Halloween raises concerns, joy among spiritual factions

Stacy J. Willis

Friday, Oct. 30, 1998 | 11:36 a.m.

Dress up as Jesus. Or Moses. But steer clear of wicked witch costumes.

For some Christians, Halloween is a time when children need to be protected from violent images and "demonic spirits," not encouraged to emulate icons of the occult.

Accordingly, churches like the 2,500-member West Valley Assembly of God are offering alternative activities for children -- festivals where children may dress up, but not in "scary or spooky" costumes, the pastor said.

"Halloween is a high and holy day for occult practitioners," said the Rev. Paul Goulet, senior pastor at West Valley. "If you're sending your kids into that, you're exposing them to demonic spirits."

Goulet's opinion is rooted in the history of Halloween. The night was originally celebrated more than 2,000 years ago by Celts, who believed that spirits of the dead entered the land of the living on the night that marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter. In order to appease the spirits, Celts left food out for them -- treats.

"What happens if there really are demonic spirits? We're opening up our kids to that," Goulet said. "That may sound eerie or bizarre or way out there, but I'm not a nut. I have a master's degree in counseling. My fear is that unknowingly, parents are walking their kids into that on Halloween when they dress them up and walk them into haunted houses. It promotes witchcraft."

Thousands of Las Vegas Pentecostal Christians and others share Goulet's view, but for Beverly Kohlstaedt, a Las Vegas witch in the Wicca faith, witchcraft is not something to be feared. For Wiccans, Halloween is one of the "holiest days of the year," Kohlstaedt said.

"We don't sacrifice animals or babies. We don't believe in harming anything. Wicca is an earth-based religion. We believe in all of nature and the balance of light and dark. We believe every person has both positive and negative in them, and you have to learn to enhance the positive."

Wiccans believe in one basic commandment:

"If it harms none, do as thou wilt," Kohlstaedt said. "For example, if you do drugs, you're harming yourself, and that's not good. We believe that if we do something harmful, it will come back to us three times.

"Halloween is one of the greatest nights of the year for us. We commune with the spirits of our ancestors, we honor those that have gone before us," said Kohlstaedt, who is known as the High Priestess Lady Tareena by Wiccans.

Wiccans wear hooded robes in colors that symbolize the season, Kohlstaedt said, "but we don't put on fake moles and green make-up." On Halloween night, Wiccans summon the spirits by having a dinner at which no one talks, in order to encourage the spirits to speak.

"It gives some people the opportunity to say goodbye to relatives when they didn't have that opportunity before," Kohlstaedt said.

Pentecostal Christians also believe in supernatural spirits, but welcome only the Holy Spirit, Goulet said.

"We believe that the supernatural is very real. The spirit of Jesus shows up at church, and if He shows up, it may not be comfortable for you. When the Holy Spirit hits them, some people will fall down, because they literally can't stand up -- if God literally reaches down and touches you, don't you think your body is going to react?"

Goulet said he also opposes Halloween celebrations because the images of violence that have become associated with it sow "bad seeds" in children.

"Think about the message Halloween sends to kids today. Kids get dressed up with ax prints and fake blood on their heads. It's desensitizing them to murder an death," Goulet said.

"Halloween glorifies horror movies. When we look at the lives of kids today -- there are kids killing kids in school, kids shooting their parents and sisters and brothers, moms and dads killing themselves and their kids -- the violence is a direct result of the bad seeds we sowed," Goulet said.

As an alternative, West Valley will host a "Family Fun Fair" on Saturday evening from 4 to 8 p.m. Goulet said children are encouraged to dress up as "anything not scary -- Biblical characters, or superheros, or sports heros, but nothing that is Satanic or occult, no witches, no goblins."

Kohlstaedt said that there are 8,000 Wiccans in Las Vegas, many of whom are children who will dress up and go trick-or-treating before participating in the Halloween Wiccan ceremony.

"None of our kids will dress up as a witch, because they do that all the time," Kohlstaedt said. "My grandson dresses up like a Smurf."