The Dark Origins Of Halloween

0:03 Welcome we go, well do parrot truth Truth? What's up everybody, and welcome to Paratruth Reborn. My name is Eric and I'm justin. This is our official Halloween episode. So I hope you guys are as excited as we are, because, as you know, we love Halloween and I'm sure you all do too, so we hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Make sure you grab a snack, your favorite drink and let's dig in. Let's chat a little bit about Halloween, shall we. So Halloween is one of the most popular holidays around the world, there's really no question about that. Maybe second honestly only to Christmas, But do you know it's dark origins. Today we will be discussing Sowyn at Gaelic festival, the influence of the Church on the holiday, medieval superstitions, and why we trick or treat.

1:31 Now we're starting with ancient Sooyn because that's really where it originates from. We've discussed sooen in the past, but what better way to understand part of the reason we celebrate Halloween that exploring some of its roots in the sawn celebration. Right, So, what is soewen exactly. Well, it's a Gaelic festival on November one, marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, or the quote unquote darker half of the year. You even know what I'm meaning. Call it the dark times? Anyway, I do call it the dark times, and not even for this reason. This It is also the Irish and Scottish Gaelic name for November, something I didn't know Nashally. So, celebrations begin on the evening of October thirty first, and since the Gaelic day began, it ended at sunset. Now soo Yen is believed to have Celtic pagan origins, and some of the Oolithic passage tombs in Great Britain and Ireland are alleged with the sunrise at the time of Sowen as a festival for communing with the ancestors. However, it may predate the Celtic area. A number of stone circles and dolmens, including for example, a bury exhibit a west south less alignment and the asimouth angle of the

3:03 setting sun on October thirty first. Now, it's believed that the veil between this reality and the afterlife is at its thinnest during this time of year. Some of the traditions that were practiced during the festival were lighting bonfires, ritualistic sacrifice, and even wearing disguises toward off spirits. The Jruis played a key role in Sellen rituals by serving as spiritual leaders who guided community ceremonies, led bonfire lighting and fire transfer traditions, and practiced divination to foresee the coming year. They helped protect the community from spirits by performing cleansing rights, blessed people, cattle and land, and ensure the community remained connected to the other world controlled manner, which is, I feel we need a little more controlled manner in this day and age. But we'll get there. Right.

4:10 So, what happens after years and years of celebrating Saohen, but then suddenly another religion pops up. Well, the religion changes things, right, So the Catholic Church decided to repurpose the Celtic festival as Saouen by establishing All Saints' Day on November first to honor saints and the evening before Al Halasive later known as Hawawean, of course, as a time to remember the dead and prepare for the feast day now. The shift aimed to christianize the existing practices, incorporating some of the supernatural symbolism and rituals of Saowen, such as warding off spirits and the belief in a thinning veale between worlds, and transforming them into a separate Christian Christian focused celebration. This, of course also made it easier for new Christian converts who would previously practice a Sowin tradition and find a similar practice among the new faith.

5:10 And this is something that Christians actually did quite often. Every time they brought the Christian belief and scriptures to a new land. It would learn what those what the practices were, what the beliefs were, and they'd start to adapt them into the Christian faith and make it easier for those transitions. Saint Patrick did something very different, very similar up in Ireland. Yeah. Well, and that's any dominating culture throughout history that the conqueror would just pull in parts of the other cultures belief. Maybe some of it was because they believed that too, but it was mostly to pull in, uh, those practitioners of that old religion into the new religion.

6:07 In many cases, the deities of conquered or neighboring religions were categorized as demons, even though transforming benevolent or neutral spirits into malicious figures. For example, the Christian devil is often depicted with horns and hoofs, imagery borrowed from pagan horned deities. But you see this throughout history. Like I said, in fact, every civilization would bring their own beliefs. So it's one of those things that although it's it's demonized, and especially the Christian belief it's happened before. It's not like we're we're creating recreating the wheel. This happens time and time again. Now I know your beliefs have changed or the years, how are you now compared to when you first came back to Christianity.

7:09 Do you. Feel more tolerant towards a lot of the things that like Halloween, Christmas, the stuff that we brought in from pagan religions. Yeah, I mean I'm definitely more tolerant of it. You know, obviously I wasn't in the beginning, as you shared those stories here before. But yeah, most definitely most tolerant and some of the things I even practice myself lighting bonfires for example, on Halloween is a great and fun tradition for myself. You know, when I think of lighting the bonfire has nothing worthy to do with the holiday itself. It's just I get to enjoy it. But there are plenty of Christians out there also who not only refrain from, you know, lighting bonfires, they refrain from the holiday altogether.

