Halloween Has A Dark Past - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 2000

The dark side Halloween is tied to a pre-medieval period when people engaged in human sacrifice and believed that ghosts and spirits lurked about, notes Khalid Blankinship, professor of religion, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa. "The celebration of Halloween is linked to an ancient festival that was especially connected to a harvest. It was a time when people built tall replicas of humans out of wicker. They would place prisoners in the belly of those statues and burn them up. The human sacrifice was done so that the harvest might be good the next year.

"From this act, they believed that the dead returned on Halloween eve. This is why children dress up as ghosts and skeletons." Nowadays, though, Halloween is not as horrifying. Instead, it is full of mischief, Blankinship points out.