when could these devices for prying into the future be more reasonably put in practice than at the beginning of the year?

As a season of omens and auguries Hallowe’en seems to have far surpassed Beltane in the imagination of the Celts; from which we may with some probability infer that they reckoned their year from Hallowe’en rather than Beltane.

The Devil made them do it

People were believed to employ the Devil to help them predict their future. This was done through several seemingly odd activities, including examination of eaten apples to determine if the shape of the remains were similar to a letter. That letter would in-turn be symbolic of the name of the mate the person could have.

 

Other divinations included telling how many children one would have, where one would live, etc. Attempts to read the future are occult in nature, and Halloween is no exception. In fact, it’s the most popular time of year for divination. The bats, cats, owls and other animals known for Halloween were believed to be incarnations of the Devil as part of the divination process. The witch could use these animals or powers of the dark lord to help her predict the future.

Some of the more conservative Christian schools of thought believe only the Devil can provide these powers of fortune telling, which is why there is a theory of signing the Faustian bargain; or the pact with the Devil in a contract for powers in black magick.

I explored this topic as it relates to the world of hip hop in Sacrifice: Magic Behind the Mic as well as The Dark Path

 

Controversial Practices

I wrote a previous article about Samhain which was derived from a series of articles online and a lecture that appears to be based off several books written by Christian authors (e.g. Pagan Traditions of the Holidays written by Dr. David Ingraham). I mention this because I’ve tried to narrow my research down to the literature of the occultists themselves such that we can avoid falling into the hysteria from the past which weren’t always accurate.

That being said; I still find the origin theories to be of interest anyways. I wanted to mention that as a fair warning that what you’re about to read is a bit dicey on the fact-check.

Druid Legends

The claim is that the Druids used Halloween as a pagan holiday to gather at the stonehenges of Europe. They would bring gourds and pumpkins (originally called ‘Corpse Candles’ or now commonly known as Jack-O-Lanterns) and fill them with human fat, taken from previous sacrifices given to gods.

They’d also bring cauldrons and light them on fire, warming them up for the sacrificial ceremony. The Druids would bang on the doors of local nobilities and yell “Trick or Treat” to see if the lord of the manor came to provide a ‘treat.’ A treat would be one of the servants or even household members given up for sacrificing that night. The reward for the ‘treat’ would be one of the pumpkins filled with human fat and they would light it so that everyone within the house was protected from the demons summoned on Samhain.

Symbols of Halloween

If you didn’t give up an offering you’d get a six pointed star inside of a circle (a hexagram) painted with blood on the front door. This would be an attractive force for the demons and the people inside would be plagued with the demonic curse during Samhain.

The human sacrifices would be gathered up, and then lined up as the Druids would throw apples into the cauldrons and give the humans a chance to pull the apples out with their teeth for a chance for freedom (the cauldrons were boiling hot). Some went for the chance and could be burned with permanent damage to their eyes, ears, throat, etc.; while others did not. Those who did not get the apple on the first try were beheaded immediately, while those who avoided the challenge would be sacrificed in a fiery death.

They were taken to a “wicker man” with various wicker cages inside of it and placed inside of it (just like the film with Nicolas Cage). The wicker man would be lit on fire as a sacrifice to the gods, drawing us back yet again to Frazer’s research in The Golden Bough. It should also be noted that the annual Burning Man celebration is a reenactment of this ceremony.

Again, the source for this information is a bit more vague; but we can see the precedence for human sacrifice through fire and the dark nature of the Samhain holiday that inspired this school of thought.

 

Crossing to the Other Side

The ritual known as “guising” is where disguises are worn to go from house to house portraying the dead spirits that were wandering the streets on October 31st. They would be offered a treat so they wouldn’t start problems with the home owners. Originally the people used to place hollowed out pumpkins and food on their front step to guide the spirits, which obviously evolved into the practice of handing out candy for the children who were guising.

Thinning the Veil

They say the “veil is thinnest” on October 31st, and it seems there is a belief in spirits being able to cross over between our world and theirs. The three days surrounding Samhain are the most potent times of the year for divination and sacrifice for this reason. Since the veil between worlds is thinnest, we can see easily into the realms of spirit and faerie. (SOURCE: Whispering Worlds)

The witches and pagans believe that death and life go hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other and both should be celebrated. Letting go of lost ones lets us open the door for something new; which is why the “Crone” goddess is worshipped during Halloween. This is one of the Wicca “Triple Goddess” deities who is depicted as the old woman.

In Conclusion

Halloween aka Samhain is a controversial holiday because there appears to be a wide range of theories on the origins of its practices. At first glance it appears that the Christian satanic-panic is nothing but a fear based belief in this holiday. However, I don’t know that they’re entirely wrong…

For instance, Halloween can indeed be called a “satanic” holiday for a couple of reasons.

Magick Roots

The first is that it has roots in magick practices and the second is that it is one of only three holidays celebrated in the Church of Satan (the others being one’s birthday and Walpurgis Night aka Beltaine); as per The Satanic Bible:

Halloween – All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Day – falls on October 31st or November 1st. Originally, All Hallows’ Eve was one of the great fire festivals of Britain at the time of the Druids. In Scotland it was associated with the time when the spirits of the dead, the demons, witches, and sorcerers were unusually active and propitious. Paradoxically, All Hallows’ Eve was also the night when young people performed magical rituals to determine their future marriage partners. The youth of the villages carried on with much merry-making and sensual revelry, but the older people took great care to safeguard their homes from the evil spirits, witches, and demons who had exceptional power that night.

 

I find it interesting that Halloween has been a holiday of increased focus over the years; quickly approaching Christmas in popularity. One reason for this is the darkness embedded into our entertainment. Outright occult films and television shows such as Lucifer, Exorcist, The Magicians, Supernatural, and Salem all emphasize these experiences. Super hero films are proving to be more influential since these serve as the most popular costumes worn for Halloween.

All of these works of entertainment can arguably lead its viewers down a path. The Dark Path…

If you want to support the IlluminatiWatcher project check out my new book that is available NOW on Gumroad (*author-signed paperbacks in limited quantities), Amazon, iTunes and Audible (author-narrated audiobook)!

 

Learn More!

I gave a MUCH more detailed breakdown of this holiday on my podcast- Conspiracy Theories and Unpopular Culture now available! The episode is called Halloween Podcast Special: Occult and Illuminati Symbolism of Samhain!

 

Listen to “Halloween Podcast Special: Occult and Illuminati Symbolism of Samhain!” on Spreaker.

 

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-Isaac

 

Website publisher of IlluminatiWatcher.com and top 5% Amazon author of THE DARK PATH; Isaac Weishaupt has been on the leading edge of conspiracy theories surrounding the elusive “Illuminati” and its infiltration of the entertainment industry. Using examples of familiar pop culture and works of entertainment, Isaac has been speaking and writing about the occult from a unique perspective that seeks to understand the big agenda while helping others along the way.

Isaac hosts the “Conspiracy Theories and Unpopular Culture” podcast (supportable through Patreon) as well as being the monthly Illuminati expert on BLACKOUT Radio. He has been a featured guest on Dave Navarro’s “Dark Matter Radio,” Richard C. Hoagland’s “Other Side of Midnight”, SIRIUS/XM’s The All Out Show, The HigherSide Chats, Freeman Fly’s “The Free Zone”, Mark Devlin’s “Good Vibrations”, VICE, COMPLEX magazine, and many more radio shows and podcasts. His fresh perspective and openly admitted imperfections promotes the rational approach to exploring these taboo subjects and conspiracy theories.