7:54 But even still, there are plenty of churches, at least that I know of in America that will do this thing called trunk or treat, And typically it takes place earlier on Halloween, like morning or afternoon, or a week or two prior. Uh. And it's just a safe place for people. Anybody doesn't have meo Christians, anyone from around the city who wants to come trick or treat in the church parking a lot. Uh. They're people who are open and maybe hearing a little bit about Jesus. Maybe not thankfully the churchure that I know, the people that I know are. Not uh, you know, they're not. They're not. So I mean, part of me wants to say is disrespecting to like just you know, throw up Jesus on everybody.

8:37 You know. I don't want somebody throwing up Jesus on me. If you can grow up an entire person, you are of the death. Well, but what I mean is it goes back to last week's episode. We were talking about having making sure that whoever you're talking to or trying to help, making sure that they consent right. And so typically, at least in my church circle, my circle friends, the people that I know through the church, they will always ask first non believers, if hey, can I tell you a little bit about Jesus? Can I pray for you? Can I do this? Can I do that? And you know, some people say no, and it is very like I respect that on with their day, enjoy trump or treat it as much candy as you guys, can you know, like have fun mingle, etcetera, etcetera, Which is how it should be, regardless of the religion or the belief right. But yeah, so it definitely I obviously participate in dressing up. It's something I enjoy doing. It's part of tradition as well. I don't trick or treat anymore myself, but I just stealed a candy from my nieces to trick or treat instead. So there's problem. There's probably some moral compass there that needs to be redirected a bit.

9:51 But you know, I feel you're a horrible human fearing Wow. No, they should probably not be consuming all of that sugar. So it's probably a courtesy for you to do that for your sister so that our kids aren't. The way I see is I'm putting my life on the line because that much sugar it starts to take years away. They're saying, yeah, it deteriorates the teeth, and you know, like gotta gotta sacrifice with him. So so here about sacrifice. Now, okay, see, and this is how you twist words and cause issues. Okay, don't do what Jessin just did.

10:33 It's called division. I'm just making an example. That's all. Well, now there, Well on what about you? I mean, well, I mean since my thoughts followed more on. You know, I've followed Christianity, but I feel a lot of the any major religion does have it all right. So I don't see it being a bad thing that there were horns and hoved gods in pagan folklore and mythology.

11:14 But I do see where it was kind of incorporated into the Christian faith, making that evil again as a way to bring people into Christianity and say, look what you were doing was bad. This is the actual way. But yeah, and I was just gonna mention too, trunk or treat might be a little bit of a safer way to trigger treat in this day and age. I mean, you're going to find those weird psychos no matter what you're doing in today's day and age. But at least there it's a community that it's all close, even more close than walking down the street. So I feel, yeah, trunker treat is, although it's more a Christian practiced way to enjoy Halloween. It's you don't want to trust your kids going up to anybody's store because you may not these days.

12:12 Yeah, it ain't like when we were growing up. Now. I was just talking to a friend of mine how different things are since, you know, the nineties compared to twenty twenty five, and it's like back then, you know, you and I we're outside all the time, we're doing some we're playing, we're in the dirt, you know, and now it's just like online you can meet anybody and I play I mean some of you know, I play Fortnite, and there are some weird people that I meet that. I just like net or hang you know, delete and block type things. It's like, it's weird, man, It's cool, dude. That's why I don't play online games because I don't care what people have to say. I just want to play the kid, right. I mean, if you're trying to participate together, like build stuff together and be respectful, that's one thing. But a lot of people use it as a way to disrespect people and be crappy, right for sure.

13:06 So let's go ahead. We'll move on a little bit with this discussion here though. So next up is medieval superstition. Now, the rise of ghost stories and which lore in medieval culture was profoundly shaped by the Catholic Church's evolving doctrines on the afterlife and demonic forces. And while folklore and magic existed for centuries, the Late Middle Ages saw the condition or i'm sorry, the codification of these beliefs into a formalized Christian framework that helped trigger the widespread witch hunts of the early Modern period. Now, early medieval ghost beliefs were complex and varied, not that they're not today, but initially the Church was hesitant to endorse the idea of ghosts fearing it encouraged pagan veneration of the dead. Some early Christian thinkers considered all apparitions to be demons in disguise, intent on deceiving the faithful. However, as belief in ghosts or revenance persisted, the church integrated these folk beliefs into its own theology. And we've had an episode on this before. In the past. It was actually a UK English tradition to tell ghost stories during Christmas even right.

