Tonight is All Hallow's Evening, or Hallowe'en: the evening before All Hallow's Day, and one of the most important festivals of the year according to the indispensable Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880 - 1963).
As we arrive at this special station on the annual cycle, I highly recommend re-reading Kuhn's essay entitled "Hallowe'en: A Festival of Lost Meanings," which is available in its entirety to read on the web at archive.org.
Kuhn's meditation on the esoteric significance of Hallowe'en and the subsequent All Hallow's Day (or All Souls Day) contains a wealth of valuable material worthy of deep consideration, even if we do not agree with every single assertion he makes. More important than any single conclusion or suggestion offered by that writer is the overall approach he takes in perceiving the presence of an ancient symbolic system designed to convey profound truths through a kind of code or language connected to the heavenly cycles of sun and moon, and preserved in the world's ancient myths and festivals.
These festivals invite us to participate in these cycles and to experience and internalize the ancient message on a level that goes beyond the intellectual (and thus bypasses the complex web of filters and firewalls which develop in our thinking intellect and which serve a helpful purpose but which can also prevent us from hearing or seeing truths which the defense mechanism of the mind would prefer we filter out).
Kuhn's essay can easily be read in its entirety in a single sitting: I actually read through it every year on this day, and find new thoughts to meditate on each time that I do.
In it you will find:
Kuhn's analysis of the reason that All Hallow's Eve and All Hallow's Day fall when they do, forty days after the point of the September Equinox,
Kuhn's thoughts on the connections between Hallowe'en and the ancient festival of Saturnalia, and his intriguing suggestion regarding that festival's start on December 17 (and the possibility that it may have lasted for seven days, culminating on the night of December 24 and the morning of renewal on December 25),
Kuhn's analysis of the importance of the number six, which in Greek was "hex," and its connection with the physical world and the cross -- and to the esoteric significance of the number seven which is one beyond that,
Kuhn's thoughts on the connection between the concept of six and "hex" and the goddess Hekate or Hecate, as well as to other ancient goddesses,
Kuhn's analysis of the reason for the wearing of masks and costumes during these festivals (Hallowe'en and Saturnalia), as well as the symbolism of the candle within the pumpkin, the indulgence in sexual suggestiveness and license, and other familiar Hallowe'en traditions,
And many other valuable topics related to the holiday which he calls "Autumn's Mysterious Revel."
While Kuhn's analysis may seem at first glance to be related to heady and perhaps impractical subjects (or at least not directly applicable to our day-to-day life most of the time), with much discussion of the soul plunging down into the material realm and the necessity of that experience, I am convinced that these ancient teachings have incredible practical application virtually every minute of our day, and that the discoveries of some of the most cutting-edge healers and therapists can help us to understand Kuhn's essay -- and the message of the ancient myths and traditions preserved in cultures around the world -- in new ways.
If you read Kuhn's essay on Hallowe'en for yourself, you will see that his central thesis proposes that the symbolism of that festival depicts the incarnation of the divine spark within the "animal" nature of the human body, and the plunge of that higher nature into the "underworld" of darkness, illusion, deception, folly, and division -- including alienation from our own Self.
Kuhn explains that the word persona is the original Latin word for "a mask," and that the word itself derives from the prefix per- meaning "through" and the word sonum meaning "sound," thus indicating "to sound through" or something that the actor "speaks through."
When in Rome the actors donned the mask (which was all the "costume" they affected for their parts), their voices sounded through the mask. This was to convey the idea that though the voice was that of the actor himself, yet in sounding through the mask it became the voice of the character he personated. And still further light breaks in upon our minds when we apply all this to the Hallowe'en representation. We then realize that this animal form which our soul tenants is the personality through which our god's voice issues carrying the force and form of his divine being out to expression in our entire life. The god in us can only speak out through the lips of our animal selves. It is for us now to wonder with how much distortion they reach expression in our outer world. 31
As I have explained more fully in my most-recent book, Myth and Trauma, I am convinced that when the ancient myths depict a god or goddess going down into the underworld (a pattern found in myths around the world), they are not only teaching about the plunge of the human soul into the incarnate body -- although they are certainly talking about that, as Kuhn elucidates in this essay and in his many other writings -- they are also talking about the "burial" and suppression of the Self, from whom we become alienated by a variety of forces in this incarnate life, but most particularly by trauma.
The critical importance of our alienation from and suppression of Self is a subject treated by leading experts on trauma and healing such as Dr. Gabor Maté and Dr. Richard Schwartz. One of the concepts which Dr. Schwartz has discovered seems particularly applicable to the discussion of Hallowe'en and the distortion of the divine voice through the "mask" of the various personas we don in this life, a concept Dr. Schwartz describes as "blending."
In his book entitled Internal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition, Dr. Schwartz defines "blending" as:
The act in which a part takes over a person's seat of consciousness, or Self. Blending occurs along a continuum, so that the Self can remain present with some blending or be obscured with full blending. 281
For more discussion of what Internal Family Systems Therapy means by "parts," I recommend checking out the IFS website here, as well as the book linked above, and also the many interviews with Dr. Schwartz available on the web and in podcasts, one of which can be found here.
Elsewhere in the same book, Dr. Schwartz expands on this phenomenon of blending, by which the inherent and unbreakable Self can be obscured or distorted by parts (which should ideally be led by our essential Self, and should trust and accept the leadership of that Self), saying:
We are all born with a Self. It does not develop through stages or borrow strength and wisdom from the therapist, and it cannot be damaged. It can, however, be occluded or overwhelmed by parts. We call this blending. When a part blends fully, we see the world through its eyes. When a part blends partially, its perspective influences us. When polarized parts blend, we live in the midst of an ongoing debate and have no peace of mind. But when parts unblend, the Self is immediately present and available. When the Self accepts and loves parts -- perhaps a child who was terrorized into submission, or an angry teenager who was exiled for standing up to persecution -- those parts transform back into who they were meant to be. The Self-led mind is self-righting and has plenty of room for all feelings, views, and parts. 43
Can you see how this understanding of the concept of the blending of Self with parts sheds a whole new light on Kuhn's illumination of the ancient festivals of Hallowe'en and All Hallow's Day? In the most simplified terms, the symbolism of Hallowe'en can be seen as dramatizing the force of "blending" and the distortion of Self, which we all experience during this incarnate life, while the symbolism of All Hallow's Day (and other ancient patterns, including the hallowing of the seventh day following the preceding six) is intended to dramatize to our deeper understanding the wholeness and restoration of what Dr. Schwartz calls "unblending," in which the parts "transform back into who they were meant to be," the Self is present and available, and assumes its intended role of leading, a role which Self is eminently capable of fulfilling and is in fact designed to fulfill.
I would in fact suggest that reading Alvin Boyd Kuhn's essay on Hallowe'en in light of the concept of blending introduced by Dr. Schwartz and Internal Family Systems would be an extremely valuable exercise, and especially pertinent at this time of year.
Indeed, I am more and more convinced that the ancient wisdom given to the cultures of the world in their original myths, scriptures, and sacred traditions has as one of its most central purposes the healing of trauma, the recovery of Self, and the understanding of the very concepts which cutting-edge modern healers are elucidating through their extremely helpful and therapeutic paradigms, such as IFS.
I would like to personally wish you a very happy and meaningful Hallowe'en, and a blessed All Hallow's Day!