November 4, 2025 • 41 mins
What is the real history of Halloween? In this Halloween special of Midnight Mysteries, we uncover the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, where fires burned against the dark and the veil between worlds thinned. Discover how those rituals evolved into All Hallows’ Eve, witch hunts, and even modern occult crimes still tied to the season. From sacred bonfires to modern trick-or-treating, here’s the story behind the night that still feels different. Listen if you dare, and stay weird.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
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Speaker 1 (00:37):
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Speaker 5 (00:47):
Coming to you lot from a cabin deep in the
heart of the Canadian wilderness. Turn down the lights, get
yourself a drink, and let's settle in for tonight's broadcast.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Welcome back to Midnight Mysteries, the heart of Canadian paranormal radio.
Speaker 6 (01:25):
My name is Michael and I'm Nathan.
Speaker 7 (01:28):
Tonight, we're going back to the oldest night we know,
a night of firelight, masks, and things that walk between worlds.
Long before plastic skeletons and candy bowls, there was something deeper,
something sacred in the dark. This is the story of
Halloween began and why it still feels different. Have you
(01:48):
ever felt it, that strange stillness in the air, that
sense that something unseen is near. Tell us your thoughts
and stories in the comments, if you dare. Before we
wander too far into the dark, Let's take a look
at what's been happening behind the curtain. In recent news,
authorities in Saskatchewan have arrested Romana di Dallo, who is
(02:11):
the self proclaimed Queen of Canada, along with several followers
at a compound inside a decommissioned school. Di Dallo, who
rose to prominence through fringe conspiracy circles, has spent years
proclaiming herself the rightful ruler of Canada, urging followers to
stand down government officials, refuse to pay bills, and prepare
(02:32):
for a coming mass cleansing. Arsim Ki charged her with
intimidation and violating court orders after months of escalating incidents.
Inside the compound, investigators found signs of long term occupation
at what one official called an echo of cultic control.
As strange as it sounds, these aren't isolated beliefs. They're
(02:54):
part of a growing pattern of modern cult dynamics resurfacing
across Canada. Groups gathering around self appointed prophets, taking over
rural properties, and blending apocalyptic theology with Internet conspiracy. The
old bonfire cat ritual has evolved into something darker and
more clandestine, a reminder that the impulse to follow mystery
(03:17):
and power can still burn just as dangerly dangerously as
it did thousands of years ago. Speaking of cults across
the ocean, investigators are still uncovering the depths of a
modern day ritual gone horribly wrong.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
In Kenya.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
New forensic reports from the shakh Aholah Forest, where over
four hundred members of the Good News International Church died
earlier this year, show signs of animal sacrifice and organized
fasting rituals tied to apocalyptic prophecy. Survivors say their leader
promised salvation through starvation, claiming that death would be a
(03:56):
gateway to meeting Jesus. Have now connected the group's teachings
to other small sects in Africa and UK, where similar
rituals of fasting, sacrifice, and purification have appeared. What began
as a distorted faith became a form of ritual violence,
proof that even today, belief can still lead people to
(04:18):
the edge of death in search of the divine. Now
in recent disclosure news, newly declassified files from the US
Air Force revealed something pretty unsettling. Between the nineteen fifties
and nineteen sixties, under a program called Project Blue Lantern,
the government staged fake UFO sightings. Are claimed to stage
(04:41):
fake UFO sightings not to deceive public for amusement, but
to test how people would react under pressure. Radar echoes
were supposedly fabricated lights were projected into clouds. Even false
crash sites were planted in remote areas to measure how
fast story spread and how deeply fear could travel. Declassified
(05:03):
memos showed that these stage incidences were part of a
psychological warfare exercise designed to study panic, information control, and
public belief in the unknown. Mike, what do you think
of this disclosure document?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
You know, I find disclosure things. It just muddies the water,
Like do you know what I just you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (05:28):
And this this to me feels like they they want
to go out of their way to explain away these
UFO sightings to the point where they're like, yeah, you know,
we planted this crashed UFO way in the middle of
a desert mountain range in case somebody would find it
because we wanted to measure the impact on culture. It's like, okay,
(05:50):
what was a farmer in a field like got picked
up by a local newspaper.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
It just well, I like fabricating radar echoes, Like the
general like isn't looking at radar echoes.
Speaker 7 (06:01):
So yeah, and most of the radar technicians are in
that part of where these incidences took place, part of
the military.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
They're sworn to secrecy there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, it's really interesting though because this is recent, but
there's also been some other recent things about this specific
comment coming through and.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
How be an alien ship.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, and I don't know, it makes me think that
they're trying to distract us from something. Yeah, Like it's
it's kind of there seems to be a lot going
on right now and related to in relation to disclosures
and fear mongering about stuff.
Speaker 7 (06:45):
And on top of that, this was the nineteen fifties
and sixties. This wasn't in today's day and age, where
you know, a random TikTok video could go viral that
would make more sense testing the the culture sense of fear.
This is again for any sort of social media, social
networking or the Internet existed yeah, yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well. For more news about the paranormal, local events and
strange occurrences, remember to subscribe to Midnight Mysteries, the heart
of Canadian paranormal Radio.
Speaker 7 (07:31):
There's something about the last night of October that makes
the world feel different. The air gets sharper, the light
fades earlier, and the familiar places around us, the sidewalk,
the yard, the tree line, start to feel like a
memory we've stepped back into. Maybe it's the season, but
maybe it's something old. Something our subconscious is stirring, because
(07:57):
on this night we carve faces into pumpkins like candles
and windows. We dress ourselves in disguises, and we wait
for the dark, even if most of us don't remember
why anymore. Tonight we're going back to be four plastic
skeletons before candy balls, before Halloween had a name, Back
(08:17):
to a night of fire and silence, a night that
was considered reverent by many, a night when boundaries between
worlds seemed to blur. So take a breath, light a candle,
and check the lock on your door, and remember every
tradition starts with some truth. Long before Halloween, there was
(08:40):
sam Hane or what is actually pronounced so in. Strong
archaeological evidence suggests that sam Hane so In emerged more
than three thousand years ago, rooted in prehistoric seasonal rites
among the Western Celtic peoples. Long before anyone wrote down
their stories of it in the ninth or tenth centuries,
(09:01):
it was already ancient. People across Ireland, Scotland and the
Isle of Man marked this night. According to what we
know from early Celtic calendars and oral tradition, it occurred
from sunset on October thirty first to sunset on November first,
a transition between the warm season and the cold one.
(09:22):
Sam Hayne marked the end of a harvest. The final
crops were gathered, herds were called for winter, and it
was viewed as a moment between life and death. Winter
wasn't symbolic, it was deadly. It took people every year,
it decided who would see spring again to the gales.
Death was part of the same pattern that turned the seasons.
(09:45):
When the harvest was done and the land went quiet,
they believed the world itself was dying, and in that death,
the veil between here and the other world grew thin.
To the Celts, the world was not divided into one reality,
but several, all layered and touching with the other world,
the realm of spirits, gods, and beings with older stories
(10:09):
than ours. Most of the year, these worlds remained separate,
but not tonight. One historian, Ronald Hutton describes it as
a time when the veil between the living and the
dead was believed to thin, permitting the two to meet.
