Remember that Halloween is simply the eve of All Hallows, All Saints Day, which is followed by All Souls Day on the Christian calendar. Death, and one’s own future death in particular, ought to be remembered, but not as a morbid fascination. Rather, it should be meditated on as the inevitable gateway to eternal life [...]
What is this fear of spiders? There is a natural fear of venomous creatures, but the spider’s venom is not the only threat. She spins a web. She entraps her prey. She wraps them tightly to eat them later. As the ghost in Hamlet cries about his own venomous murder: “O Horrible, O horrible, most [...]
Great music pierces the soul… and can sometimes terrify it. Over the centuries, composers, like nearly all artists of every variety, have been fascinated by the subject of death and by the supernatural—the world of witches, goblins, ghosts, and demons. Composers have given us Dances of the Dead, frightful tone poems and songs, scary opera [...]
The curtain between the world of the living and that of the dead was for Russell Kirk truly thin, as evidenced in his scholarly work and in his fiction. A ghost, as Kirk understood it, was a soul trapped between physical and eternal existence. The curtain between the world of the living and of the [...]
As another Halloween approaches, the memory leads me to ponder this annual festival of all that is ghoulish and ghostly. Is it all harmless fun or, in our increasingly secular age, are we in danger of dabbling with dark forces beyond our understanding? In the early 1980s when I was a young Anglican priest I [...]
Fear and fun mingle in a dark embrace in these days of late October and early November. All these magical feelings are at the historical heart of Halloween, and Ray Bradbury has the children in "The Halloween Tree" unravel this mystic chain that unites us with our ancestors of long ago. Among Ray Bradbury’s many [...]
It’s October, and the urge for theatrical, spooky music always arises for me right about this time. Cue a visit to the essay I wrote years back, “Ten Spooky Classical Faves for Halloween.” Each year, it seems, I have a different relationship with the music and its composers. This year, I’m taking a particular interest [...]
Evil is real. It is unjust and is totally against our nature. Just as the creepiness of Halloween tries to claim all of October, evil tries to creep beyond its bounds, but it is crushed by the dawn of All Saints, under the banner of Christ. Whether you prefer the RSV translation “I will make [...]
I live in Russia. Yes, still. And I’m a natural-born American with no Russian heritage. I even have a pretty great life here. But every year in October—or on the first day of September, if I’m being honest—something’s missing. That is the Perfect American Pumpkin. Like Linus anticipating the Great Pumpkin, I sincerely hope for [...]
The young man intended to purchase my death and, presumably and in some manner carry it away so that I never would meet with it. Immortality, wealth, my beloved Jessica all rotated in kaleidoscopic vision before my eyes. Editor’s Note: The following short story was left unpublished at the author’s death. Thomas Masty, the author’s [...]
As we come towards Hallowe’en, it's worth remembering that the word "Hallowe’en" itself simply means "the eve of all Hallows", and All Hallows is the Christian feast of All Saints, or All Saints Day’, a day when we think particularly of those souls in bliss who, even in this life, kindled a light for us, [...]
There are good and bad ways of celebrating Halloween as there are good and bad ways of celebrating anything else. One of the best ways is with the reading of some haunting literature. Ghost stories come to mind. So does poetry which reminds us of death and the dead. Here is a handful of haunting [...]
The moon is full, The trees are bare, Dead leaves glide through The cool, dry air. The night is silent as a grave, Or some deep, dark, unfathomed cave Beneath the stars’ cold stare. […]
Zombie legends remain a relevant medium that continues to capture the imaginations of modern people. As with any myth or legend, we gain wisdom about ourselves when we endeavor to unearth the symbolic meanings that lie buried beneath the surface. At times, what we find is as frightening as it is illuminating. With the Halloween [...]