What a wonderful Americanised, Commercialised, Christianized, Modernised, Bastardized Festival this is. Now don't get me wrong, I am sure it is a marvelous tradition in America where it was first practiced as a holiday event. I am sure that most American families enjoy taking their children out to Trick or Treat ... but it belongs in America.

It is not widely practice in any other country in the World. Not even in the United Kingdom from where the many origins of the Halloween stem. Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-een).

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death.

Check out "History.com" for the full history.

It seems that most of the Celtic Pagan traditions and festivals have mysteriously (?) found their way into the bible and Christian dogma.

See the Druids masquerading as converted Irish Catholic Monks manage to infiltrate the Holy Roman Empire and assimilate the Christians. So here we have Christians out and about celebrating Pagan traditions but sometimes given them different and fancier names in an attempt to Christianize it and make it "pure".

Between now and New Years Day, is what you call "Silly Season" in the United States. Now, I am not knocking their culture after all so many different cultures have emigrated to America and so many different cultures have had a huge influence on the American way of living. However, when we get to the nitty gritty it was the Christian Puritans who really screwed it up for them.

The silly season starts with Halloween (which is then followed every four years at least with a Presidential Election), which then, followed by Thanks Giving, which in turn is followed by Christmas and then, New Years Eve.

Now, from my point of view, gleamed from research, observation and having lived in the USA for over a year, and taking into account the origins of Halloween and the christianisation of the Pagan Festivals, I came to a realisation.

When those Christian Puritans came to America they were not only escaping the tyranny of England and other European countries but also the tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church. However, what they brought with them is the same intolerance of other faiths which ignited European and the Middle East and a deep hatred of anything unchristian. The Puritans were the very first Fundamentalists. Not Zealots, many ancient religions and spiritual paths had their share of mad zealots.

The Puritans were of the same ilk as those in Europe who perpetrated the Inquisition. Those who had money, power and intellect were the same people, who by day scape-goated the peasant and shouted "Witch" but by night frequent dens of debauchery, opium dens, toyed with BDSM (which was invented by a "puritan") and joined clubs like the Hellfire Club.

The hundred year hunt for witches for sheer scape-goating purposes throughout Europe came to America on the Mayflower and perpetrated horrors in Salem and other parts of the land and the Puritans/ Christians grabbed a hold of All Souls Night/ Samhaine (A Pagan tradition) and symbolically used it to secretly celebrate the victimization of people deemed witches and the symbolic demonising of Witches since.

Witness especially, the fundamentalist Christians of modern time and how they fanciful and decorate their homes and have "witch burning parties". Really, if any pagan, or wiccan, heathen or alternative spiritualist in their right mind actually look closely, they would be horrified to find out what they are actually celebrating.

It is only a Christianized Bastardization of the true meaning of Sahmaine and over the centuries it has became so totally Commercialised because Christians love to spend money to out do one another to appease their God.

... But wait there is more ...Symbolically ... after the Puritans have cleansed the community of unholy spirits and chased away the Devil, they gave Thanks for there new found land which they stole from the Indians and who they have now marked for the next "witch hunt" ... and then after Thanksgiving ... they symbolically await the second coming of Jesus by celebrating the original Pagan ceremony of Yule by labeling it Christ Mass (Christmas) ... and then, they celebrate New Years so they can go out and do it all over again ... but this time with different victims to sacrifice to their God.

Halloween is a American Cultural Tradition embraced and celebrated by the majority of Americans even by some pagans and wiccans. Its original history involves ancient Celtic and Pagan Traditions but fundamentally Halloween itself is an American Cultural Festival. It has NO place or meaning anywhere else.

Especially, as far as I am concerned, in Australia and equally especically when the celebration of Sahmaine in the Northern Hemisphere coincides with the Spring Fertility Festival and Rite known as Beltaine.

What I found completely offensive last weekend is that the majority of Beltaine celebrations, Rites and Ceremonies which should of been celebrated on the day or the Saturday, were put off until this coming weekend. The reason for the postponement of these events is because they didn't want them to clash with the Green's Halloween Party or the Luvaware Halloween party at HQ here in Adelaide, South Australia!

What THE?

Excuse me ... and you call yourselves Pagan?

You postpone a tradional Beltaine Celebration to embrace a Northern Hemisphere celebration which has been bastardized into a celebration of intolerance and victimization where dressing as "an ugly old lady (witch)" is considered a way of ridiculing and lampooning Paganism?

Do you not realise that if you have participated in such a celebration that you have offended not just me but many other Traditionalists ... but worse of all you offended The Goddess and all the other Deities.

Why don't we just all embrace the Moslem and Christian festivals also, and dispense with the hypocrisy?