It's a poetic way to explain that people already seemed
(10:32):
to sense that this night was different, whether or not
the dead physically walked among the living. People behaved and
believed as though they could not just as spirits, ghosts
or apparitions as what we see with a lot of
Halloween now, but the believe the dead on this night
were just as physical as you, me, and almost everyone
(10:53):
else listening, and that belief shaped everything that followed.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Find it so interesting that, you know, like in this
in this case the the Celtic people, but so many
different ancient groups and historical groups they had such similar
ideas about having these layered different realms right of spirits
(11:21):
and gods and angels and demons, And it just makes
you wonder like they must have been onto something. I mean,
if if that was kind of a general across the
world where there was no connection, there was no you
know log onto, you know, the Internet and Wipedia exactly right,
(11:41):
So there there stuff like that just makes me believe
it a lot more, right, when there's ancient groups with
no real major connections that are believing similar things.
Speaker 7 (11:53):
Yeah, if you've if you've followed Midnight Mysteries for any
amount of time, you know that our favorite pattern is
when we see these ideas across cultures across the world,
before cultures were connected, before they even knew that there
were other people around the world, and they have the
same beliefs and the same type of cryptids and the
(12:14):
same type of you know, folklore and legends, but not
just generalized ones, but like very specific ones. And this
Night of the Dead is one of those ones that
occurs cross cultures, and we'll go over a few of
those later on in the episode two.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, and the other kind of common thread I see
a lot is this idea that certain times the veil
between these realms is thinner, right, the thirty first being
one of those one of those days. But then also,
you know, we quite often hear about the Witching Hour
or right yeah, three am to four am. How the
(12:50):
early hours of the morning is another time where yeah,
the veil is thin and there seems to be more spiritualized.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
People's sense more right.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, yeah, Hell, I guess it would be November first
at three am. Would you would be your thinnest veil
the end?
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (13:08):
Yeah, Because again, Halloween isn't just October thirty first, It's
from October thirty first to the end of November first.
So imagine a Gaelic village at the end of a harvest,
Crops stacked in granaries, the earth bare and dark, the
smell of peat smoke drifting from the hearth, a chill
(13:28):
so sharp you taste it.
Speaker 6 (13:32):
This is the.
Speaker 7 (13:32):
Moment when community mattered most, because no one survived winter alone.
On sam Hayne night, the people extinguished their hearth fires.
They plunged their home into darkness. I picture like a
hillside just going dark with people's homes. Then they gathered
on the nearest hill where a great bonfire was lit
by druids. This was not a fire out of celebration.
(13:56):
It was believed to be sacred, a ritual against the darkness.
Once the communal fire burned high enough to be seen
across the valley. Each family carried home a torch from
that fire to rekindle their hearth. It was a single
fire binding the living together, That's what they believed. And
then they presented offerings like food, wine, bread, and milk
(14:19):
outside their doorways. And this wasn't a decoration. It was
meant as hospitality for the dead passing through on this night.
But not all spirits were thought to be kind. Some
were restless. Some were souls who died unburied or unloved,
drawn back to the warmth of their old homes. Others
weren't human at all. There was the echi, which were
(14:42):
a type of elf whose mounds were set to open
up on this night, letting their music spill into the dark.
Travelers often told stories about hearing harps from hollow hills,
seeing dancers vanishing into light, and if people returning years
later thinking only a night had passed to the gales.
These were not fairy tales. They were reminders that the
(15:04):
world was shared between the living and something else. So
people disguised themselves, wrapping in animal hides, cloaks, and soot
edged masks, not as entertainment or to play, but to
hide if the dead walked tonight, they thought it would
be better to look like one of them. This this
(15:27):
is where costumes begin. Not out of joy, not imagination,
but out of camouflage.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Oh, I just I just have this image of like
a dark you know, big hillside with pine trees and
this big fire and you see these druids and people
with their quote unquote camouflage.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
On, and yeah, you know the costume.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
You can almost put yourself there. Hey where it's like
you know, but like like it says, it's not out
of joy, Like this wasn't fun. This is you know,
this was serious business for them.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
The the part about the belief that people could wander
into the light and then possibly disappear and reappear a
year later thinking it had only been moments. It reminds
me of a Fairy Rings when we went over fairy
Rings at one of our one of our past episodes,
and how people would enter into the fairy rings and
then disappear possibly forever.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Well totally in the comment about elves, I've also heard
that there's a lot of folklore even in the United
States and some of the I think the Appalachian mountains
and areas where there's lots of caves that there's these
like many elf like creatures that live in these caves
(16:53):
and come out on certain nights. And it reminds me
of when they're when you said there that their mounds
open up on specific nights.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
Yeah, yeah, and just to come out.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:06):
History moved in as it always does when the Roman
Empire reached Celtic lands in the first century, Old traditions
meant new gods, and something strange began to form between
these cultures. The Romans honored the dead during their own
tradition called Paralia a late October rite, and they celebrated Pomona,
the goddess, the goddess excuse me of orchards. Her symbol
(17:30):
was the apple. As the two cultures blended, this is
where apple rituals entered Halloween. But these weren't games. They
were acts of divination, attempts to see the future. When
the year was turning, Girls would peel an apple in
a single curl and toss it over her shoulder to
see how it landed to reveal a future lover's initials.
(17:52):
Or they gazed into a mirror at midnight, hoping to
glimpse the face of the one they'd marry or someone
they might lose. Halloween had less to do with candy
and more to do with asking questions to try and
figure out the future.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah. You know, we never change as humans are always
trying something to find the future. Yeah, I've never honestly, Yeah, yeah,
this is honestly the first time I'm hearing about this
apple peel thing. Yeah, like peeling it in one go
and throwing it to find to see who your lover's
initials are.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
Yeah, that's ay, And it's interesting.
Speaker 7 (18:30):
Rome again had their own celebration of the Dead near
the end of October, right.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, And so those naturally just.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Mixed together, blended together.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
The supernatural side of the Celtic traditions and the.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Apples, the divination techniques. Yeah, I'd love to see like.
Speaker 7 (18:50):
A modern psychic or someone be like, do you want
to do you want to figure out who you're gonna
marry one day?
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Do you have an apple with you? And then peeling
the apple and throwing it over their shoulder.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And yeah that's z Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
By the early Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had begun
to take notice of these lingering fires. In eight thirty
five CE, they acted Pope Gregory the II moved all
Saints date to November one, aligning it directly atop sam Hayne.
The intent, Historian's note, was not to destroy the old traditions,
but to absorb them, to christianize the night without trying
(19:33):
to erase it. The evening before became all Hallow's Eve
or Halloween, but the practices continued. People still lit candles
for ancestors, they still wore disguises, they still went door
to door, but now they offered prayers for soul in
purgatory in exchange for soul cakes. This was called souling,
(19:56):
and it is one of the earliest forms of trick
or treating. The exchange was not candy for someone's costume,
but it was supposed to be payment for mercy, payment
for a prayer to take place for someone's soul.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
It is like all these different cultures mixing, right, Like
all these different beliefs and soul cakes. Yeah, sounds delicious.
I don't know what they are, but it sounds good.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (20:24):
And again, these were lower class people who were going
door to door. So I'm imagining someone making a soul
cake and leaving on the front porch and being like yeah,
I don't want no contact with that, just pray for
the dead.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (20:39):
Centuries later we changed Halloween, reshaping it to fit what
we needed in that moment, mainly answers, connection and a
deep curiosity. In the nineteenth century, spiritualism was not a
fringe belief. It was fashionable. It was trendy. As historian
lay Eric Schmidt notes, seances were a widespread social pastime
(21:02):
among the educated classes. Parlors became seance rooms with table turning,
automatic writings, spirit photography, all of which were practiced openly.
