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Halloween is one of the local specialities of eastern Massachusetts.\u00a0 In popular American observance Halloween means witches, and Salem has them on offer. \u00a0The marketing of Salem witchcraft presents a curious case of the uses of the past.\u00a0 In its barest details, the 1692 Salem episode led to the executions of 20 people accused as witches. The outbreak occurred in a period of social and political turmoil in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. \u00a0Although there were witchcraft panics elsewhere in colonial America, and thousands were executed as witches in Europe during the seventeenth century, the 1692 Salem events have generated reams of scholarship. Historians have sought explanation in everything from spoiled harvests to economic inequality, from fear of Native Americans to pernicious ideas about gender.<\/p>\n

Then why is Salem so happy at Halloween?\u00a0 The city that marks America\u2019s most famous witchcraft episode uses it to stake claim to occult realms, as a branding device.\u00a0 Identification with historical events really matters to Salem. Without the witches (whom we assume were not actually witches), there is no justification for all the sorcery shops and pointy hats.\u00a0 Some institutions tack close to the historical record, like Cry Innocent!<\/a>, a drama presented by Gordon College students, recalling the trial of Bridget Bishop. But many others claim 1692 to set it alongside the riotous costume party staged every October. \u00a0Decades ago Laurie Cabot, the city\u2019s Official Witch, took up residence and set out a shingle, opening a witch-goods store in 1971. Witchcraft turned out to be good for business.\u00a0 It drew tourists and refurbished the local economy.\u00a0 The city launched Haunted Happenings<\/a> over thirty years ago, a month-long festival featuring full-moon cruises, face painting, haunted houses, magic shows, and celestial dancing.\u00a0 It is only scary in order to be fun, and all that fun flings coins into local coffers.<\/p>\n

The appeal for children is relatively obvious: goofy outfits and free candy.\u00a0 The appeal of Halloween for adults is harder to pin down.\u00a0 In a New York Times<\/em> opinion piece<\/a>, Bess Lovejoy suggests that we enjoy the holiday because we are so put off by death.\u00a0 She argues that unlike people centuries ago who held death all around them\u2014Christians honoring saints\u2019 body parts as relics, loved ones saving the hair of deceased relatives \u2014we remove it as far as we can.\u00a0 Real death, the decomposing of the body, terrifies us.\u00a0 So we play at it at Halloween.<\/p>\n

This strikes me as plausible.\u00a0 Many may make sport at cartoonish dying but the real, sorrowful death of a person is hard to integrate with this festival.\u00a0 For this reason one Haunted Happenings event seems especially odd, the Mourning Tea<\/a>.\u00a0 The party is hosted by two buxom witches promising recitation of\u00a0 \u201codes to the somber beauty of Death\u2019s final waltz\u201d intoned over finger sandwiches and sweets, tea served loose to facilitate leaf-reading at the end.\u00a0 Guests are invited to bring photos and stories of the dead they wish to remember.\u00a0 Tickets are $50.<\/p>\n

Halloween is more kitschy than scary, but I understand why some churches will have none of it.\u00a0 Recognizing the appeal of Halloween to children, but disliking its traffic with demons and wizards, churches sometimes coopt it with a Fall Fest, Harvest Party, or All Saints\u2019 Fair replete with candy and costumes. Or it could be celebrated under auspices of Reformation Sunday, recalling Martin Luther\u2019s October 31, 1517 posting of 95 theses.\u00a0 (Not having grown up in a tradition observing this feast, I am embarrassed to admit that when I first met a Reformation Sunday in church, I did mistake it for an American Protestant substitute for Halloween.) \u00a0The Anglican church my family attends now celebrates the Feast of All Souls with a requiem, remembering and praying for those who have died in the past year.\u00a0 \u00a0This part of the requiem prayer seems especially appropriate as the hurricane rages:<\/p>\n

Free me, Lord, from eternal death, on that day of dread, when the heavens and earth shall move.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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