Wicca And Fanatics

November 1, 2003

Yesterday was Halloween. Here at the Beneva Park Club the halls and nurses station were adorned with jack-o’-lanterns, spider webs, witches hats and other decorations appropriate for Halloween.

Nan and Diane, two of our nurses, wore bizarre costumes with startling make-up. They provided good entertainment for all of us who live routine, unexciting lives, and sometimes need palliatives for cabin fever.

The same day in the newspaper, an account appeared of a local fundamentalist Christian church which does not permit their children and adult members to participate in any Halloween activities. They denounced all Halloween activities as “Satan worship.”

Halloween is not, emphatically not, Satan worship. For many of us, Satan is a creature of the imagination of people who need a supernatural being to embody evil and be held responsible for it. They want their God to always be just, benevolent, and loving.

I can remember in my youthful days when Halloween exhibited much more rowdy behavior than today. A garden gate could lifted off its pin hinge and lugged a few blocks away. A lot of unpaid work, but the occasion seemed to justify it. Small, wooden thread spools could be carefully notched on both round ends with a jackknife. Winding string around the spool, then spinning the notched spool against a window made a most satisfying clatter. Windows of autos and homes could be soaped up. There are many memories.

Then Halloween evolved into “Trick or Treat” where children, escorted by mothers, went door to door, getting contributions into their shopping bags of candy, gum, coins, apples and I don’t what else. This is still a custom.

Then as the United Nations became organized, a new Halloween effort appeared: soliciting coins for UNICEF, The United Nations Childrens’ Emergency Fund. A most worthy practice which I advocated in the churches I served. It was also a way to make our children aware of the dire needs of children in other parts of our world; and to address such needs. “Trick or Treat for UNICEF.”

To label Halloween fun as “Satan worship” is ignorant nonsense. Furthermore, such beliefs, including persecution of “witches” is an historic disgrace to the Christian faith.

How many persons, women for the most part, have died excruciating deaths because of that Biblical sentence found in Exodus 22, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”?

In Brian Monahan’s scholarly HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, his chapter, “God’s Charnel House,” details the repulsive witch-hunt mania which lasted for about 200 years, beginning in 1484. The historian estimated the number of alleged witches hanged, drowned or burned alive to be in excess of one hundred thousand persons. Protestants as well as Catholics were equally zealous in pursuing this fanatical murderous crusade. One almost unspeakable horror was perpetrated by the Bishop of Würzburg in 1627. Burned at the stake for alleged witchcraft were eleven adult victims. But they were outnumbered by six small girls and eleven boys. Next time you see children getting on or off the school bus, imagine six girls and eleven boys being burned to death for alleged witchcraft. That is almost too horrible to contemplate even from a distance of 376 years.

Thus, I cannot consider with any equanimity those fundamentalist Christians of today who label innocent Halloween fun as “worship of Satan.” Who can predict how such fanatics will act out their irrational ignorance?

Persecutions for alleged witchcraft did migrate to America. An alleged witch was hanged in Connecticut in 1647. We are all familiar with the witch trials in Salem. Nineteen were hanged and one pressed to death. Playwright Arthur Miller made that terrible scene the center of his famous play, THE CRUCIBLE. Later in the season the Asolo is staging this play.

Witches exist today. Their organization is WICCA. But their purpose is benign and their activities helpful. If my information is correct, they gather in Covens of 13 persons. Their main characteristic is to embrace the wonders of Nature and to hold fitting rituals that will help them feel at one with Nature.