Halloween became a knight of ghost story readings, mirror divination,
and candlelit fortune parlor games. In Scotland and Ireland, young
people would walk into orchards at night, carrying only a candle,
(21:26):
hoping to see the silhouette of their future spouse appear
beside them. In England, families would darken the room entirely
except for one candle and stare into a mirror, waiting
to see what face might materialize behind them. Sometimes the
face was kind, sometimes it was unfamiliar. We had shifted
(21:46):
strictly from a survival ritual and fear to curiosity.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
You know, it's interesting that comment about how spiritualism was
not fringe, it was fashionable, and I feel like, you know,
and this is just my observation, but like historically there
was a lot more spiritualism, and as we became more
(22:14):
you know, scientific discoveries increased, and we became more not spiritual.
I'm not finding the word here, but you know, I
feel like that's kind of coming to an end. Not
maybe not an end, but we're transitioning, I feel like,
back into more spiritual things. Like there's a lot more people,
(22:36):
even just people I'm talking to, but you go online anywhere,
there's a lot more talk about spiritual things. And part
of that, I think is we kind of peaked. Our
comfort levels kind of peaked in a sense, so like
we had easy, comfortable lives, we had all the things
(22:57):
we needed. And as things kind of go from that
to more uncertainty, you know, we don't we can't afford
as many things. There's a little bit more pressure on everybody.
We start to look for things beyond the veil. Again.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
Yeah, and I.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Feel I feel that transition in society right now. What
about you, Well, I think.
Speaker 6 (23:18):
There's also the flip side.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
I think that you know, we reached the age of
Enlightenment and then you know, the Industrial Revolution, and now
people have a lot more, right, Like, people aren't struggling
to survive as much, and they're going, you know, there
must be more than this, there must be more than
this world, and there's a longing for you know, spiritual
(23:41):
identity and for you know, some sort of revelation that
there's there's more than this.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah. No, that's actually a great way of looking at it,
because maybe it has less to do with being less
comfortable and more to do with we have so much
and we're still feeling that empty space within.
Speaker 7 (23:59):
It seems whichever end of the spectrum we go to
in terms of needs being met, we end up with, Okay,
there must be must be something more than just the
material realm, right. Absolutely so again, you see that in
what we've gone over with history so far, with started
off with people's basic survival rituals to like, let's let's
(24:21):
do this. So we make it through the winter to
the Victorian era where it's like, oh, like there's there's
we want to figure out who our spouse is even
though we have food and everything else too, It's there
was curiosity there still.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Absolutely they have they have homes, they have heat, they
have food, so time to look for something else.
Speaker 7 (24:44):
The fascination has historically always lived beside fear, and fear
has a way of turning people against their own. In
the centuries after sam Hayne became Halloween, the world grew
suspicious of anyone who lingered too close to the old ways.
What one this was considered sacred became an accusation, and
when crops failed, children died, or tempers flared, communities reached
(25:07):
for an explanation. Over time, the convenient scapegoats became those
who practiced household magic, midwives, herbalists, and wise women. Specifically,
the Catholic Church saw them in a kind of power it
could not control. Accusation was rarely neutral. It followed disputes
about land, debt, or reputation, and it felt the hardest
(25:29):
unde vulnerable widows, the elderly, those with no one to
defend them, those who were on the edge of society.
The result was never a simple search for witches, but
a system where power, fear, and violence worked together to
kill thousands. By the fifteenth century, fear and faith blurred
into something cruel, and rather it was ritualistic faith tens
(25:54):
of thousands, mostly women, were tortured and killed in the
name of purification. Their deaths were not ritual, they were murder,
carried out by frightened world trying to silence what it
could not understand. Other symbols evolved too, Even animals weren't
safe from suspicion. Black Cats, once seen as guardians of
(26:16):
the hearth, became symbols of heresy and darkness. In twelve
thirty three, a papal decree described heretics consorting with a
black cat, and the image stuck by the height of
the witch trials. Cats were said to be witches, familiars,
or witches themselves. In another form, fear of the unknown
became fear of the natural world.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
What a transition, ah, from going from survival to a
little bit more about let's have fun and figure out
who we're going to marry.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
And this is real, let's mess with it, like yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
To let's start killing people because we don't understand and
were scared. Yeah, yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean, the black
cat thing that's still today. People are suspicious. You see
one walk by you, you're like black cat.
Speaker 7 (27:09):
I think of the matrix where Neo sees the cat.
I think it was black, and yeah it was. He's like, oh,
deja vu, and Morpheus is like, what it's like glitch,
glitch in the system.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah, but yeah, very very dark times. Yeah, you know,
I think the what was it? Curiosity can can be
close to fear, or or we can easily fall into
fear when we get curious.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
And pasting curiosity killed the cat came from? Now, I
probably didn't, but it's still an interesting thought.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Actually, as soon as you said, oh yeah, But.
Speaker 7 (27:48):
Even as the witch hunts faded, another kind of darkness
took root, hidden, fractured in secret. Because well, most of
what we call witchcraft was never evil at all, History
shows that some did turn to shadowed practices. Across Europe
and North America. There are accounts that describe animal sacrifice,
(28:09):
blood rights, and symbolic offerings carried out on sam Hayne
or Haul Hallow's Eve, acts meant to mirror the ancient
fire festivals or twist them into something inverted. Whether you
believe every testimony or not, enough patterns remain in law
enforcement archives and historical records to suggest that some people
(28:30):
did and still do, mark this night for reasons far
from holy. Every so often someone tries to make these
old myths reel again. Police archives across North America and
Europe contained thousands of Halloween night cases that read more
like folklore than reports. Grave desecrations, animal killings, blood drawn
(28:52):
symbols on chapel doors. In nineteen eighty nine, just south
of the US border, Mexican police uncovered what became known
as the Matamaro's Cult murders, a drug trafficking ring that
fused cartel rituals with a cult sacrifice. Victims were mutilated
inside a ritual shed and their bones mixed with animal remains.
(29:15):
Investigators said the killings coincided with spring and autumn equinox rites,
echoes of ancient fire festivals twisted into something monstrous. A
decade earlier, Chicago faced its own brush with ritual violence.
The so called Ripper Crew, four men following a self
self invented satanic creed, abducted and murdered more than a
(29:39):
dozen women between nineteen eighty one and nineteen eighty two.
In the late nineteen eighties, the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit
began tracking what it called ritual linked offenses. This was vandalism, arson,
and animal mutilation that spiked every October. Agent Kenneth Lanning's
(30:00):
this nineteen ninety two report described most of it as
theatrical evil people acting out the image of darkness rather
than serving it, but he warned that a small number
did believe. He said they confused symbolism for power, and
when fantasy and belief converge, violence follows. Even Canada has
(30:20):
its own instances. In twenty eighteen, Ontario police investigated a
series of animal sacrifices along the Thames River, chickens, goats,
and doves left in circles with candles and chalk. Locals
called it witchcraft. Investigators traced it to a small Afro
Caribbean ritual groups landing centaur Ria with modern occult symbolism.
(30:45):
No charges were laid, but the pattern was unmistakable old
world ritual transplanted to Canadian soil, and just two years
ago in Spain, police raided the Order of the Dragon,
a sect accused of ritual abuse. Time to both Beltane
and sam Hayne, investigators found altars, blood sigils, and recordings
(31:07):
of ceremonies meant to purify through fear. These are not legends.
