The Celtic culture once spread from near the Black Sea to Ireland, and from Scotland to Spain. It was a bridge between earlier Indigenous cultures and the Roman conquest of most of the Celtic territories. The Celts had a calendar spanning the four seasons, the solstice or equinox of each season in the middle of theirs, and the year ended at sunset of the last day of the autumn equinox. That day is celebrated in our calendar as the last day of October, with the next year coming at sunrise the next day, November 1. In Celtic tradition, the night between was a crack in time, a period when spirits and faeries were free to move, a night of numinous experience when anyone might see into that otherworld space from which some never recover.
The ‘numinous experience’ is a human attempt to describe the indescribable, that otherworldly power that defies our limited senses, that overwhelms the personal shoreline of our being under waves of fear, dread, majesty and awe, leaving a barren emptiness, sometimes more than temporarily outside of the secure space of personal identity. The experience is deeply subjective and personal, but is papered over with religious interpretation and hidden in our most frightening and inspiring stories going back to the earliest times of oral history. Every human is susceptible to it and every religion struggles to harness it. It is personal but cannot be possessed. It is what we belong to. Its character may be in the soil, in the wind, in the running water, in colours, the sky, the sunsets, faeries and the distant stars, or all of the above. It is no-one’s place to tell you what it is, but it is. It is your personal challenge to confront, and you will, if you haven’t yet.
The surviving Celtic Irish still call the harvest season Samhain, and it ended with cattle brought from their pastures in the downs and highlands. On that first night after the end of the harvest, bonfires burned and spirits returned to the living, feared, if not honoured and fed. The people, by that last evening of harvest, were exhausted and no doubt vulnerable and exposed to powers beyond their control and comprehension. Long departed ancestors may return that night, expecting to sit at their place at the table, and woe onto you if their place was not set and they were not treated well.
The power of tradition, especially when reinforced with supernatural – numinous – beliefs and fears is hard to overcome. Whether they are formulated into a religion or live as stories, they bring people into a culture. They can be indelible, too, staying with people and spreading even after the culture appears to be gone. The Roman Catholic Church attempted to exploit this by systematically absorbing these numinous influences into their celebrations and sacraments, papering them over and harnessing them in their process of colonization of the human mind. In that way, they absorbed and attempted to obliterate any possible challenger to their homogenizing, domesticating, influences. The long night at the end of Samhain, though, took some time to paper over. It was a real crack in time, space and reality. There are others.
The Church created a different feast to celebrate the unknown saints and martyrs, but their objection to celebrating any force that could not be interpreted as benevolent and controlled uniquely through their interpretation meant that the long night at the end of harvest in the Celtic culture remained a pagan event. They could not celebrate the first night at the end of harvest when powers not in the Church’s control prowled the darkened world. Some scholars argue that it was the British Catholic Church that initiated the solution in the 8th century as a way of countering its influence. They began celebrating All Saints’ Day on November 1, even though, in 610 CE, Pope Boniface IV had designated May 13 as the celebration of the Blessed Virgin and the martyrs. The objective behind the British move was to eliminate the Celtic numinous interpretation of the last night of the Celtic year, thereby eliminating any force that could not be benevolently interpreted by the Church. Also called All Hallow’s Day, the celebration began on the eve of the day, All Hallow’s Eve, celebrating all departed holy people. The Church thereby attempted to limit the Celtic numinous memory to include only good, holy people. The celebration of the saints and martyrs was soon moved to this new date displacing the May 13 date throughout Christendom.
The jack-o’-lantern, a turnip carved to hold a light within, symbolized the light of the sun staying with the fruit of the field during the long night. It was also associated with the Will-o’-the wisp, a bog light that suggested a lantern and offered guidance to a place of false hope. A thousand years after the creation of All Hallow’s Day, these new fires began to appear in Ireland and parts of England, as though signalling that the Celtic numinous was still with us, still seeping through that crack in time. This small carved vegetable was recalling the bonfires that once burned strong. Both the small lantern and the fires were intended to ward off the faeries and ghosts. When the Irish arrived in North America in the mid 1800s, the pumpkin they discovered here displaced the carved turnip. The Celtic numinous interpretation had simply adopted the name given to that night when the crack in time, space and reality opened. It is still with us and has been gaining popularity at an amazing rate across most of that old Celtic region of continental Europe as well.