14:32 You know, something else I just want to put out there is kind of like a fact check, if you will. There is nothing in the scripture that says ghosts and demons are one and the same. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that there's a clear, you know, divide between the two either. However, we can take some references from scripture at least one or two and suggest that ghosts and demons are two very different entities and that both exists. Whether or not exosts can exist on this plane, you know, obviously we have some sort of proof. Right, all of us who have been in the paranormal community, we've done paranormal research, investigations. You probably have found something cast some sort of evidence but again that is something that can be scientifically replicated in most cases. Therefore, we can't say proof it's a ghost.

15:25 Right, It's all I mean, same thing that we like, we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the rapture. There's no specific verbiage in the Bible that says we're going to be taken up into the heavens that they call it rapture. There's just one specific text that people take as that's the rapture, right, And. Whether or not win or where that rapture takes place, you know, I mean, obviously we don't know the when. Jesus is very clear on that. But what the rapture exactly is and what it represents, who's taken etcetera, etcetera. That's really what's held up in the air right now. But anyway, with that said, regarding ghosts, many of you know the story of Jesus walking on water.

16:06 Whether you are Christian or not, you probably know the story. And so there is a part of the story where Jesus is walking out of water and Peter looks out and says, look, it's a ghost, and Jesus does not condemn him. He does not say ghosts are not real. He doesn't say, no, you're thinking demons and I'm not one. He just says, basically, you look, I am not a ghost. It is me Jesus. And that's the end of it, which means that Jesus very clearly, I think, believed or knows that ghosts do exist to some extent, and the fact that Peter had thought he was a ghost, I wasn't condemned for it could theoretically kind of give us purpose to believe that ghosts do exist and they are separate from demons.

16:57 You know. So it's there's a whole lot that was into theology behind ghosts, spirits, demons, entities, et cetera. And that's something we've talked a little bit a few weeks back about it, but that can go very much deeper into a whole new episode. But anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there because there are plenty people who think that all spirits are the monic spirits unless they're from heaven, or all ghosts or demons that are just portraying humanity in spirit form and trying to pretend to be something they're not in deceiving people. And I was one who thought that for a while, I tell us start learning more about theology and understanding the Word of godmore. Yeah. Well, and again I've commended you a lot of times for you growing not just in your faith but your understanding of the teachings that you follow and being more considerate of other people. He's getting all choked up, kay, is Like, I don't know he's got.

18:06 Sometimes Like when we have when I take these like rabbit trails, I'm like, do I just jump right back into where we were left off? It's gonna be some sort of like clean transition, right, Like how do I But yeah, I don't have one, so we're just gonna break right off back into it. So when it comes to witchcraft, and you guys tuned in last week, you learned quite a bit about witch bottles and the idea behind witchcraft. But when it comes to medieval understanding of witchcraft, it too also shifted dramatically over time. For most of the Middle Ages, the churche guarded folk magic and sorcery as harmless, if nothing else but misguided superstition. A true threat was heresy, not magical practice, and the witch figure as we know it today, however, was largely invented in the late medieval period.

19:03 Soul cakes were small spiced cakes baked and distributed by wealthier families to the poor during All Souls Day November twenty second, in exchange for November in exchange for prayers for the souls of the dead, representing an early form of trick or treating called souling. I mean soul cakes. Sowing makes sense, you're praying for the dead, for their souls. This practice evolved into guysing, which children would dress up and perform songs or poems for treats, leading to the modern trick or treat custom, which further developed from those traditions rooted in Britain and Ireland. I say, bring that back.

19:52 Make these kids work for their candidat trick or treat, right. Glad If if it haven't, that is happening now and not during our time. We're out true treating. So we'll just pick it outside of everybody's home. Bring it back, bring guysing. And that's the thing. That's when when when Halloween goes political and kids are like an a doorstep. Make Halloween great again. Gess you just ruined our episode. No, so you know with that said, leading to you know, the idea that children would dress up and perform songs or poems retreats, leading to the modern treat custom. It eventually did give birth to modern Halloween, what we more or less know today now. Irish immigrants had brought the tradition of carving jack o lanterns from root vegetables like turn ups to America in the nineteenth century, but found pumpkins native to North America to be larger and more readily available. Of course, the easier to carve pumpkins quickly replaced turnips as the preferred choice, making the pumpkin the iconic symbol of Halloween jack o lanterns today. Now, the origin of carving jackal lanterns started to ward off evil spirits and were based on the Irish folk tale of Stingy Jack, who basically

21:22 tricked the devil one too many times three in total to be exact. And instead of you know, taking Stingy Jack's soul into hell, and instead of God saying come on up to heaven because he was denied God denied and going to heaven, the devil gave him a turn up with the coal inside, so that Jack would wonder the Realms, the Veil basically for Eternity, Blown Cold, and Indefinitely. Yeah, and we've done a couple episodes about cine Jack on Paratruth Radio. So if you want to hear the full full story of it, because we do read it on air, make sure you check out those episodes, just google Para Truth Radio or type it in. Just type in Paratruth you'll find both shows.

