Pagan Religions in Five Minutes - Suzanne Owen
48. Are Halloween and Easter Pagan Festivals?
Pagan Religions in Five Minutes - Suzanne Owen
Jenny Butler [+]
University College Cork
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Dr Jenny Butler holds a Lectureship in the Department of Study of Religions where she teaches on contemporary religions in Ireland, Western Esotericism and new religious movements. She was formerly a Lecturer with the Department of Folklore and Ethnology (2002-2013). She was awarded a Government of Ireland Research Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences by The Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) in support of her doctoral research on Irish contemporary Pagan culture.
Description
All Hallows Eve, which became Halloween, is the evening before All Saints Day in Roman Catholicism. The following day is for the remembrance of the dead. For Pagans it is a time when the “veil” is thin between the living and the dead and marks the end of summer. Easter, too, is a blend of Christian and “pagan” traditions when “light” and “dark” are in balance at the Equinox.