Halloween behind the scenes

Every October 31, the world glows orange. Pumpkins line balconies, plastic skeletons hang from doors, and laughter replaces the fear that once haunted this night. But beneath the candy and costumes lies a story few truly know, one older, stranger, and darker than the cheerful masquerade it’s become. Halloween was not born from fun or fiction. It was born from fire, fear, and faith.

When the dead walked among the living

More than two thousand years ago, the Celts marked Samhain a ritual signaling the end of harvest and the onset of winter’s darkness. It was believed that during this liminal night, the boundary between the living and the dead thinned, allowing spirits to roam freely. Villagers lit towering bonfires to guide their ancestors’ souls and to keep malicious ones away. They donned animal skins and masks, hoping to blend unnoticed among wandering ghosts.

Archaeological evidence across Ireland and Scotland confirms Samhain’s deep agricultural roots, linking it to the rhythm of the seasons and humanity’s earliest attempts to understand life, death, and rebirth.

From Pagan fires to Christian saints

As Christianity spread through Europe, pagan customs were neither erased nor forgotten they were transformed. Samhain became All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day. Bonfires gave way to candles, and prayers replaced sacrifices. Yet traces of the old faith endured. Villagers still dressed in disguise, visited neighbors, and exchanged offerings acts that later evolved into trick-or-treating. This quiet fusion of belief and superstition turned a festival of spirits into a night of remembrance and, eventually, recreation.

The American reinvention

When Irish immigrants crossed the Atlantic in the 19th century, they carried Halloween with them stripped of its religious gravity but rich in storytelling and symbolism. America gave the festival a new face: community parades, children in costumes, and an economy of imagination. By the early 20th century, ghost tales turned into games, and fear into festivity.

Today, Halloween has become one of the world’s most profitable cultural exports. It generates nearly $12 billion annually, with Americans consuming over 300,000 tons of candy each year. Costumes, from witches and vampires to superheroes,  echo a collective desire to transform, if only for a night.

What Halloween’s icons really mean

Every symbol of Halloween tells a story. The most famous, the pumpkin, began as a turnip. In ancient Ireland, villagers carved hollow vegetables into lanterns to ward off a spirit named Stingy Jack. When the tradition reached the Americas, the pumpkin, larger and brighter, replaced it. Its glow now welcomes children, but once it was meant to protect the soul.

Ghosts are reminders of Samhain’s thin veil between worlds. Masks and costumes were first worn to hide from spirits, not entertain them, disguises meant to fool the unseen. Today, they serve a different kind of magic: the freedom to become someone else. For one night, we perform our fears, desires, and fantasies, knowing we can return safely to ourselves when dawn comes.

Even black cats, bats, and spiders have ancient symbolism. In medieval Europe, they were seen as omens and companions of witches, creatures of mystery, not malice. And candy, the sweetest part of the night, echoes old customs of leaving food offerings for wandering souls and neighbors, a modern echo of spiritual generosity.

A festival between worlds

And as the city glows under borrowed traditions, something universal pulses beneath it all, the human urge to connect, remember, and imagine. We no longer light fires to guide spirits home, but we still light something: candles inside pumpkins, sparklers in our hands, small flames against the dark. Perhaps that’s what Halloween has always been, a conversation between what’s gone and what remains. Between the shadows and the light. Between who we were, and who we dare to become, if only for one night.