22:17 Yeah, you can click on our website and in our switchbar just hit stingy back. You'll find it that way too. Yeah. And the interesting part is I had never heard of the story of Cindy Jack until we actually had done those episodes. I'm in practice, so I never question where did this come from? Right? I mean, but that was some of those episodes that we did. We're very early on as well, like in terms of our podcasting career, many of those. So we did like a lot of these episodes way back on Nice Talkers. Nice Talkers, that's all it was, right, What was the name?

23:00 Yeah? Nice? Yeah, I wasn't as radio. Oh paredomal radio. Okay, son has been something my mind is start. That's how long it's been. Now You're like, wait, what is that? Nice what. But yeah, you know, back then, we're still learning a lot of this stuff. And I mean, we weren't learning a lot of this stuff strictly for the show, but yeah, you know. What I find very interesting though, is the Stingy Jack story in particular has always remained the same, but there have been very slight iterations of it throughout the last fifteen years or so, very minor changes, but changes noneth the last And of course we see that with most stories when it comes to the the mythical and the magical in particular.

23:44 And if you want to see a kind of continuation of the story of Cindy Jack, I wrote one that I'm going to be putting into a short story collection of my own. I'll let you guys know when that's out, because I thought it was a really, really interesting one where Cinji Jack actually tricks somebody else to take on the curse. And I loved that story. But back to what we're talking about here now. Mischief Night, or you may also know it is Devil's Night, which was first documented in the nineteen thirties, is a night of pranks before Halloween, evolving from harmless fun to serious vandalism. In some areas, but also prompting community programs like Angels Night, modern Halloween traditions, including elaborate trick or treating, costume parties with themes and contests, spooky decorations, and themed events at museums and clubs. One thing I remember growing up is again, I had never heard of Devil's Night until I saw the movie The Crow and the game. We're practicing Devil's Knight too cosmehem and destruction in the movie. But I had never heard the word Devil's Night until I watched that movie.

25:09 Right, I feel like, you know, like bish If Knight and Devil's Knight. I mean, it makes sense even to this day, there's a lot of mischief righty toilet papering people's properties, smashing pumpkins, et cetera, et cetera. I will say that I am. I don't mind it so much that there have been some community programs that tried to revamp it to Angel's Knight and do something kind. You know, I would prefer to see that rather than what it feels like it's going toward here in America, which is Perge Night. So hopefully we don't see that. Yeah, you know, spooky decorations and themed events at museums. Obviously, there's plenty that still happening today. There's a show that I watch every year called Halloween Wars. I love watching that show every Halloween. All the houses, well most houses tend I met a lot of houses decorate for Halloween, exterior and interier.

26:07 But I will say that it seems to be dying breathe. It's not as extravagant as it was when we were kids growing up. You know, the streets were filled with people sugar treating. Every house had lights and decorations and scary events. Nowadays, ago out on Halloween night and it's silent. You see a handful of children walking, and that's about it, at least in my area in Cleveland in particular. Oh here, I mean here too, And it kind of is almost reminiscent of the dark days of Halloween. So it is a little scary, definitely. Now in the twentieth century, something crazy happened, right. It's probably the most important part of Halloween nowadays for any child and myself who's also a child. But that is that the candy companies capitalized on Halloween's rising popularity by aggressively marketing individually wrapped, mass produced sweets as a convenient and safe option for trick or treating. It was a post World War two economic boom. The lifting of sugar rationing and public fears over tampered treats cemented candy's central role in the holiday. Before the nineteen fifties, trick or treaters typically received homemade items such as cakes, cookies, fruit, or nuts. And it's not the first time that we see candy companies or just companies in general, capitalizing on holidays. Right.

27:40 We see the same thing on Christmas with coke and the drink, not the drug. I thought the drug was in the drink some But I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm sorry, I don't know. These things popping on my mind and I just speak them. I shouldn't get us booted. But then also Valentine's Day is a very big commercial holiday for some lame reason. Well, and I love how it says a more convenient and safe option because you know, when we were kids, and I'm sure it's probably still a something to look out today, but you would get the warning of you know, have your your parents check all of your candy or good goodies because there might be razor blades in the candied apple.

