What's "Samhain?"
While I identify as a Catholic, I have always had an open mind and rather eclectic view of religion -- truth is spread out over all religious traditions in greater or lesser amounts. Some of my recent spiritual musings have had me looking over Wicca and neo-paganism, and I've been reading some books on both subjects, as well as attending Wiccan circles and classes in SL.
One thing I have found is lots of Wiccans and Neopagans feel what they are practicing is the "Old Relgion," that is the ancient pagan religion (really religions) found in the British Isles primarily and continental Europe before the coming of Christianity. Thus, they feel that they have a strong connection to the past and that they are doing things the "way were they done."
The problem with this idea is that what exists today as Neopaganism is a modern understanding of a pre-literate culture. The little we know of these cultural practices today are marred by time, syncretism with other religions, and both passive and active attempts to suppress those beliefs. Undoubtably these modern rituals have connections to the past, but as we simply don't know how these ancient folks worshipped, to say that anyone worships in the same way as the ancients is to some degree mistaken.
Every religion has similar things happen -- Jesus, Buddha, and Confucius started fairly simple religious and philosophical systems that were then changed with a couple thousand years of various thinkers, scholars, and theologians altering and adding to what these men taught. I often like to think them sitting in a bar together, looking down at the various human worshipers on earth and wondering "What have they done???"
Anyway, on to Samhain. This festival is the most sacred on the Wiccan calender, the start of the new year. Correctly pronounced not "Sam- hayn" but "Sav-in" or perhaps "Sow-wen", Samhain was the festival in ancient Ireland that ended the harvest and signaled the start of winter. While today Wiccans and some Neopagans celebrate this festival on October 31, there didn't seem to be any real "date" for it, but was just a festival of the final harvest and the oncoming winter.
On the night of Samhain, the village would gather after extinguishing all other fires in the town and light a bonfire, in which they would throw the bones of slaughtered animals (thus, "Bone Fire"). They would then light torches from the common fire and light their hearths, with other rituals being walking between two bonfires as a purification ritual, and driving animals between the bonfires for the same purpose.
Samhain was also associated with the spirit world and the honoring of the deceased ancestors, although many of the ideas we have about fearful spirits walking around to hurt people are mixed up with the Festival of Lemuria, a Roman practice of giving propriations to the noxious spirits to leave the living alone. The original Christian day of All Saints was on May 13, the end of the Lemuria. As observation of that festival faded, the Church shifted All Saints to November 1, as Samhain was seen as a similar kind of festival.
While the Celts certainly remembered and honored the dead at Samhain, it wasn't til later, with a slow synchretism of the ideas of Celtic, Roman, and Christian views, that Samhain became a fearful day of the dead and evil spirits walking about, which then influenced "Halloween". What records we do have of the earliest rites seem to be the Celts putting a skeleton, a head, or a carved turnip (the "head" of a vegetable) in a window to honor the past dead. It wasn't til later in Celtic and Brythonnic cultures that people were carving these turnips or other vegetables to scare away spirits, and the North American custom of carving a jack-o-lantern comes from the later, synchretic idea of evil spirits walking about.
The modern views of Samhain are to some degree related to the old rites, but have been strongly influenced by a couple thousand years of Christianization and time-muddling. Wiccans and Neo-Pagans use the festival to honor the dead, do divinations, and welcome the coming darkness. The Wiccan idea of the God dying, to be reborn at Yule, is a modern interpretation of seasonal folklore, as ancient pagan religions were rife with resurrection gods dying and being reborn. However, the Celts had no writing system til after Christianization, so we have little knowledge of their beliefs about their deities, and a resurrection cult is not known as part of the fragmentary remains of Celtic pagan belief.
Anyway, what is called the "Old Religion" is really a synchretic form of leftover pagan, Christian, and modern ideas. This isn't to say there's anything wrong with celebrating Samhain in the way one feels -- religion is after all for the living, not the dead or the past. People should practice their beliefs and faith as best suits them! However any group practices and honors the day should be respected, and I believe that great spiritual worth can be found in any rite or celebration.
So a blessed Samhain to you all! Remember your dead, honor the Wheel of the Year spinning to darkness, and get lots of treats :)
-V