Celebrating Halloween in Leeds

Who really owns the festival of Halloween?

The original celebration of Halloween was a pagan festival, celebrating the end of the pagan year.

In the last decade it has become a commercial money spinner, and is now the third most profitable festival in the supermarket calendar.

The UK pumpkin market alone is worth £25m.

Camilla Carty-Melis, a Leeds University student and practising Pagan questions the way we celebrate Samhain, the festival of Winter's Eve.

"Like many age-old festivals, I wonder if their original meaning is remembered by those who celebrate the occasion. Few people that I know seem to be aware of the origins of Halloween" says Camilla, "I find it a pity that we, as a society, seem to celebrate occasions without actually knowing why we are celebrating them."

John Grady from Leeds Roman Catholic Diocese agrees that few people know what Halloween is about: "The way Halloween is celebrated is all about commercial exploitation. If you stop those in the streets and ask them if they are celebrating a pagan feast, the short answer is 'no'. They're going out and getting money and sweets.

Trick or treat, do you feel threatened at Halloween?

"In the past Christians tended to adopt pagan festivals and feasts and give them Christian interpretations, for example Christmas and Easter. All Saints Day, the day after Halloween, falls on a Sunday this year and we will celebrate that. All Saints Day is a special day in the church calendar where we celebrate those who have gone before us and who are in heaven.

"Goolies and ghosties is a non-Christian view of the world, a different view to what we believe. We believe in life again after death and that is worth celebrating."

To celebrate Halloween Camilla is planning a festival ritual as part of the Leeds University group, Pentagram: "Halloween marks the end of one year and the beginning of a new one: all the harvests have been gathered and it is a time for the Earth to rest and replenish.

Halloween is the third most profitable festival in the supermarket calendar

"In my faith, Halloween is seen as a time when the veil between this world and other worlds are thinnest, and so we can be re-united with those that no longer live in this world (this is where the idea of the dead coming back came from - except somehow death and the Dead has been twisted into something which is feared). For me, the eve of Halloween is a time for me to be closer to those loved ones that no longer walk on this Earth."

Fear of the dead coming back into this world that has led to the Halloween practices we see promoted by supermarkets today. Masks and fancy dress were worn to copy or placate the evil spirits, while candles were placed in hollowed out vegetables, originally turnips, to frighten off the embodiment of superstitions.

David Flowers, senior pastor of Wharfedale Vineyard Church encourages his congregation to get involved at Halloween: "Jesus often turned people's expectations upside down and inside out. He called himself the light of the world and that inspires us. So, instead of threatening a trick or demanding a treat, we prefer 'No trick, our treat'. We turn it upside down and give a small treat or share some light as a way of saying 'God loves you'."

"Every year at Halloween, people from the Wharfedale Vineyard emerge from their homes with armfuls of sweets, hot dogs, burgers and glow sticks. They wander the streets of their communities offering treats and promising no tricks. 1000's of people have an experience of Halloween which is fun not fearful."

This fun message of Halloween is something supermarkets are keen to promote. UK spending on Halloween topped £160 million in 2007. At that price, it's clear who really owns Halloween.