28:32 My my parents always went through our bags before we could eat. Anything, right, Yeah, I'm pretty sure minded too. But it's like in the nineteen thirties they and again that was a completely different era compared to when we were growing up, So back then it might have been a little more safe, and then it just took a downhill spiral. Well well, and then on top of that you have to consider, like the actual events in which there was something dangerous hidden within treats was probably pretty slim and very rare, but those very rare occasions kind of blew up they they hit. You know, if they were in mass media the day, the whole world would know about it and everyone would be checking her candy. Right back then, it was all word of mouth, the news, et cetera.

29:22 So something like even just one time is enough to create widespread fear. And we all know how quickly fear likes to grip hold of a person, a community, and entire country and so. On and so forth. So you know the fact that something that probably didn't happen very much still stummed over into our childhood in the nineties, in which our parents are still checking her candy today. No one really looks at candy anymore, Like my sister does not check her nieces or my niece's candy as often, like maybe just a couple of things here there, you know, if it's it seems a little suspicious, but typically it's like, oh, it's fine, eat it.

30:05 You know. Uh, the fear is not there anymore. But that also has to do with degeneration changing, I think. Well, and maybe it was even back when we were kids. But today, I mean, candy rappers, even though they may look safe, may still be laced with a type of drug poison, you know. So how you would even notice that even if you are looking through candy unless it has an odor to it, I mean possible. Yeah, it's a little hard to determine unless you see a hole. Like you said, you don't detect hampering. So it's like, eh, it's okay. Now. Do old sam Sloan beliefs still resonates, Ay, yes, of course they do. Many ancient beliefs and traditions associated with Salen still resonates a both in modern paganism and in the broader culture through contemporary Halloween celebrations. We've talked about it throughout the entire episode. The original themes of honoring the dead, marking the end of the harvest, and navigating the transition into winter continue to find expression, though in evolved forms. Like Eric mentioned, we've got the Jack O'Lantern instead of bonfires, candies instead of cakes, and other

31:41 sweet treats. So it's definitely evolved, but we're still practicing it without realizing we're practicing Salen for sure. I will say that there's nothing quite like sitting outside around a fire in the Halloween night. It is literally, I mean, everyone knows Halloween's our favorite time of year, but it is literally my favorite time like night of the year, just for the fact that I'm like, I think, what's I think, what's particularly sorry particularly special to me? And this isn't probably something that crosses most people's mind, but because of our community here, because of the show, I will often sit, you know, around a fire on Halley night and actually think about the origins of Selwyn and think about the history and all the things that happened, and there's just something that is just literally I guess I wouldn't say literally, but it feels like the spirit of Halloween, right, like the spirit of Christmas. It's just there in the air. It's thick with it, and it's not a bad feeling like for me, it's like something that I kind of like, I mean, lack of a better term, enjoy in the sense of the historical significance of it.

32:55 Right. Yeah. No. And although New Year is the official end of the year, I have always felt Halloween is kind of that precursor moment and it kind of makes you reflect on the entire year, not just history itself. With I said, I'm kind of looking forward to Halloween this year. So of course we have candy, we have you know, song gish things, trig or treats, we have kids dressing up, etcetera, etcetera. But what is one thing that is very heightened the Halloween that we have yet to discuss, but yet is very prominent to the season itself.

33:45 There have been reports of heightened paragormal activity around Halloween, which stemmed from the cultural association of the holiday with ghosts and spirits, which creates a heightened expectation for the supernatural. And I think there's something very important to think about here because every year there are both professionals and amateurs alike who go out the week of Halloween and on Halloween to do paranormal investigations with the belief that they are going to actually see more things, you know, encounter more spirits because of the thinning of the veil. Right However, there is a very good chance that some of these events are actually increased due to psychological factors and the thinning of the veil between the living and the dead and folklore is one thing. When you have your mindset on actually seeing something, there's a chance that your mind allows yourself to see it. Now, whether or not what you're seeing is real or fake, one can you know, you can only do somebody you don't only believe so much or seize or learn or whatever you know, if you catch it on film, camera, on audio, that's one thing to help. But there is this general aspect where because many people believe that veil is thinnest around Halloween, we just naturally see more things because you check our minds into seeing more things. Right now, With that said,

35:19 the thinning of the veil between the living and the dead and folklore and a shared fascination with fear and death, people's expectations and fear of ghosts can influence the perception of ambiguous events, making them more likely to interpret them as paranormal even if they're not. And I one that kind of does that year round, Like why is my cat looking at the corner of the house and there's nothing there? Oh. I started talking to the thing right like why you get out whatever you are, get out here, which, by the way, I'll talk to you after this. But this is at this point a few weeks later has of this recording. But last night, that is, at night prior to this recording, I went and saw Good Boy. How many of you all saw a.

