Halloween: what is it? Is it trick-or-treating, costumes, pumpkin spice flavored everything? Perhaps it’s monsters, ghouls, goblins, witches, and ghosts? Halloween occupies a special place in American culture and in the American psyche. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about Halloween in America it’s how we associated both with the supernatural in with things to terrify us. However, Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, is the night before All Saints’ Day, which is on November 1. According to tradition, this is the night that the veil between this world and the world of the dead is the thinnest.

Halloween, in a Nutshell

All Saints’ Day, and Halloween, are Christianized pagan holidays. Modern pagans celebrate Halloween as Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”), the day they under their departed loved ones and ancestors. It’s actually a more solemn affair. However, most traditional cultures have a day where they celebrate Life by honoring the dead. It’s also a day we’re people indulge in the dark side. This is especially important in cultures like ours where we prefer not to look at dark side.

It’s no wonder that many cultures in the northern hemisphere celebrate the day of the dead around Halloween. I myself have experienced more content with the dead in mid-autumn than any other time of year. Mind you, I’ve only really live in the northern hemisphere.

My First Halloween Ghostly Encounter

I was a little boy the first time this happened to me. In the country, we didn’t do a whole lot trick-or-treating. However, we didn’t have Halloween parties. My mother, who is a professional psychic, what often be hosting her own séances. I would usually go to a party at a school friend’s house. We were bobbing for apples, and I did become a little too aggressive, getting water all over my costume. I got the apple though, and I was sent upstairs to use the bathroom to dry myself off.

As I was drying myself off, a man walk down the hallway. I hadn’t noticed him in the house before. Yes, I wasn’t afraid. I assumed he was a relative or someone there for the party, because he was wearing a buckskin outfit, with fringes and moccasins and a beaver fur hat. He look like an old fur trapper or Daniel Boone. I said hello. He didn’t say anything. I estimate if he was waiting for the bathroom. However, he just kept walking down the hallway. Finally, and walked out of the bathroom and called to him. He turned around, and just like that, faded away into the darkness.

I went downstairs and asked about the funny man walking around upstairs, but nobody seem to know who he was. I remember my classmates’ father read his rifle, and ran upstairs. He never found a man.

Who Was He?

Next month on a class trip to a local history museum, we learned about the French trappers and explorers who lives in that part of New York State and Canada. There was a drawing of one man in a buckskin outfit, moccasins, and a beaver hat that grabbed my attention, and I couldn’t stop looking at him. That was the man I saw walk to my friends house on Halloween night. As it turns out, my friends homestead was in the same place is this trappers’ camp the night he died in a raid.

Since then, I’ve had a lot and experiences on Halloween. How about you?