Hear Me Out: On Halloween, Death Should Be Celebrated

Slate Culture

Slate Podcasts

Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… the veil is thin. It’s easy to forget, between the plastic skeletons and cheap chocolate, that Halloween was — and is, for many cultures — very much about the reality of death. As the Northern Hemisphere goes dormant for the winter, it’s worth remembering that the circle of life includes death. And instead of a punchline or a thing to be feared, we might actually celebrate death, when we can. And who better to consult on how to do that than modern-day witches? Helen Berger, sociologist and researcher at Brandeis University, joins us to discuss. If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: [email protected] Podcast production by Maura Currie You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus. Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Hear Me Out, I'm Celeste Headley.
0:04.4	This episode will likely reach your ears on Halloween 2023.
0:08.4	So in between your spooky scary skeletons, your monsters mashing and your candy eating
0:14.4	with abandoned, let's talk about death.
0:18.1	Halloween of course originally started as a celebration of the natural cycle of life
0:23.0	and the termination of life, and the starting of that cycle again.
0:29.9	Holiday Halloween is a long way removed from those ties to the natural world, of course,
0:34.1	but consider this.
0:35.8	Maybe we should return to those spiritual roots of this very commercial holiday.
0:40.5	And maybe modern day witches and wikens can lead the way to doing just that.
0:46.4	What you're seeing is death all around us.
0:49.3	The leaves are turning these beautiful colors because they're dying.
0:53.0	But they see this as what's being celebrated.
0:56.2	Helen Berger, a sociologist and researcher at Brandeis University, joins us in just a
1:01.0	moment.
1:02.0	Stay with us.
1:06.3	Welcome back to Hear Me Out, I'm Celeste Headley.
1:10.2	Halloween has become such a family-friendly and yes, commercial holiday.
1:15.6	It's easy to forget, this is a holiday about death.
1:19.3	The skeletons, the zombies, the grave stones in your front yard, the creepy plastic ghosts
1:24.7	we put up on our front porches.
1:27.2	Those are all supposed to represent dead people, sorry to remind you of that.
	...

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