35:59 Good Boy in theater? Let us know, I'm curious. But for those of you who don't know, Good Boy is a horror movie that is fully through the perspective of a dog. And it was phenomenal, It was wonderful, and it was you know, it was an independent film that was that took three years of film and they used a dog who was not an actor, who was the director's own dog. And at the end of the movie they actually do a little bit of a behind the scenes to show how they got the dog to act, which in reality was not the dog acting at all, which was really fun to watch. It was it was really fun to watch, you know, just the way they did it. And then you realize just based on how they edited things like the dog looked like he was scared, he looked very serious, he looked concerned, but in reality he wasn't at all. When you take like the actual scene versus the take behind the scenes, you know, it's like, here's something scary happening. You know, in the movie it was dog look scared, but in reality they're hawking horns and making cute, funny noises to get the dogs ring.

37:07 And it's like, oh, you know, I forget that just something juxta something I learned it about it in school. I forget the name of it. But it's basically, if you take the like, take someone whether just a normal like blank expression on their face, right, and then you cut to a picture of a Christmas present, right, people will think that that person looking at the Christmas present is excited. Take that same image of that person and this time cut to a person in a coffin, and now people think this person looks sad. But the expression didn't change at all. The only thing that changed with the perspective that the people were seeing, which naturally made them believe they were seeing a certain expression from a person who had no expression at all, And that's how they ended up doing this movie a lot with the dog.

37:57 The dog's expression never changed, but the see was seeing did for the audience. Anyway, I know there's another rabbit trail, super unique. I loved it. If you haven't seen Good Boy, you should definitely check it out. I love in D films, and that was a good one. Well, I mean it kind of ties in this is the time of the year that most people watch horror movies, and you're a movie maker, like, although it was a rabbit trail, at least ties into what we're talking about. One thing I'll say about what you just mentioned with it possibly being psychological. We talked about this last week where intention, intension, intention, and I brought up you know, Eric was talking about OCD and I brought up that some people might get overly obsessed over something and just constantly think about it, which causes an intention or a manifestation, if you will. In this particular context, people are going to always be thinking about ghosts, spirits, monsters during this time of the year. So long as you don't fixate on it. I would say, please don't fixate on it, because you can cause something to attach to you. Whether you believe the veil is thinnest at this time of year or not. I mean, we've talked about it for

39:29 years and years and years. There's always entities, spirits. You don't have to move into a haunted house. These things can move around freely. Obviously they either were once human. If it's a ghost or a spirit, can walk through walls to entities, I mean, because they're not corporeal like we are, right, So I mean, just be aware of Oh that noise, it was just the the water here kicking on, or it was just the air heater kicking on.

40:10 Debunk before you just rush to conclusions what I'm going on. Rushing to conclusions has never helped anybody. Looked in general. Les, Yeah, I get that, I bet yeah. But looking back, I mean, we've kind of reflected a little bit through this episode. But what are some of the things that you wish you could see now that you don't see anymore during Halloween from when we were growing. Up were growing up. I would say probably some of the traditional Halloween commercials really like and maybe they do exist.

40:59 I don't how many people have regular TV anymore, like cable. Not me, I've not seen cable. God knows how long. Long generations still do. But yeah, yeah, but you know, otherwise it's all like Netflix and you know, anything that streams don't see this type of commercials. So that's something I definitely miss. On top of that, I think it's just the if the feeling has changed, you know, like I used to wake up, be excited to get dressed, where my costume all day at school, come home, you know, do whatever I got to do before I get to go trick or treating. It was exciting, and that excitement really kind of left, I think for me and probably for a lot of people in their thirties and forties or a higher So that is something that I definitely wish you would come back, just a nostalgia would come back more prominently than there already is.

41:49 I mean, I'm sure you can find a lot of those old commercials on YouTube. You need the same, had the same, man, I don't. I don't want it to find them, I want them to find me. You know, well, I personally don't pay extra to have commercials cut out of my streaming so Iowa actuals actually still see commercials on some clustering platforms. Maybe find the ones that are not the extra paid where you can skip commercials and you'll you'll see some. Maybe, but no other I think Other than that, it's just seeing more more people will actually trick or treating, you know, enjoin the holiday for what it is modernly, a night to go out, have some fun, get some candy, you know, and honestly, modern days, no one cares if you're thirty years old and getting candy. To be honest, there will be words said.