And maybe that's the most chilling part. For every harmless
costume and cannibal, there are still those who treat this
night as something sacred in the wrong direction. A reminder
that when we play with the darkness, something might just
(31:29):
decide to play back.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, there's a seems to be a thread between all
these things. You know, you look back, go all the
way back to what we were talking about with the
witch trials and then some witchcraft turning very in a
very dark direction, to occultic murders within the drug trafficking,
(31:57):
and the Ripper Crew, the thing in Canada at the
Thames River. To me, all these things point to people
wanting power, right, So, fear and power quite often, I mean,
they're very closely related. You know. Fear is a type
(32:22):
of power over people when they're afraid you have some
form of power over them. But whether it's power over
vulnerable people or power over people that oppressed you in
the case of the witch trials or I'm sorry, the
witches that were oppressed wanted power over the people that
(32:42):
oppressed them and went to dark ways, and then the
Ripper Crew power over vulnerable women. You know, these are
powers and intoxicating emotion or feeling, and people do really
scary things when they when they want power.
Speaker 7 (33:00):
And I think of even Kenneth Lannings or Flannings, Kenneth Lannings,
Kenneth Lannings, you know, quote that it's just theatrical evil,
and it's like, Okay, well, either these things are real
or they're not. There's no in between, like there's no
partial supernatural worldview. It's either all of this is you know,
(33:25):
connected to something supernatural, or it's not. And so even
if these people were just carrying out theatrical acts, there
was still ritual involved to invoke something supernatural.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Absolutely, And the ironic thing is is when people would
do this for power or to feel powerful, you know,
I believe they were being twisted by dark spirits and
dark demons and things like that, the beliefs we're really
(33:58):
exercising power over them. So it was like the more
power they were seeking, they were actually empowering these these
dark things over themselves. And yeah, you know, I think
I don't think naturally people are evil. I think when
they become influenced by the dark spirits and the demons
(34:21):
and the things that the evil things that are in
the spiritual world they do things that I don't think
any human is capable of doing right less they influenced, Yeah,
you could be very deceiving. Yes.
Speaker 7 (34:38):
When Irish and Scottish immigrants carried their traditions to North America,
we changed Halloween again, this time into something playful. Noisy
and new cities replaced villages, streets replaced fields, and Halloween
became a night of mischief. In some places, The night
before Halloween became mischief Night, a time for mild chaos.
(35:00):
There was soaked windows, gatelifting, where people would remove someone's
front gate and hide it. Entire carriages were moved to rooftops,
and factory whistles were being blown at midnight. The living
became the ones who haunted the town. Communities eventually encouraged
organized trick or treating to redirect mischief into something gentler,
(35:22):
where people were trading sweets so they could have a
peaceful night, and instead of a torch being carried to
everyone's homes, we now have our porch lights and jack
o lanterns. They began as carved turnips in Ireland and Scotland,
placed in windowsills to ward off harmful spirits. Their name
comes from the legend of Stingy Jack, a trickster cursed
(35:46):
to wander the earth with nothing but a homemade lantern
burning coal inside a carved turn up to light his way.
When Irish immigrants came to North America, they found pumpkins
which were larger, softer, and easier to carve.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I'm not ashamed to admit I like this. I like
the light side of Halloween. The funness. Yeah, like that's
you know, that's what we all enjoy now. But it's
kind of a microcosm of our modern society. How we've
taken some things that were very serious and very real
(36:24):
and we've kind of trivialized them in a sense. And
like I said, I'm good with it here. Yeah, I think,
you know, I think this is some of those things
in the past. We're very dark and we don't want
to focus on those, but yeah, I find it a
little bit of a microcosm of how we've just naturalized
and made everything very normal instead of paranormal.
Speaker 7 (36:48):
Right, And like it's you can see the difference right
in the whimsical side Halloween. You know, your your daughter
dressing up as a Disney princess versus like the ghoulish
Gore side of Halloween with the hardcore skin peels, mannekins,
(37:10):
and people's front yard, reflecting back to what some of
the belief was that the dead looked like walking around
on this night, and so will your daughter dressed up
as a Disney princess isn't trying to mimic the dead
that might be walking that night, right? There's still those
elements in Halloween today, even now, beneath plastic decor and
(37:33):
candy aisles, we can feel something older lingering, a reminder
of what we once believed. In modern pagan and Wickan traditions,
sam Hayne or again Sowen is the final harvest, the
turning of.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
The wheel of the year.
Speaker 7 (37:49):
It is associated with the Krone, the elder archetype who
believes death isn't a terror, but a transition from this
life to the next. Candles are lit because they're believe
to welcome ancestors home. A place is set at the
table for those who are gone, not to summon them,
but to tell them that they are remembered. If you've
(38:10):
listened to Midnight Mysteries for a long time, and we
mentioned this earlier, you know that we love patterns regarding
the paranormal cross cultures, and Halloween is not unique to
Celtic Land. In Mexico, families celebrate De los Mortes, decorating
altars with marigolds and candles to welcome the dead home.
(38:33):
In Japan, during Owan, lanterns are set afloat on rivers
to guide spirits back to the other world. In China,
family sweep graves, burn incense, and share food with the departed.
Different languages, different lands, but with a very similar impulse.
It acknowledges that the line between here and there is
(38:55):
not as solid as we pretend.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
It's fascinating to me that, I mean, every all these
places around the world, totally different cultures, everything, and yet
there's this common thread. And I think it kind of
lends itself to that we're not just physical, We're not
just animals, We're not just physical beings where we have
(39:22):
a spirit side, where physical and spiritual. I believe that
that's how we were created, is the first and only
physical and spiritual beings that we can be in and
out of both worlds at the same time. And I think,
you know, looking at how these different cultures, different people
(39:43):
from around the world and different timelines felt that Pole right,
that kind of I mean you probably know that feeling right.
Sometimes you just have that pole. It's like you can't
explain it.
Speaker 7 (39:54):
It's like in your intuition, the sense, like the voice
within right.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Exactly, and it's like some one's you know, someone's pulling
you with a rope or leading you onto something. Mhm,
you know I think that's that's our spirits pulling us right. Yeah,
it's fascinating.
Speaker 7 (40:14):
The door between worlds only opens for a moment, but
maybe that's all it needs, whether you celebrate Halloween, sam Hayne,
or just the turning of the seasons. Remember, every candle,
every mask, every tradition began as someone's way of reaching
through the dark, sometimes with good intention, sometimes with freaky results.
(40:38):
Have you ever felt that same poll, like something was
just beyond the edge of sight? Send us your story.
We read them all, even the ones that keep us
up at night. Thanks for listening, and remember, stay weird
and we'll see you next time on midnight mysteries.
Speaker 6 (40:54):
Have a great night. Shot.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderella Acts. You are listening to
the Fringe Radio Network.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
I know I was gonna tell him, Hey, do you.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Have the app?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
It's the best way to listen to the Fringe radio network.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
It's safe and you don't have to log in to
use it, and it doesn't track you or trace you,
and it sounds beautiful.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
I know I was gonna tell him, how.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Do you get the app?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Just go to fringeradionetwork dot com right at the top
of the page.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
I know, slippers, we gotta keep cleaning these chimneys.
