October 31, 2015   |   0 comments

James Swagger discusses the origins of Halloween. Most of us know little or nothing about the origins of Halloween. Beyond trick or treating, Jack-o’-lanterns and the piles of plastic bats and skulls that go from supermarket shelf to landfill in a matter of days, Halloween is by and large a mystery. Some possess a vague awareness of its ancient past, but the profound connections with nature and the cosmos from which our age-old rituals arose have been erased from the collective consciousness by centuries of religious persecution and secular humanism. Delving deep into the dark past, we attempt to dig up the almost fathomless roots of Halloween, from the Christianization of Samhain and other Pagan festivals, to tales of sacred bonfires and bloody sacrifice, and alegends of a liminal time when the veil between the real and the unreal would be swept aside.

We also reflect on how modern mediocrity has twisted the heritage of high antiquity into a hollow cypher, a state-of-the-art bastardization that has transformed ancient rites into retail opportunities, vile and vulgar shadows of the ineffable and eternal. But all is not lost. Beyond the Celtic Revival, Neo-paganism, Wicca, Druidry and Heathenry, the primordial power of ages past is rising once more in the collective consciousness. Disillusioned with the false promise of globalism, the mendacious lie of materialism, and shaken by the crumbling foundations of techno-industrial society, human beings the Earth over are seeking something better. Slowly at first, but with gathering awareness, we are rediscovering our birthright, long buried and forgotten.

Previous interview with James Swagger: Astronomy, Atlantis and Apocalypse in Megalithic Europe

Related interview: Mark Olly – The Way of Wyrd: Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer

Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’
John Carpenter ‘Halloween III: Season of the Witch OST’