Is Halloween a paradigm shift?

The word Halloween gets its origin from the Catholic Church. “All Hollows Day” or “All Saints Day” is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints on November 1st.

 

The 1840s was when Halloween was first celebrated in America. Since then I believe Halloween has changed drastically. The Celts, who lived in current day Ireland 2,000 years ago would celebrate their new year on November 1st. This was when the world of gods was believed to be visible to mankind. Modern witches even say that it is a time of year when the “veil between the dead and the living is thin.” Halloween is not like that today. I believe Halloween is a paradigm shift.

When I think of Halloween I think of costumes, candy, trick or treating, and parties. That is nothing like it used to be. We have transformed this holiday to celebrate the saints and turned it into an event to see who has the best costumes and who gets the most candy.

Although we still practice the same traditions as the Irish did when Halloween first started, we do not participate in these events for the same reason they were originally for. Trick-or-treating originated from the Irish. They would go door to door begging and collecting money and cake for one’s dead relatives. Today, we dress up as different characters and collect candy from our neighbors and friends. We do not trick or treat for the same reason we originally did. This is a paradigm shift because our culture has adapted a tradition that isn’t ours and we turned it into a holiday that we celebrate with our own traditions. There are still people that practice Halloween traditionally, but you don’t hear aboutit because it is not that common among the U.S.