42:42 I know that for a fact, but yeah, it's usually aren't you a little old to be trick or treating? Yeah? Well, sometimes it's not even to them, it's just behind their back, like that person was like definitely forty, why are they taking this candy? You know? And I know that from experier. I didn't say that, but I know individuals who have to. I remember as a high schooler going out, Yeah, and people would get upset that we were still trick or treating. It's like I'm not eighteen yet, like, yeah, let me enjoy while I still can. Yeah, I don't know, man, It's just like I recall like nowadays, like you wake up Halloween morning, it's like, man, it's another day that happens to be Halloween. But when we were kids, you wake up and the whole atmosphere changed.

43:23 You woke up into a whole new world. The morning of Halloween. It's like, dude, it's hollowwen, it's the day, not another day, you know. And maybe it's just me. Maybe maybe I just kind of lost that over time. But I feel like a lot of people could probably meet me on that. Yeah. And you know, I'm sure it was stressful for our parents during that time because it's like, ah, we got to get these kids dressed, and especially as time went on, you could dress up to go to school, so you were not just dressing up in the evening, you were drissing up to go to school. But what I said, if you're done, I don't want to cut you off, even though I did. No, No, that was just my main point is because he's so stressful people.

44:15 Yeah, for sure. Thinking back, what was your favorite costume you've ever worn for Halloween? Mmm? I have two? Okay, one was I was in middle school and my mom had literally made a wolfman costume for me. Glued the hair on my hands, on my face. I don't remember if I had things, I'm pretty sure I did. I just work kind of like the vampire things, oral things, and it was I hands down, that's my top the And Mom, if you're watching this, thank you for always doing things like that when I was a kid. Because again, and in this day and age, a lot of times people are just buying costumes. My mom made a lot of costumes for us. I don't remember if your mom made costumes for you, guys, I.

45:35 Don't think so. And she's listening and has, then you. Know you're gonna get a thrashing. Usually. I mean, we were using pretty good at like kind of customizing our own costumes most of the time. But we did have a couple of customs made not by Mom but by Aunt Leanor. Okay. The other one that I vividly remember is when I lived in New Jersey, I had decorated. I really want to get back into decorating for Halloween, but I had decorated the outside of the house. Had put this dummy out there with a Frankensign mask and you know, Franking sign clothes on and stuff.

46:22 And it wasn't justin wearing a costume. At the time, No, but then I put that costume on sat back where that that dummy was sitting. Yes, m it was so cold that day that my hands were like ice cold. It felt like dead flesh. And I had kids coming up touching me like is it real? Is it real? And they touched my hand. Oh no, it's not real. It's cold, and I would jump and the the one neighbor kid I laughed because he was he was a good kid, but he was super annoying.

47:03 I jumped and roared, and this kid I had never seen move faster from our porch to his house. I'd say in like two seconds. So that's why that's my second one, because it turned out perfect that my hands were that cold that people thought it was still a dummy. I did something very similar as a werewolf mask and had like you know, some mini layers on to be stuffed up, and a similar situation happened where people would ask and I would just like flinch her, just like slowly move toward little kids right and they'd be scared. But there was this one high school girl that this is after I was out of high school.

47:44 So there's I was. Sitting on the porch bar in this chair. As one high school group comes up and one of the girls is like asking my dad if I was real, and my dad didn't say so. She would like poke me in places. She's like, he's definitely real, I think, and then go back and poke and like I wouldn't move, And so finally she went to touch me again and as she did, I like flinched as she jumped back and screamed and made it like halfway down my driveway and then stopped and made the poor decision to taunt to me and say you would never catch me, mister werewolf. I chased this girl literally more than halfway down the street in the middle of the street. This high school girl is screaming, and I'm just there's this werewolf trailing here the entire way. She didn't come back. Nopepe one of the best nights of my life. I love scaring kids.

48:39 Wait what Yeah, but my favorite costume was one that our aunt Lonrm made me, and it was a philosoph raptor. She made it from scratch, had a full tail, had like a head hood that was all stuffed and had eyes and teeth and stuff like that, clawed hand like a full sup man. It was by far my number one favorite costume and I still have it up in my parents' attic. But yeah, that was by far. There's been a lot of cool costumes that did, but that one, that one was it was very special just in general, but every time. I also loved dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

49:20 So the hay has that really changed? Not really moret morphed into Godzilla, but yeah, I still love my t Rex rappers, so. Turned into a more powerful dinosaur and I'm more powerful. That's what I realized that. Like last year, I was like, why don't I like Godzilla? And then I realized, Oh, he's just a super strong dinosaur who has nuclear powers. Okay, it makes sense. Yeah, I truly miss decorating for Halloween, and I just, like a lot of things, is I just kind of make myself to of the time to do it. It's one of those things that's still really important to me today. I just let life get in the way and I really need to change that. The funny thing is, I don't think I would ever hand out candy again. I just want to decorate to decorate, and maybe that's part of the change to It's not just less trick or treaters, but maybe people are fearful of handing out candy too, just because Hoodlum's parents that are being jerks stuff like that. But yeah, I would love to do that again. It was my favorite thing to do every year. Trying to think if there's anything else that I would love to do it again for Halloween.