Hi, everybody, It's me Cinderella. As you are listening to
the Fringe Radio Network. I know I was gonna tell them, Hey,
do you.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Have the app?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
It's the best way to listen to the Fringe Radio Network.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
It's safe and you don't have to log in to
use it, and it doesn't track you or trace you,
and it sounds beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I know I was gonna tell him, how do you
get the app?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Just go to Fringe radionetwork dot com right at the
top of the page.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I know, slippers, we gotta keep cleaning these chimneys.
Speaker 5 (00:47):
Coming to you lot from a cabin deep in the
heart of the Canadian wilderness. Turn down the lights, get
yourself a drink, and let's settle in for tonight's broadcast.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Welcome back to Midnight Mysteries, the heart of Canadian paranormal radio.
Speaker 6 (01:25):
My name is Michael and I'm Nathan.
Speaker 7 (01:28):
Tonight, we're going back to the oldest night we know,
a night of firelight, masks, and things that walk between worlds.
Long before plastic skeletons and candy bowls, there was something deeper,
something sacred in the dark. This is the story of
Halloween began and why it still feels different. Have you
(01:48):
ever felt it, that strange stillness in the air, that
sense that something unseen is near. Tell us your thoughts
and stories in the comments, if you dare. Before we
wander too far into the dark, Let's take a look
at what's been happening behind the curtain. In recent news,
authorities in Saskatchewan have arrested Romana di Dallo, who is
(02:11):
the self proclaimed Queen of Canada, along with several followers
at a compound inside a decommissioned school. Di Dallo, who
rose to prominence through fringe conspiracy circles, has spent years
proclaiming herself the rightful ruler of Canada, urging followers to
stand down government officials, refuse to pay bills, and prepare
(02:32):
for a coming mass cleansing. Arsim Ki charged her with
intimidation and violating court orders after months of escalating incidents.
Inside the compound, investigators found signs of long term occupation
at what one official called an echo of cultic control.
As strange as it sounds, these aren't isolated beliefs. They're
(02:54):
part of a growing pattern of modern cult dynamics resurfacing
across Canada. Groups gathering around self appointed prophets, taking over
rural properties, and blending apocalyptic theology with Internet conspiracy. The
old bonfire cat ritual has evolved into something darker and
more clandestine, a reminder that the impulse to follow mystery
(03:17):
and power can still burn just as dangerly dangerously as
it did thousands of years ago. Speaking of cults across
the ocean, investigators are still uncovering the depths of a
modern day ritual gone horribly wrong.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
In Kenya.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
New forensic reports from the shakh Aholah Forest, where over
four hundred members of the Good News International Church died
earlier this year, show signs of animal sacrifice and organized
fasting rituals tied to apocalyptic prophecy. Survivors say their leader
promised salvation through starvation, claiming that death would be a
(03:56):
gateway to meeting Jesus. Have now connected the group's teachings
to other small sects in Africa and UK, where similar
rituals of fasting, sacrifice, and purification have appeared. What began
as a distorted faith became a form of ritual violence,
proof that even today, belief can still lead people to
(04:18):
the edge of death in search of the divine. Now
in recent disclosure news, newly declassified files from the US
Air Force revealed something pretty unsettling. Between the nineteen fifties
and nineteen sixties, under a program called Project Blue Lantern,
the government staged fake UFO sightings. Are claimed to stage
(04:41):
fake UFO sightings not to deceive public for amusement, but
to test how people would react under pressure. Radar echoes
were supposedly fabricated lights were projected into clouds. Even false
crash sites were planted in remote areas to measure how
fast story spread and how deeply fear could travel. Declassified
(05:03):
memos showed that these stage incidences were part of a
psychological warfare exercise designed to study panic, information control, and
public belief in the unknown. Mike, what do you think
of this disclosure document?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
You know, I find disclosure things. It just muddies the water,
Like do you know what I just you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (05:28):
And this this to me feels like they they want
to go out of their way to explain away these
UFO sightings to the point where they're like, yeah, you know,
we planted this crashed UFO way in the middle of
a desert mountain range in case somebody would find it
because we wanted to measure the impact on culture. It's like, okay,
(05:50):
what was a farmer in a field like got picked
up by a local newspaper.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
It just well, I like fabricating radar echoes, Like the
general like isn't looking at radar echoes.
Speaker 7 (06:01):
So yeah, and most of the radar technicians are in
that part of where these incidences took place, part of
the military.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
They're sworn to secrecy there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, it's really interesting though because this is recent, but
there's also been some other recent things about this specific
comment coming through and.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
How be an alien ship.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, and I don't know, it makes me think that
they're trying to distract us from something. Yeah, Like it's
it's kind of there seems to be a lot going
on right now and related to in relation to disclosures
and fear mongering about stuff.
Speaker 7 (06:45):
And on top of that, this was the nineteen fifties
and sixties. This wasn't in today's day and age, where
you know, a random TikTok video could go viral that
would make more sense testing the the culture sense of fear.
This is again for any sort of social media, social
networking or the Internet existed yeah, yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well. For more news about the paranormal, local events and
strange occurrences, remember to subscribe to Midnight Mysteries, the heart
of Canadian paranormal Radio.
Speaker 7 (07:31):
There's something about the last night of October that makes
the world feel different. The air gets sharper, the light
fades earlier, and the familiar places around us, the sidewalk,
the yard, the tree line, start to feel like a
memory we've stepped back into. Maybe it's the season, but
maybe it's something old. Something our subconscious is stirring, because
(07:57):
on this night we carve faces into pumpkins like candles
and windows. We dress ourselves in disguises, and we wait
for the dark, even if most of us don't remember
why anymore. Tonight we're going back to be four plastic
skeletons before candy balls, before Halloween had a name, Back
(08:17):
to a night of fire and silence, a night that
was considered reverent by many, a night when boundaries between
worlds seemed to blur. So take a breath, light a candle,
and check the lock on your door, and remember every
tradition starts with some truth. Long before Halloween, there was
(08:40):
sam Hane or what is actually pronounced so in. Strong
archaeological evidence suggests that sam Hane so In emerged more
than three thousand years ago, rooted in prehistoric seasonal rites
among the Western Celtic peoples. Long before anyone wrote down
their stories of it in the ninth or tenth centuries,
(09:01):
it was already ancient. People across Ireland, Scotland and the
Isle of Man marked this night. According to what we
know from early Celtic calendars and oral tradition, it occurred
from sunset on October thirty first to sunset on November first,
a transition between the warm season and the cold one.
(09:22):
Sam Hayne marked the end of a harvest. The final
crops were gathered, herds were called for winter, and it
was viewed as a moment between life and death. Winter
wasn't symbolic, it was deadly. It took people every year,
it decided who would see spring again to the gales.
Death was part of the same pattern that turned the seasons.
(09:45):
When the harvest was done and the land went quiet,
they believed the world itself was dying, and in that death,
the veil between here and the other world grew thin.
To the Celts, the world was not divided into one reality,
but several, all layered and touching with the other world,
the realm of spirits, gods, and beings with older stories
(10:09):
than ours. Most of the year, these worlds remained separate,
but not tonight. One historian, Ronald Hutton describes it as
a time when the veil between the living and the
dead was believed to thin, permitting the two to meet.
