In many ways, Halloween is the last carnival left in the West. It is in many ways a modern

holiday, although it takes its roots in ancient holidays as well. And so I want to look at

Halloween, especially as someone who grew up in a Christian home.

There was a lot of controversy about Halloween, whether or not Christians had celebrated, and what exactly it meant.

And so I think that that controversy is actually part of its meaning.

And so we're going to look at Halloween, the different practices that are being done in the

modern time, and look at what it is exactly they might be telling us symbolically, what they

might be telling us about the world.

Music This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. So, Halloween. So Halloween, the way it is practiced now is mostly an American holiday, although it does have its root in Irish culture, in some English culture, and also in Catholic culture from before.

But in the modern form, most of us, most of the people who will be watching this video

will know what it looks like.

It's a night where all the houses are decorated in a garish manner in terms of frightening

decorations, tombs, vampires, death, monsters, all this stuff, cobwebs,

which is all the most cliche version of what is frightening to a human person are brought

together in this evening. And then usually what happens is people will,

children especially will dress up in costumes. Adults, it seems, do that as well. And they'll

play frightening games. They will watch frightening movies. And ultimately, it all comes together in trick or treating which means that

the children will dress up as monsters as all kinds of things and will go from house to house

and ask for candy by saying trick or treat if the person gives them a treat, then the monsters go away.

And if they don't, in theory, they get a trick.

But of course, of course nobody does that anymore.

But that's the narrative.

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