Dinner With the Dead

As traditional religious affiliation declines in the United States, interest in the occult, paganism, and witchcraft has increased. In Salem, Massachusetts, the spiritual home of witchcraft in the U.S., Halloween is the highlight of the calendar year, with plenty of events and attractions to bring in practicing believers, curious outsiders, and thrill-seekers. Despite stark differences in their beliefs, many pagans and Christians alike observe the holiday and its trappings as recognition that there are more things in heaven and earth than are commonly dreamt of in secular 21st-century consumerist philosophies. Across cultures and faiths, holidays like Halloween and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) would seem to indicate that something about late fall invites humanity to meditate on the ephemeral and liminal.