Remember this Hallowe’en to set an extra place at your table – or offer a treat – so you can avoid the wrath of the faeries, ghosts and unhappy ancestors who come knocking at your door with their tricks at the ready.
The ‘numinous experience’ is a human attempt to describe the indescribable, that otherworldly power that defies our limited senses, that overwhelms the personal shoreline of our being under waves of fear, dread, majesty and awe, leaving a barren emptiness, sometimes more than temporarily outside of the secure space of personal identity. The experience is deeply subjective and personal, but is papered over with religious interpretation and hidden in our most frightening and inspiring stories going back to the earliest times of oral history. Every human is susceptible to it and every religion struggles to harness it. It is personal but cannot be possessed. It is what we belong to. Its character may be in the soil, in the wind, in the running water, in colours, the sky, the sunsets, faeries and the distant stars, or all of the above. It is no-one’s place to tell you what it is, but it is. It is your personal challenge to confront, and you will, if you haven’t yet.
The surviving Celtic Irish still call the harvest season Samhain, and it ended with cattle brought from their pastures in the downs and highlands. On that first night after the end of the harvest, bonfires burned and spirits returned to the living, feared, if not honoured and fed. The people, by that last evening of harvest, were exhausted and no doubt vulnerable and exposed to powers beyond their control and comprehension. Long departed ancestors may return that night, expecting to sit at their place at the table, and woe onto you if their place was not set and they were not treated well.
The power of tradition, especially when reinforced with supernatural – numinous – beliefs and fears is hard to overcome. Whether they are formulated into a religion or live as stories, they bring people into a culture. They can be indelible, too, staying with people and spreading even after the culture appears to be gone. The Roman Catholic Church attempted to exploit this by systematically absorbing these numinous influences into their celebrations and sacraments, papering them over and harnessing them in their process of colonization of the human mind. In that way, they absorbed and attempted to obliterate any possible challenger to their homogenizing, domesticating, influences. The long night at the end of Samhain, though, took some time to paper over. It was a real crack in time, space and reality. There are others.
The Church created a different feast to celebrate the unknown saints and martyrs, but their objection to celebrating any force that could not be interpreted as benevolent and controlled uniquely through their interpretation meant that the long night at the end of harvest in the Celtic culture remained a pagan event. They could not celebrate the first night at the end of harvest when powers not in the Church’s control prowled the darkened world. Some scholars argue that it was the British Catholic Church that initiated the solution in the 8th century as a way of countering its influence. They began celebrating All Saints’ Day on November 1, even though, in 610 CE, Pope Boniface IV had designated May 13 as the celebration of the Blessed Virgin and the martyrs. The objective behind the British move was to eliminate the Celtic numinous interpretation of the last night of the Celtic year, thereby eliminating any force that could not be benevolently interpreted by the Church. Also called All Hallow’s Day, the celebration began on the eve of the day, All Hallow’s Eve, celebrating all departed holy people. The Church thereby attempted to limit the Celtic numinous memory to include only good, holy people. The celebration of the saints and martyrs was soon moved to this new date displacing the May 13 date throughout Christendom.
The jack-o’-lantern, a turnip carved to hold a light within, symbolized the light of the sun staying with the fruit of the field during the long night. It was also associated with the Will-o’-the wisp, a bog light that suggested a lantern and offered guidance to a place of false hope. A thousand years after the creation of All Hallow’s Day, these new fires began to appear in Ireland and parts of England, as though signalling that the Celtic numinous was still with us, still seeping through that crack in time. This small carved vegetable was recalling the bonfires that once burned strong. Both the small lantern and the fires were intended to ward off the faeries and ghosts. When the Irish arrived in North America in the mid 1800s, the pumpkin they discovered here displaced the carved turnip. The Celtic numinous interpretation had simply adopted the name given to that night when the crack in time, space and reality opened. It is still with us and has been gaining popularity at an amazing rate across most of that old Celtic region of continental Europe as well.
Remember this Hallowe’en to set an extra place at your table – or offer a treat – so you can avoid the wrath of the faeries, ghosts and unhappy ancestors who come knocking at your door with their tricks at the ready.