Schools Exorcise Ghosts and Goblins from Halloween

It’s good to see that our schools are continuing their efforts to sanitize our children’s minds by turning Halloween in to a “positive” experience for their students. All Hallows Een, that night when the ghosts of the dead and other creatures of the night leave their graves and wander the countryside is to be scrubbed clean of its history and tradition.

No sir! Nothing scary or upsetting, no blood, no fake weapons and no gruesome masks will be allowed to mar this holiday when the baser elements of our nature have traditionally been allowed to surface and dance the streets.

Many schools across the country has established directives outlining what types of costumes are considered “appropriate” for the children to wear.

As one administrator told The New York Times, “We establish the guidelines of ‘positive costumes’ knowing what we might see if we chose not to establish boundaries.” God forbid the little darlings show up naked, which they might if administrators don’t establish “boundaries.”

In place of traditional costumes, parents are being encouraged to dress their children in costumes that neither frighten nor offend. Monsters are out; boxes of Wheaties are in. The theme for this year seems to be logos, not goblins.

In Patrick White's novel, The Eyes of the Storm, one character proclaimed that the soul has a rectum. We all carry darkness within us, and Halloween has always been a time to bring this darkness out to dance in the streets. It is a cathartic experience that acknowledges our dark sides while allowing them to surface in a harmless manner.

One theory for the prevalence of asthma in children holds that because the young are given so many antibiotics, the immune system is so sensitized that antibodies attack even the smallest irritations of the lungs, thus creating an asthmatic reaction.

If the “scariness” is taken out of Halloween, then the darkness that is at the base of all our souls will fester and grow until it finds expression in ways that are far less constructive than a scary costume.

Children are not fragile creatures who are easily traumatized. They are much stronger than our educators think. And they enjoy a good scare.

The only saving grace is that our educators have not carried things as far as one website that proclaims that, “Halloween has never been a Christian holiday and it has no place in the life of a born again believer in Jesus Christ. In fact it is an abomination to God and we should take our stand firmly against it and all it entails. As we look into its history, we find that its roots go deep into heathenism, paganism, Satanism and the occult; and the modern expression is no better!

At least not yet.