50:56 I mean, I'm with you on the decorating. Like I used to decorate my front yard like I was legit always the scariest house on the block. And I remember one year I came home from high school and my neighbor he used to work for RTA. He would rebuild or build bus shelters, and he was working near a funeral home one of the days, and I came home and in my driveway was a silver casket that he found in the back of the funeral home. They'd brought home from me, and that thing like people were scared. I put like you know, like a vampire hand in there and closed it and then had strobe light on it.

51:37 So it always made some sort of movement. Okay, but you know, that was just one of my scariest yards, Like I've always always had it decked out to the brim. But that casket was a lot of fun too, because my sisters and I would close each other in it and push each other around on the wheels and spin each other and stuff. Who would have thought that you'd have fun in a casket. They're in a. Deathbed, right. Ah Well, last question before we start to wrap it up here, and I think it's the same one I ask you every year, but by far your favorite Halloween candy? Oh man, that's tough. Actually this year has it changed?

52:19 It does change, it changes. I'm gonna have to go with Okay, butterfinger, go butterfinger this year? For sure. It's it has changed over years because I you know, it used to be Twist then turned into three Musketeer the milky Way, but butter finger has been pretty strong. Last it's always chocolate for Halloween. Like I love fruity candy more than chocolate, But for Halloween there's something just you know, Rec's kit Kat, Milky Ways through Musketeer butterfingers. Those are like staples you know for Halloween.

53:01 Right, I mean, by far my favorite candy bar. It has not changed over as long as I remember eating candy. And that's a kick. Kat, but after eating chili, candy corn has become a second for Halloween at least. And I mean, you guys can judge me, but that's fine. I personally like candy corn. I never used to, but I enjoy it. Oh and maybe it's you know, taste buds change over time too. Yeah, because I when I was younger, I hated candy corn. I'm like, get this out of here. It's nothing but flavored wax to me, which it's not.

53:43 It's confection or sugar. But still, but yeah, candy corn, by far is on the top for me. So we would love to hear your guys' reflections. What what is your favorite Halloween costume that you've worn, either while you were growing up or as an adult. Favorite Halloween candy. Favorite Halloween activity. One I don't think I've ever done is bobbing for apples, mostly because I'm afraid of drowning. So that's fair, that's fair when have of them forbid you drown in a bucket of apples.

54:27 Yeah, I mean, somebody could just randomly be a jerk and try to hold my head. Yeah, and then you literally you could drown and choke at the same time. Exactly wild. Yeah, tell us in the comments or email us, send us a voicemail on our website. It's it's one of those things where I think we can all come together for Halloween or any any holidays that we grew up enjoying in the US as kids. So just a kind of a quick recap you. Halloween kind of started because of the practice of Saouen. The the reason it's dark origins is because back then we mentioned ritual sacrifice.

55:15 There were times that that was human sacrifice during the time of the Celtic religions, Gaelic religions or practices, but there was animal sacrifice as well, which in today's day and age could be considered dark because we don't do an animal sacrifice. Either anymore, well most of us don't. Fair enough, but yeah, I mean it it changed from something from a pagan tradition or religion religious right to what we know today. And it's one of those things that you want to remember history because it is it's important, mostly so that way we don't repeat it. Right. Next week, we're going to be talking to Shanda Parkinson about her book, The Book of Ritual Baths, and I'm gonna love this one because that's actually where I meditate the most, is in the bath or shower too, but a common practice for me over the past several years is assault bath, so this will be kind of an interesting one. Make sure you make sure you like share a subscribe you know, no matter where you watch, listen, get in on the conversation.

56:44 Let us know what you guys think. Without you guys, we don't have a show. So I really would love to see some more engagement from you all, just because it helps us as a as a podcast, not just that we're getting engagement, but we love to chit chat. I will say happy Halloween to all of you. Enjoy the spooky season. Don't get caught up caught up on all of the horrible things that can happen, because if you get caught up on that, somehow it may possibly do. So be happy, be fruitful, be safe during this time of year. But until next week, where you'll find us, same time, same channel. My name is Justin and I'm Eric.

57:39 Peace and happy Halloween.