Holiday that's frivolous to most is spiritual to witches

For most people, Halloween is about costumes, candy, parties and scary movies.

For witches, the holiday is about spiritual renewal, reflection and communing with spirits.

“It is a time for me to find my center,” said Diane McCrae, a self-proclaimed witch living in the Colorado Springs area. “I meditate longer and take longer walks in the woods at this time.”

McCrae also embraces Halloween’s ancient Celtic pagan roots, which center on the belief that during this time of year the veil between the living and the spirit world becomes transparent.

“It is the holy night when the spirits of the dead are honored,” said McCrae, who was raised Protestant but began exploring earth religions about 15 years ago.

There are about 150 known witches in the Colorado Springs area, though many prefer to call themselves Wiccans, a euphemism created in the 1950s that denotes a subset of Neopagan witchcraft. But McCrae is among dozens of local Neopagans who call themselves witches, despite the baggage that comes with it.

Throughout the Bible, witches are said to practice sorcery, cast evil spells and consort with the devil. In European folklore, witches are presented as cruel crones who cast harmful spells.

But local witches say their “craft” has been mischaracterized.

“If you have bad intent, you are not a witch,” said Jean Furness, part of the Colorado Springs Reclaiming Witches coven. “The biggest misconception is that we worship Satan, when, in fact, we don’t believe in Satan. This is really a very gentle religion full of kind-hearted, nurturing people.”

Witchcraft is based on pre-Christian earth religions that developed in agrarian cultures, practitioners say. There is no uniform belief about God among witches. Some believe in multiple gods, some in a goddess and godhead, and others in a single god similar to that in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

There are, however, common ceremonies. Some honor the sun, moon and the seasons. Others are geared toward helping practitioners visualize good happenings in their lives and ritually dissipating negative energy in people’s homes, a task for which McCrae uses a broom to figuratively sweep away the bad vibes.

“We use the energy that exists in our bodies – our breath, our ability to visualize – to create because we see ourselves as divine emanations,” said Ahriana Platten, a high priestess within the Mountainrose Circle coven. “We are God expressing.”

Like the other key occasions that witches celebrate, Halloween is tied to the earth’s natural cycle. Thousands of years ago, the Celts who lived in Britain, Ireland and other parts of Europe developed Halloween to honor the end of their harvest season and beginning of their new year. During the final harvest, the Celts conducted ceremonies to contact the dead, historians say. The belief in spirits walking the earth gave rise to people wearing costumes to mimic or hide from spirits.

Over centuries, the harvest celebration became detached from its Celtic roots — when it was called Samhain (pronounced “SOW-in), All Hallowtide — to become known as Halloween.

Costume themes became broader, and today people dress up as anything from vampires to French maids to firefighters.

But one Halloween costume many witches detest is the green-faced hag in a black pointed hat. Platten said the image harks back to Catholic-sponsored inquisitions of the 15th through 18th centuries in Europe, in which thousands of women the church believed to be witches were tortured and killed.

After being tortured for hours into a false confession, women were dragged to the public square to be burned at the stake. To the crowds watching, Platten said, the physically and emotionally distressed women probably resembled green-faced hags. A conical hat was sometimes placed on their heads to further humiliate them, religion scholar Jonathan Kirsch writes in his 2008 book, “The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God.”

Platten and her family celebrate Halloween by carving pumpkins and hanging decorations, but they don’t display images of the green-faced hag.

“That comes from the burning times,” Platten said. “We don’t honor that history.”

For more information on local witches’ covens, call Ahriana Platten at ahrianaplatten@gmail.com.

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Call the writer at 636-0367. To read more of interviews with local witches, go to “The Pulpit” blog at www.thepulpit.freedomblogging.com.