The next several days host festivities to honor, remember, and connect the present physical world to the spiritual realm. Every culture has some kind of remembrance day for relatives that have died. In the East, late Summer is the time, but for most Western traditions, the last week of October and the first week of November include at least five celebrations of the spirit world: Hallowe’en, Samhain, All Saint’s Day, All Soul’s Day/Week, and Dia de los Muertos (or Ghede in the Caribbean.)
The theme of this time of year is the intersection of the spirit world and the physical one. Most traditions hold these days as a mystery wherein the changing of the seasons from the brightest light of summer and harvest to darker days when the earth is at rest. It is in this transition that the veil between worlds is thought to be lifted and spirits freely roam the earth. The celebrations include bonfires, costumes, and torchlight (to keep evil spirits at bay) and in many cases, a party around an altar of remembrance and maintenance of family graves.
Samhain may be the oldest of the pagan holidays and it is the source of many modern traditions. The Celts marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, the season of death, by building huge bonfires to illuminate the liminal space between harvest and death. They believed that the normal order of the universe was reversed, allowing the spirits to travel freely. They built altars to appease the mischievous ghosts, sprites, and fairies. Costumes and fortune telling also played a role: costumes were designed to fool evil spirits and fortunes were told by those who could hear the otherworldly voices roaming the physical present.
If Samhain sounds like Hallowe’en, it should; many of American Hallowe’en traditions come directly from Samhain. Costumes, candlelit gourds, turnips, and squashes, parties, and mischief (trick-or-treat) originated with this festival.
In South America and the Caribbean, celebrating the dead began with the indigenous Olmecs, Toltecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Maya and Aztec cultures. Less an acknowledgement of a general spirit world, Dia de los Muertos is a time to remember the ancestors. As long as they are remembered, the family members who have died are still alive in memory. While Europeans focused on the liminal space between life (harvest) and death (winter), South and Central American cultures consider the interconnectedness of life and death. During Dia de los Muertos, celebrants create altars of yellow flowers, candles, tissue paper cut into intricate designs (papel picado), food, and pictures of the dead, not to ward off the spirits, but to welcome them to the party. The sugar skulls that make up most of the Dia de los Muertos imagery represent individual souls in celebration of the lives they lived.
Variations of both Samhain and Dia de los Muertos (e.g. Hallowe’en in the US and Ghede in the Caribbean) became the inspiration for All Saints’ Day and later All Souls’ Day/Week. Pope Boniface IV first declared All Saint’s Day in 609 A.D. /C.E. as a day to honor Christian martyrs and Catholic saints. Two-hundred years later, Pope Gregory III moved the holiday to November 1 in an effort to “christianize” the pagan practice.
“Christianizing” pagan practices is akin to using popular music and concert-like settings as “worship time” in church services. There may be a place for it as a way to connect seekers to religious traditions or to appease the people who think the hymns are boring, but the end results cheapen both the original practice and the theological depth of Christianity. When the only connection people have to the supernatural realm is dressing up and begging candy from the neighbors, there isn’t a place for deeper conversations about the soul and spirit that dwells within individuals. There’s nothing inherently wrong with pumpkin carving and parades of children (dentists must love the aftermath of all that sugar). However, there is so much more to the veil between realms than a one-night party.
The first and most important distinction is the indwelling nature of the Holy Spirit that breathes life into believers in both the physical and spiritual realms (John 14:26; 2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus followers have a permanent connection to the supernatural world in this present one. Bonfires and offerings have no part in filling the liminal spaces because Jesus is already there.
The next thing to consider is that those who call Jesus, “Lord,” already live with one foot (so to speak) in the eternal. We do not need a particular day to experience a crossing over of spirit to the physical, our essential selves already live the life of the spirit, and “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who had given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 5: 5).
There is much, much more theology to explore about the connecting power of the Holy Spirit, and God grants a lifetime of grace to grow into our eternal selves. This current time of year, however, offers an ideal opportunity to consider where the spirit world lies. Above the sky? How far? One trip to an observatory demonstrates that the galaxies and universes are much too vast to position the spirit world there. Below the earth’s surface? A volcanologist can tell you that the interior of the earth may be as hot as hell, but it doesn’t seem to be an apt holding place for the dead.
As limited humans, putting the spirit world in a place is comfortable. We can box it up, pull it out once or twice a year (Pentecost, maybe, or All Saints’ Day), and then pack it away until we want to think about it again. It’s easy, but how do we grow deeper in faith by limiting our ponderings to the easy things? The idea that there are invisible realms with us and among us should not be scary; we can’t see the forces of electricity, magnetism, or even the “Cloud,” yet we interact with them every day. The spirit world is no different. We can see the influence of invisible evil on those who open themselves to it when they commit atrocities that confound the rational mind. We witness the power of forgiveness, an invisible manifestation of the Holy Spirit when former captives offer a handshake to former captors: Louie Zamperini and Corrie ten Boom both felt the power of the Spirit work his way from their heads through their hearts to their right hands. If we look around us, we see evidence of the activity of the supernatural world all around us, every day.
And there are special moments when limited, human eyes may see the spirit world, times when God, himself, removes the dim reflection through which we see. Abraham saw angels (Genesis 18), Isaiah saw the throne of God (Isaiah 6), Peter, James, and John saw Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17). Jesus, himself, appeared and disappeared to 500 people in the 40 days after his crucifixion and resurrection.
Most of the saints claimed to have visions of angels, Jesus, and often, Mary. Joan of Arc, Sojourner Truth, and Mother Teresa all claimed direct communication with Jesus. I can’t prove or disprove those claims, but since the outcome of the visions generally meant a major life change, I have to think there was something to it.
Even today there are testimonies of people who saw Jesus in a dream, particularly people whose culture is driven by visions and dreams. For them, there is no need for empirical, quantifiable evidence; their lives are simply changed. Gut feelings may sometimes be a holy nudge (or you may just be hungry). People have claimed to hear the voice of God audibly (I am among those), while others can sense the presence of angels. While there is no scientific evidence possible, God is not limited to one realm; He is omnipresent and outside the boundaries of time and space. If he speaks or sends an angel to someone, the best approach for those listening is to ensure it is actually a word from the Lord by checking it against the written word of God and taking action on it. “If revelation is a transformative, engaging, interpersonal encounter with God in Christ, then it cannot be simply about an experience of hearing a voice. It must also be about divine presence, and about divine and human action, consonant with God’s salvific purpose” (Cook, 2019)
The essence of this season may be to recognize, not the return of ancestors for a party, nor visits by the spirits when the seasons change, but rather, a reminder that as Believers and Followers of Jesus, the spiritual realm and the physical realm are intertwined. Filled with the Holy Spirit, we don’t have to dress up, build a bonfire, or overindulge in sugar to be connected to the supernatural. We already are. The evidence of the Holy Spirit in the here and now comes in lives lived by defaulting to grace and loving others the way Jesus loves us.
Resources:
What Is Samhain? Origin of Halloween Rooted in Pagan Holiday | Time
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS | The Mexican Museum
A Short But Sweet History of Sugar Skulls
How interested are Christians supposed to be in the spirit world? | GotQuestions.org
The Spirit World Explained – What does the Bible say about it?
12 Types of Heaven-Sent Visions - Guideposts
What It Means to See Jesus | The New Yorker
Cook CCH. Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine: Scientific and Theological Perspectives. Oxon (UK): Routledge; 2019. Chapter 8, Revelatory voices. Available from: Revelatory voices - Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine - NCBI Bookshelf
This Far by Faith . Sojourner Truth | PBS
How to Be Filled With the Holy Spirit (and Why It Matters) | Cru
Outstanding