Halloween has turned into a garish celebration of gore, but some people would prefer to restore the original spirit of Samhain, writes Fionola Meredith
Not so long ago, Halloween meant ducking for apples by the guttering light of a turnip lantern, or frolicking around with a few sparklers in your home-made witch's cape. Then, if you were lucky, there might be a clove-rich apple tart with rings hidden inside waiting to be discovered and crammed, still hot and sticky, on to waiting fingers.
These days, the turnip lantern's sinister scowl (and characteristically pungent smell) has been replaced by the bland grin of the pumpkin jack-o-lantern.
Irish emigrants may have brought Halloween to America, but the Americans sent it back transformed: garishly repackaged and thoroughly commodified. It's a pastiche of the original celebration, owing more to horror films than to the ancient Celtic fire festival of Samhain, or to the old Christian feast of All Saints' Eve. And, with each year that passes, it seems that we embrace this hyper-real Halloween more and more enthusiastically.
It has become a multi-million-pound industry, as we shell out cash for themed parties, elaborate outfits (for both adults and children, or even your dog) and increasingly gruesome masks. Fancy a flayed-corpse body-suit, or perhaps a giant rabid rat to help your party go with a swing? You'll find them (or something equally gory) in every high street throughout he land. Get your ghoul mask - with free machete - here.
Now the Anglican Bishop of Birmingham has had enough. Claiming that Halloween merchandise creates a "climate of fear", the Right Rev David Gillett is calling on shops and supermarkets to rethink how they promote Halloween. He says: "Any sign of the Christian side of Halloween has been overshadowed by the commercialism and the dark and devilish things that seem to mean that Halloween is seen as a celebration of evil winning over good."
Gillett believes that the way Halloween is marketed may encourage anti-social behaviour. He adds, "I am worried that Halloween has the potential to trivialise the realities of evil in the world. Occult practices should not be condoned, even if they are only being presented in a caricatured, light-hearted form."
Instead, the bishop suggests that shops sell hair braids, bright balloons and colourful costumes. That's not likely to go down well with your 12-year-old who's decided that this year he wants to be a psycho axeman - or with the retailers who rake in the cash from the most lucrative yearly festival after Christmas and Easter.
But Gillett is not alone in his concern that Halloween could be spiritually harmful. For years, evangelical Christians in the US have been slipping tracts into the goodie bags of children who come trick-or-treating to their doors. They see Halloween as "a soul-winning event", a once-a-year opportunity to bring the gospel to "lost children".
The Rev David McIlveen of Sandown Road Free Presbyterian Church in Belfast, and a member of the Free Presbyterian Church's Morals and Standards Committee, says, "no one wants to be a killjoy, but Halloween's emphasis on the evil side deflects people away from what is honourable. If you study the Bible, you see that Satanism comes in a gradual way. And, as church life diminishes, we see the manifestation of evil more and more. Halloween is the springboard for the publicising of that sinister side."
But it's not just spiritual issues that bother Sean Mullen, national director of the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland. He says,
"To say Halloween is simply a time of fun assumes that scaring people is okay; it assumes that the commercial exploitation of fear is acceptable; and it assumes that there is no spirit world, so we needn't worry about it. Jesus would disagree on all three points."
But is the whole thing getting worse
each year? "Certainly the commercial exploitation increases year on year," says Mullen. "It's a much bigger deal now, and it's definitely driven by marketing from the US. When I was in the States at Halloween I was amazed at what I saw: coffins and mock gravestones on people's front lawns. I think we need to be very careful. Previously Halloween was fairly gentle, but now there's a stronger attempt to really scare people - and that can come close to being abusive and exploitative."
WHAT DO PARENTS make of this annual demand for gaudy and gory costumes? Are they wary about the spiritual effect on their offspring, or are they more concerned about the impact on the parental wallet? Joan Stevenson, a mother of two boys aged nine and 13, feels something is missing from Halloween these days.
"I loved the way we celebrated Halloween as a child, tossing the apple peel over your shoulder to find out the initial of the man you were going to marry. We would scare ourselves silly with ghost stories. But there was an innocence to it that's gone now. For instance, my younger son talked me into buying him one of those white Halloween hockey masks you see in all the shops. It was cheap, and I thought it didn't look as bad as some of the more gruesome ones. But now I've discovered that it's the killer's mask from the horror film Friday the 13th. I just hope my son doesn't find that out."
But Philip Mudge, who works for the National Parents' Council of Ireland, thinks that Halloween doesn't have to be a riot of conspicuous consumption - or a rather naff gore-fest. And he's sceptical about claims that it's spiritually unhealthy.
"It's not about devil-worshipping - after all, Guy Fawkes Night, November 5th, is originally all about executing Catholics, but no one celebrates that fact. It's just a good time to have a party."
Philip and his family live in Caherconlish, Co Limerick, where this year he is the village's chief gamesmaster, in charge of apple-rolling and other kinds of traditional Halloween fun. "It's important to spend time together as a family and as a community - and that far outweighs the potential dangers."
Halloween has always been an attempt to engage with other worlds, to acknowledge the dark side of the human condition. In our rush to snap up crude masks, plastic skulls and a set of fake devil horns for the dog, perhaps we miss out on that ancient struggle to understand the unknown.
A profit-driven Halloween could leave us spiritually impoverished in more ways than one.