It's a poetic way to explain that people already seemed
(10:32):
to sense that this night was different, whether or not
the dead physically walked among the living. People behaved and
believed as though they could not just as spirits, ghosts
or apparitions as what we see with a lot of
Halloween now, but the believe the dead on this night
were just as physical as you, me, and almost everyone
(10:53):
else listening, and that belief shaped everything that followed.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Find it so interesting that, you know, like in this
in this case the the Celtic people, but so many
different ancient groups and historical groups they had such similar
ideas about having these layered different realms right of spirits
(11:21):
and gods and angels and demons, And it just makes
you wonder like they must have been onto something. I mean,
if if that was kind of a general across the
world where there was no connection, there was no you
know log onto, you know, the Internet and Wipedia exactly right,
(11:41):
So there there stuff like that just makes me believe
it a lot more, right, when there's ancient groups with
no real major connections that are believing similar things.
Speaker 7 (11:53):
Yeah, if you've if you've followed Midnight Mysteries for any
amount of time, you know that our favorite pattern is
when we see these ideas across cultures across the world,
before cultures were connected, before they even knew that there
were other people around the world, and they have the
same beliefs and the same type of cryptids and the
(12:14):
same type of you know, folklore and legends, but not
just generalized ones, but like very specific ones. And this
Night of the Dead is one of those ones that
occurs cross cultures, and we'll go over a few of
those later on in the episode two.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, and the other kind of common thread I see
a lot is this idea that certain times the veil
between these realms is thinner, right, the thirty first being
one of those one of those days. But then also,
you know, we quite often hear about the Witching Hour
or right yeah, three am to four am. How the
(12:50):
early hours of the morning is another time where yeah,
the veil is thin and there seems to be more spiritualized.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
People's sense more right.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, yeah, Hell, I guess it would be November first
at three am. Would you would be your thinnest veil
the end?
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (13:08):
Yeah, Because again, Halloween isn't just October thirty first, It's
from October thirty first to the end of November first.
So imagine a Gaelic village at the end of a harvest,
Crops stacked in granaries, the earth bare and dark, the
smell of peat smoke drifting from the hearth, a chill
(13:28):
so sharp you taste it.
Speaker 6 (13:32):
This is the.
Speaker 7 (13:32):
Moment when community mattered most, because no one survived winter alone.
On sam Hayne night, the people extinguished their hearth fires.
They plunged their home into darkness. I picture like a
hillside just going dark with people's homes. Then they gathered
on the nearest hill where a great bonfire was lit
by druids. This was not a fire out of celebration.
(13:56):
It was believed to be sacred, a ritual against the darkness.
Once the communal fire burned high enough to be seen
across the valley. Each family carried home a torch from
that fire to rekindle their hearth. It was a single
fire binding the living together, That's what they believed. And
then they presented offerings like food, wine, bread, and milk
(14:19):
outside their doorways. And this wasn't a decoration. It was
meant as hospitality for the dead passing through on this night.
But not all spirits were thought to be kind. Some
were restless. Some were souls who died unburied or unloved,
drawn back to the warmth of their old homes. Others
weren't human at all. There was the echi, which were
(14:42):
a type of elf whose mounds were set to open
up on this night, letting their music spill into the dark.
Travelers often told stories about hearing harps from hollow hills,
seeing dancers vanishing into light, and if people returning years
later thinking only a night had passed to the gales.
These were not fairy tales. They were reminders that the
(15:04):
world was shared between the living and something else. So
people disguised themselves, wrapping in animal hides, cloaks, and soot
edged masks, not as entertainment or to play, but to
hide if the dead walked tonight, they thought it would
be better to look like one of them. This this
(15:27):
is where costumes begin. Not out of joy, not imagination,
but out of camouflage.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Oh, I just I just have this image of like
a dark you know, big hillside with pine trees and
this big fire and you see these druids and people
with their quote unquote camouflage.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
On, and yeah, you know the costume.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
You can almost put yourself there. Hey where it's like
you know, but like like it says, it's not out
of joy, Like this wasn't fun. This is you know,
this was serious business for them.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
The the part about the belief that people could wander
into the light and then possibly disappear and reappear a
year later thinking it had only been moments. It reminds
me of a Fairy Rings when we went over fairy
Rings at one of our one of our past episodes,
and how people would enter into the fairy rings and
then disappear possibly forever.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Well totally in the comment about elves, I've also heard
that there's a lot of folklore even in the United
States and some of the I think the Appalachian mountains
and areas where there's lots of caves that there's these
like many elf like creatures that live in these caves
(16:53):
and come out on certain nights. And it reminds me
of when they're when you said there that their mounds
open up on specific nights.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
Yeah, yeah, and just to come out.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:06):
History moved in as it always does when the Roman
Empire reached Celtic lands in the first century, Old traditions
meant new gods, and something strange began to form between
these cultures. The Romans honored the dead during their own
tradition called Paralia a late October rite, and they celebrated Pomona,
the goddess, the goddess excuse me of orchards. Her symbol
(17:30):
was the apple. As the two cultures blended, this is
where apple rituals entered Halloween. But these weren't games. They
were acts of divination, attempts to see the future. When
the year was turning, Girls would peel an apple in
a single curl and toss it over her shoulder to
see how it landed to reveal a future lover's initials.
(17:52):
Or they gazed into a mirror at midnight, hoping to
glimpse the face of the one they'd marry or someone
they might lose. Halloween had less to do with candy
and more to do with asking questions to try and
figure out the future.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah. You know, we never change as humans are always
trying something to find the future. Yeah, I've never honestly, Yeah, yeah,
this is honestly the first time I'm hearing about this
apple peel thing. Yeah, like peeling it in one go
and throwing it to find to see who your lover's
initials are.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
Yeah, that's ay, And it's interesting.
Speaker 7 (18:30):
Rome again had their own celebration of the Dead near
the end of October, right.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, And so those naturally just.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Mixed together, blended together.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
The supernatural side of the Celtic traditions and the.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Apples, the divination techniques. Yeah, I'd love to see like.
Speaker 7 (18:50):
A modern psychic or someone be like, do you want
to do you want to figure out who you're gonna
marry one day?
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Do you have an apple with you? And then peeling
the apple and throwing it over their shoulder.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And yeah that's z Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
By the early Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had begun
to take notice of these lingering fires. In eight thirty
five CE, they acted Pope Gregory the II moved all
Saints date to November one, aligning it directly atop sam Hayne.
The intent, Historian's note, was not to destroy the old traditions,
but to absorb them, to christianize the night without trying
(19:33):
to erase it. The evening before became all Hallow's Eve
or Halloween, but the practices continued. People still lit candles
for ancestors, they still wore disguises, they still went door
to door, but now they offered prayers for soul in
purgatory in exchange for soul cakes. This was called souling,
(19:56):
and it is one of the earliest forms of trick
or treating. The exchange was not candy for someone's costume,
but it was supposed to be payment for mercy, payment
for a prayer to take place for someone's soul.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
It is like all these different cultures mixing, right, Like
all these different beliefs and soul cakes. Yeah, sounds delicious.
I don't know what they are, but it sounds good.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (20:24):
And again, these were lower class people who were going
door to door. So I'm imagining someone making a soul
cake and leaving on the front porch and being like yeah,
I don't want no contact with that, just pray for
the dead.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (20:39):
Centuries later we changed Halloween, reshaping it to fit what
we needed in that moment, mainly answers, connection and a
deep curiosity. In the nineteenth century, spiritualism was not a
fringe belief. It was fashionable. It was trendy. As historian
lay Eric Schmidt notes, seances were a widespread social pastime
(21:02):
among the educated classes. Parlors became seance rooms with table turning,
automatic writings, spirit photography, all of which were practiced openly.
