Make Potions, Cast Spells, Do Magic

The history of Halloween, 90s movies, a childhood story, and some ideas for making the 31st more meaningful.

“We are courting death, that mystery enshrouded event which continuously reminds us of our dual citizenship; here and in the spirit worlds. Every religion and every culture sets aside at least one time every year to remember and commune with the dead.”” – Richard Moeschl, Waldorf Education – A Family Guide

When I was a child I spent a lot of time watching American Halloween movies (who didn’t?) It was the 90s and we had The Addams Family, Casper, Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic. I was drawn to the historic mythology of these films, the mysterious themes and the magic of witches. I wanted to wear the same 16th century clothes as Emily Binx and her older brother from Hocus Pocus, with their white billowing sleeves and bonnets. I wanted to make potions and cast spells and do magic. The only twist was that in Australia, October 31st falls in the middle of spring. Tiny green buds were unfurling on our liquid amber tree and the local wild flowers were beginning to bloom. Like an incantation I would repeat the names of these flowers so I wouldn’t forget: “lechenaultia, lechenaultia...” Nature was just waking up, but we carried on with our rituals anyway.

None of our neighbors seemed to realize it was Halloween when we knocked on their doors on the 31st. Sometimes they would disappear to their kitchen and bring us an apple or a muffin. I remember one Halloween when I was a teenager, my sister, our cousin, myself and a few friends put together a haunted maze in our grandmothers’ house next-door, for our nine year old twin brothers and their friends. Obviously we wanted to go full tilt, because we each took a room and planned all manner of elaborate frights. Our cousin would greet them by rising from a single bed with a lone sheet in the sewing room as the children entered the house. Electronic bats flew from the hanging lights. Someone drifted out from the bathroom while a Hitchcock movie played silently in the living room and a pair of witches in black pointed hats stirred billowing pots filled with liquid nitrogen (thanks to our doctor father) in Nanna’s linoleum kitchen.

I sat at the dining table in a white slip, the table cloth also covered in white. I set a plate of yogurt before me and scattered it with plastic insects. As the children came in I would stare at them and eat this mixture with a spoon, sometimes standing on the table, sometimes letting everything drip out of my mouth. I’m certain it was absolutely terrifying, but as sixteen year old girls we really loved scaring the living daylights out of our twin brothers and their friends; little groups of them clutching each other before fleeing from the front door.

What is it about this time that inspires such fascination with death and the underworld? If we look beyond the candy and the cheap costumes, the gaudy yard decorations and 90s movies, what is this yearly ritual really about? As someone who normally frolics in lands of flowers and baby animals, why do I love Halloween so much?