There are a lot of things I love about Halloween — mostly the costumes, but also the horror movies and the fact that it’s a great time to buy home decor that really works with my whole Stevie Nicks x Alexander McQueen aesthetic. But my favorite thing might be evangelicals freaking out about the holiday because they think it is some for real Satanic shit. It’s possible that I shouldn’t get such a kick out of it, given the harm these people can do, but I just can’t help getting a little Margaret Mead about it all. It’s fascinating!
Anyway, someone over Charisma News wrote an article about a girl named Jenny Weaver, who used to be … a witch.
"As a young girl I got into some real deep, dark things. I was in an abusive family so the spirit of rejection gripped my life and I was looking for acceptance," Weaver says.
She found the acceptance she was looking for in all the wrong places. Weaver met a group of girls who were also gripped with the same identity problems. "They invited me to watch a movie called 'The Craft' which was about four witches, wiccans in high school and they had all this power and I had watched the movie and I decided I wanted to do that," she says.
For Manon’s sake, every girl goes through that phase in high school — I’m sure there have been multiple college theses about how it’s some kind of reaction to feeling powerless in some capacity. Or simply a desire to make your enemy’s hair fall out.
Or, perhaps, just to be the Most Popular Girl.
Alas, what most people would shrug off as some youthful silliness, she made into a whole ass thing.
For awhile [sic] she thought the path she was going down was great, but in reality the enemy was dragging her deeper down a dark path. She lived with another witch, casting spells, having parties, doing drugs and calling on spirits to rise and come into their bodies.
Translation — they were some normal-ish, if a little woo-y, young people, but she overdid it and eventually traded in the coke for some Jesus.
Anyway, now that Jenny found Jesus, she is here to warn all the Good Christian Parents about the evils of Halloween — which she claims is “steeped in demonic rituals.”
"What parents think is a one day thing, is not a one day thing. It is only an open door that allows children, teens and even adults, say if we allow this, this one day, then you'll find they'll allow horoscopes, horror movies, sorcery, witchcraft and they've got healing crystals instead of calling on the name of Jesus," Weaver said.
"Police officers and the EMS can tell you that is the day [Halloween] they have the most kidnappings, child abductions and murders. For some reason on this day people in the police industry know something is going down today, why is that?" she asked.
Well, any kind of crime is going to spike on holidays where people are out and drinking. It’s certainly the most dangerous day of the year for child pedestrians, but if there is any spike in “kidnappings, child abductions and murders,” which I can’t find much evidence of, it’s probably more about access than it is about demons and sorcery.
This appears to be the extent of Weaver’s advice. But it’s not the extent of the absolutely batshit anti-Halloween weirdness over on Charisma News.
One article, by someone named Jordan Campbell, promises to explain how “curses” are attached to Halloween candy, costumes, and decor but fails to actually do that. Instead, it is an article about how good his family is at not celebrating Halloween.
Another reason we don't celebrate Halloween is because satanic activity is real. As a second-generation deliverance minister, having worked with severe trauma survivors, it saddens me to see families opening doors to such darkness as they participate in Halloween. There is no light in it. The witchcraft, spells, incantations, curses, rituals, sacrifices—all of this is real, with real victims.
It is not real and the only victims are people whose shitty therapists convinced them and their families that they were repressing memories of growing up in evil Satanic cults and sacrificing endless piles of babies that were somehow never reported missing by anyone.
Last, from a young age, I've had a strong gift of discernment. I recall a moment in preschool when our scheduled art craft for the day was carving pumpkins. I looked at my teacher and said, "I am not carving this pumpkin." Something about carving a pumpkin into a jack-o'-lantern did not sit well with me.
Preschoolers were carving pumpkins? With their tiny toddler hands? Well that had to be a fucking bloodbath.
I mean, can they even hold butter knives at that age? Because I think my preschool era silverware options were like, a fork and spoon with plastic handles that had Smurfs on them. Come on now.
Campbell then suggests that it was the holy spirit helping him “discern” that carving the pumpkins was a bad idea because it was evil in some capacity, not because toddlers simply cannot be trusted with sharp objects.
His children are also holy spirit prodigies!
My children are not afraid of this truth. They know God's gift of discernment and use it to navigate through the Halloween season. In fact, if you were to join me for a round of errands, you would see and hear my 2-year-old point to demonic decor and say, "I seal you in the blood of Jesus."
After which, of course, everyone claps.
Other articles were more clear about the candy-specific threats. Like this one that accused Hershey’s of selling more than just mediocre chocolate that may or may not come from cocoa beans harvested by child slaves.
The largest North American manufacturer of quality chocolate and sugar confection projects, as it touts itself as, Hershey's has come up with a bag of candy for Halloween that it calls "Demon Treats," with its regular assortment of chocolate to hand out to children on Halloween night.
In its release, it says, "Trust us, after you eat one of these Hershey's Demon Treats, you will be possessed." Clever marketing or a subtle satanic message?
Yeah, that’s definitely just marketing.
Help! I dressed my dachshund in a weiner costume for Halloween and inadvertently opened a portal to a demonic underworld!
My boy Timmy is reading at a 5th grade level, doing math at a 3rd grade level and exorcizing demons at a 12th Century level, and he's only 2 years old.