Halloween became a knight of ghost story readings, mirror divination,
and candlelit fortune parlor games. In Scotland and Ireland, young
people would walk into orchards at night, carrying only a candle,
(21:26):
hoping to see the silhouette of their future spouse appear
beside them. In England, families would darken the room entirely
except for one candle and stare into a mirror, waiting
to see what face might materialize behind them. Sometimes the
face was kind, sometimes it was unfamiliar. We had shifted
(21:46):
strictly from a survival ritual and fear to curiosity.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
You know, it's interesting that comment about how spiritualism was
not fringe, it was fashionable, and I feel like, you know,
and this is just my observation, but like historically there
was a lot more spiritualism, and as we became more
(22:14):
you know, scientific discoveries increased, and we became more not spiritual.
I'm not finding the word here, but you know, I
feel like that's kind of coming to an end. Not
maybe not an end, but we're transitioning, I feel like,
back into more spiritual things. Like there's a lot more people,
(22:36):
even just people I'm talking to, but you go online anywhere,
there's a lot more talk about spiritual things. And part
of that, I think is we kind of peaked. Our
comfort levels kind of peaked in a sense, so like
we had easy, comfortable lives, we had all the things
(22:57):
we needed. And as things kind of go from that
to more uncertainty, you know, we don't we can't afford
as many things. There's a little bit more pressure on everybody.
We start to look for things beyond the veil. Again.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
Yeah, and I.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Feel I feel that transition in society right now. What
about you, Well, I think.
Speaker 6 (23:18):
There's also the flip side.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
I think that you know, we reached the age of
Enlightenment and then you know, the Industrial Revolution, and now
people have a lot more, right, Like, people aren't struggling
to survive as much, and they're going, you know, there
must be more than this, there must be more than
this world, and there's a longing for you know, spiritual
(23:41):
identity and for you know, some sort of revelation that
there's there's more than this.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah. No, that's actually a great way of looking at it,
because maybe it has less to do with being less
comfortable and more to do with we have so much
and we're still feeling that empty space within.
Speaker 7 (23:59):
It seems whichever end of the spectrum we go to
in terms of needs being met, we end up with, Okay,
there must be must be something more than just the
material realm, right. Absolutely so again, you see that in
what we've gone over with history so far, with started
off with people's basic survival rituals to like, let's let's
(24:21):
do this. So we make it through the winter to
the Victorian era where it's like, oh, like there's there's
we want to figure out who our spouse is even
though we have food and everything else too, It's there
was curiosity there still.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Absolutely they have they have homes, they have heat, they
have food, so time to look for something else.
Speaker 7 (24:44):
The fascination has historically always lived beside fear, and fear
has a way of turning people against their own. In
the centuries after sam Hayne became Halloween, the world grew
suspicious of anyone who lingered too close to the old ways.
What one this was considered sacred became an accusation, and
when crops failed, children died, or tempers flared, communities reached
(25:07):
for an explanation. Over time, the convenient scapegoats became those
who practiced household magic, midwives, herbalists, and wise women. Specifically,
the Catholic Church saw them in a kind of power it
could not control. Accusation was rarely neutral. It followed disputes
about land, debt, or reputation, and it felt the hardest
(25:29):
unde vulnerable widows, the elderly, those with no one to
defend them, those who were on the edge of society.
The result was never a simple search for witches, but
a system where power, fear, and violence worked together to
kill thousands. By the fifteenth century, fear and faith blurred
into something cruel, and rather it was ritualistic faith tens
(25:54):
of thousands, mostly women, were tortured and killed in the
name of purification. Their deaths were not ritual, they were murder,
carried out by frightened world trying to silence what it
could not understand. Other symbols evolved too, Even animals weren't
safe from suspicion. Black Cats, once seen as guardians of
(26:16):
the hearth, became symbols of heresy and darkness. In twelve
thirty three, a papal decree described heretics consorting with a
black cat, and the image stuck by the height of
the witch trials. Cats were said to be witches, familiars,
or witches themselves. In another form, fear of the unknown
became fear of the natural world.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
What a transition, ah, from going from survival to a
little bit more about let's have fun and figure out
who we're going to marry.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
And this is real, let's mess with it, like yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
To let's start killing people because we don't understand and
were scared. Yeah, yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean, the black
cat thing that's still today. People are suspicious. You see
one walk by you, you're like black cat.
Speaker 7 (27:09):
I think of the matrix where Neo sees the cat.
I think it was black, and yeah it was. He's like, oh,
deja vu, and Morpheus is like, what it's like glitch,
glitch in the system.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah, but yeah, very very dark times. Yeah, you know,
I think the what was it? Curiosity can can be
close to fear, or or we can easily fall into
fear when we get curious.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
And pasting curiosity killed the cat came from? Now, I
probably didn't, but it's still an interesting thought.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Actually, as soon as you said, oh yeah, But.
Speaker 7 (27:48):
Even as the witch hunts faded, another kind of darkness
took root, hidden, fractured in secret. Because well, most of
what we call witchcraft was never evil at all, History
shows that some did turn to shadowed practices. Across Europe
and North America. There are accounts that describe animal sacrifice,
(28:09):
blood rights, and symbolic offerings carried out on sam Hayne
or Haul Hallow's Eve, acts meant to mirror the ancient
fire festivals or twist them into something inverted. Whether you
believe every testimony or not, enough patterns remain in law
enforcement archives and historical records to suggest that some people
(28:30):
did and still do, mark this night for reasons far
from holy. Every so often someone tries to make these
old myths reel again. Police archives across North America and
Europe contained thousands of Halloween night cases that read more
like folklore than reports. Grave desecrations, animal killings, blood drawn
(28:52):
symbols on chapel doors. In nineteen eighty nine, just south
of the US border, Mexican police uncovered what became known
as the Matamaro's Cult murders, a drug trafficking ring that
fused cartel rituals with a cult sacrifice. Victims were mutilated
inside a ritual shed and their bones mixed with animal remains.
(29:15):
Investigators said the killings coincided with spring and autumn equinox rites,
echoes of ancient fire festivals twisted into something monstrous. A
decade earlier, Chicago faced its own brush with ritual violence.
The so called Ripper Crew, four men following a self
self invented satanic creed, abducted and murdered more than a
(29:39):
dozen women between nineteen eighty one and nineteen eighty two.
In the late nineteen eighties, the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit
began tracking what it called ritual linked offenses. This was vandalism, arson,
and animal mutilation that spiked every October. Agent Kenneth Lanning's
(30:00):
this nineteen ninety two report described most of it as
theatrical evil people acting out the image of darkness rather
than serving it, but he warned that a small number
did believe. He said they confused symbolism for power, and
when fantasy and belief converge, violence follows. Even Canada has
(30:20):
its own instances. In twenty eighteen, Ontario police investigated a
series of animal sacrifices along the Thames River, chickens, goats,
and doves left in circles with candles and chalk. Locals
called it witchcraft. Investigators traced it to a small Afro
Caribbean ritual groups landing centaur Ria with modern occult symbolism.
(30:45):
No charges were laid, but the pattern was unmistakable old
world ritual transplanted to Canadian soil, and just two years
ago in Spain, police raided the Order of the Dragon,
a sect accused of ritual abuse. Time to both Beltane
and sam Hayne, investigators found altars, blood sigils, and recordings
(31:07):
of ceremonies meant to purify through fear. These are not legends.
And maybe that's the most chilling part. For every harmless
costume and cannibal, there are still those who treat this
night as something sacred in the wrong direction. A reminder
that when we play with the darkness, something might just
(31:29):
decide to play back.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, there's a seems to be a thread between all
these things. You know, you look back, go all the
way back to what we were talking about with the
witch trials and then some witchcraft turning very in a
very dark direction, to occultic murders within the drug trafficking,
(31:57):
and the Ripper Crew, the thing in Canada at the
Thames River. To me, all these things point to people
wanting power, right, So, fear and power quite often, I mean,
they're very closely related. You know. Fear is a type
(32:22):
of power over people when they're afraid you have some
form of power over them. But whether it's power over
vulnerable people or power over people that oppressed you in
the case of the witch trials or I'm sorry, the
witches that were oppressed wanted power over the people that
(32:42):
oppressed them and went to dark ways, and then the
Ripper Crew power over vulnerable women. You know, these are
powers and intoxicating emotion or feeling, and people do really
scary things when they when they want power.
Speaker 7 (33:00):
And I think of even Kenneth Lannings or Flannings, Kenneth Lannings,
Kenneth Lannings, you know, quote that it's just theatrical evil,
and it's like, Okay, well, either these things are real
or they're not. There's no in between, like there's no
partial supernatural worldview. It's either all of this is you know,
(33:25):
connected to something supernatural, or it's not. And so even
if these people were just carrying out theatrical acts, there
was still ritual involved to invoke something supernatural.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Absolutely, And the ironic thing is is when people would
do this for power or to feel powerful, you know,
I believe they were being twisted by dark spirits and
dark demons and things like that, the beliefs we're really
(33:58):
exercising power over them. So it was like the more
power they were seeking, they were actually empowering these these
dark things over themselves. And yeah, you know, I think
I don't think naturally people are evil. I think when
they become influenced by the dark spirits and the demons
(34:21):
and the things that the evil things that are in
the spiritual world they do things that I don't think
any human is capable of doing right less they influenced, Yeah,
you could be very deceiving. Yes.
Speaker 7 (34:38):
When Irish and Scottish immigrants carried their traditions to North America,
we changed Halloween again, this time into something playful. Noisy
and new cities replaced villages, streets replaced fields, and Halloween
became a night of mischief. In some places, The night
before Halloween became mischief Night, a time for mild chaos.
(35:00):
There was soaked windows, gatelifting, where people would remove someone's
front gate and hide it. Entire carriages were moved to rooftops,
and factory whistles were being blown at midnight. The living
became the ones who haunted the town. Communities eventually encouraged
organized trick or treating to redirect mischief into something gentler,
(35:22):
where people were trading sweets so they could have a
peaceful night, and instead of a torch being carried to
everyone's homes, we now have our porch lights and jack
o lanterns. They began as carved turnips in Ireland and Scotland,
placed in windowsills to ward off harmful spirits. Their name
comes from the legend of Stingy Jack, a trickster cursed
(35:46):
to wander the earth with nothing but a homemade lantern
burning coal inside a carved turn up to light his way.
When Irish immigrants came to North America, they found pumpkins
which were larger, softer, and easier to carve.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I'm not ashamed to admit I like this. I like
the light side of Halloween. The funness. Yeah, like that's
you know, that's what we all enjoy now. But it's
kind of a microcosm of our modern society. How we've
taken some things that were very serious and very real
(36:24):
and we've kind of trivialized them in a sense. And
like I said, I'm good with it here. Yeah, I think,
you know, I think this is some of those things
in the past. We're very dark and we don't want
to focus on those, but yeah, I find it a
little bit of a microcosm of how we've just naturalized
and made everything very normal instead of paranormal.
Speaker 7 (36:48):
Right, And like it's you can see the difference right
in the whimsical side Halloween. You know, your your daughter
dressing up as a Disney princess versus like the ghoulish
Gore side of Halloween with the hardcore skin peels, mannekins,
(37:10):
and people's front yard, reflecting back to what some of
the belief was that the dead looked like walking around
on this night, and so will your daughter dressed up
as a Disney princess isn't trying to mimic the dead
that might be walking that night, right? There's still those
elements in Halloween today, even now, beneath plastic decor and
(37:33):
candy aisles, we can feel something older lingering, a reminder
of what we once believed. In modern pagan and Wickan traditions,
sam Hayne or again Sowen is the final harvest, the
turning of.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
The wheel of the year.
Speaker 7 (37:49):
It is associated with the Krone, the elder archetype who
believes death isn't a terror, but a transition from this
life to the next. Candles are lit because they're believe
to welcome ancestors home. A place is set at the
table for those who are gone, not to summon them,
but to tell them that they are remembered. If you've
(38:10):
listened to Midnight Mysteries for a long time, and we
mentioned this earlier, you know that we love patterns regarding
the paranormal cross cultures, and Halloween is not unique to
Celtic Land. In Mexico, families celebrate De los Mortes, decorating
altars with marigolds and candles to welcome the dead home.
(38:33):
In Japan, during Owan, lanterns are set afloat on rivers
to guide spirits back to the other world. In China,
family sweep graves, burn incense, and share food with the departed.
Different languages, different lands, but with a very similar impulse.
It acknowledges that the line between here and there is
(38:55):
not as solid as we pretend.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
It's fascinating to me that, I mean, every all these
places around the world, totally different cultures, everything, and yet
there's this common thread. And I think it kind of
lends itself to that we're not just physical, We're not
just animals, We're not just physical beings where we have
(39:22):
a spirit side, where physical and spiritual. I believe that
that's how we were created, is the first and only
physical and spiritual beings that we can be in and
out of both worlds at the same time. And I think,
you know, looking at how these different cultures, different people
(39:43):
from around the world and different timelines felt that Pole right,
that kind of I mean you probably know that feeling right.
Sometimes you just have that pole. It's like you can't
explain it.
Speaker 7 (39:54):
It's like in your intuition, the sense, like the voice
within right.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Exactly, and it's like some one's you know, someone's pulling
you with a rope or leading you onto something. Mhm,
you know I think that's that's our spirits pulling us right. Yeah,
it's fascinating.
Speaker 7 (40:14):
The door between worlds only opens for a moment, but
maybe that's all it needs, whether you celebrate Halloween, sam Hayne,
or just the turning of the seasons. Remember, every candle,
every mask, every tradition began as someone's way of reaching
through the dark, sometimes with good intention, sometimes with freaky results.
(40:38):
Have you ever felt that same poll, like something was
just beyond the edge of sight? Send us your story.
We read them all, even the ones that keep us
up at night. Thanks for listening, and remember, stay weird
and we'll see you next time on midnight mysteries.
Speaker 6 (40:54):
Have a great night. Shot.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderella Acts. You are listening to
the Fringe Radio Network.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
I know I was gonna tell him, Hey, do you.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Have the app?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
It's the best way to listen to the Fringe radio network.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
It's safe and you don't have to log in to
use it, and it doesn't track you or trace you,
and it sounds beautiful.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
I know I was gonna tell him, how.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Do you get the app?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Just go to fringeradionetwork dot com right at the top
of the page.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
I know, slippers, we gotta keep cleaning these chimneys.
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