Halloween Myths

The Rise of the Age of Faith & Increasing Power of the Church

To understand how Christian symbols and folk traditions got called “evil,” we need to look at how the Roman Catholic Church gained not just religious power, but also huge political and economic power in Europe. 

After Rome fell, the Church stepped in to fill the power or organizing force gap or vacuum left by its end. Over time, it became a super-state kingdom above all kings and nations. As farming technology and trade changed, and after the Black Death wiped out so many workers, strong new nations (nation-states) rose with powerful monarchs. 

These new states relied on the Church for legitimacy (the right to rule), and the Church relied on them to keep its social, political, and economic control. 

Together, they fought to crush any group or tradition that threatened their power — including old folk religions and even old Christian symbols that later got twisted into “Satanic" signs.

The Renaissance (say it “REN-uh-sance,” French for “re-birth”) started in Italy and spread north to the Netherlands (called the Northern or Dutch Renaissance). It was a time when reading, learning, art, and philosophy came back alive after stalling during the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages, also called the Age of Faith, was when the Roman Catholic Church became a super-powerful empire above many kingdoms. The Church felt very threatened by anyone who challenged its power, and because the power of kings hinged on the Pope's favor, so did all of the kings and queens of Europe.

The Medieval Period (Middle Ages) came after Rome’s slow fall over two hundred years, ending in 476 CE (say it “C-E”; means “Common Era”) when General Odoacer (a German tribal leader and Catholic convert who worked as a paid soldier for Rome) attacked and destroyed Rome by killing the men, raping the women, selling its children into slavery, and stealing all moveable valuables (just like other conquest with 'sacking).  

The first part of the Middle Ages is called the Dark Ages or Early Middle Ages. During this time, most people forgot how to read and write and barely survived by farming. Almost all food was just to live, with no extra to sell or trade, because any surplus was taken as a church tithe (say it “TY-th”; a 10% tax for the church) or paid as fees to landlords to keep the right to farm and feed their families.

Scared of warrior kings and raiding barbarian tribes, people looked for safety on church lands (called manors), monasteries (say it “MON-uh-steer-ees”; where monks lived), convents (say it “CON-vents”; where nuns lived), or on lands owned by nobles. They farmed in exchange for a “hereditary right” (say it “her-eh-DA-tare-ee”; a right passed down in the family) to use a small piece of land to farm to feed their own clans or families so they could survive.

Abbesses (say it “AB-uh-ses”; head nuns) and abbots (say it “AB-uts”; head monks) acted like lords. Nobles (people with royal titles and land) and gentry (say it “JEN-tree”; lesser landowners who served kings or fought in wars) ruled over serfs (workers tied to land). Serfs were poor farmers who could not leave without permission.  

The church replaced Rome’s power in society (social life), economics (money and work), and politics (government). 

This system is called manorialism (say it “muh-NOR-ee-uh-lism”) because everything happened on manors with serfs working the land for the church or nobles. The Middle Ages are called the Age of Faith because religion controlled life so strongly.

Serfs were illiterate (could not read) and depended on abbots and abbesses for all learning, religious or othewise. Farm animals were not common yet for heavy plowing, so human workers did almost everything. People had to clear forests or drain swamps to make new fields, and because land wore out fast with the three-field system, serfs were like “living farm tools” carrying kingdoms and churches on their backs.

During the early Renaissance, the Great Mortality (later called the Black Death) in the 1330s and 1340s CE/AD killed up to 3 out of 4 people in some places, and about 1 in 3 across Europe. It hit young future workers and old wise elders hardest. This made people question the church and led to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, inquisitions, and witch crazes.  Note: It wasn't just bubonic plague, but likely a series of bacterial or viral outbreaks.

These pandemics turned serfs into peasants who could finally make deals with landlords because there were fewer workers. This let some serfs win freedom for a short time and become peasants (free farm laborers).

But soon new farm tools spread, like horseshoes, tandem harnesses, and rotating crops with legumes (say it “LAY-gooms”; peas and beans that put nutrients back in soil). This made human farm labor less necessary. This is like when McCormick’s harvester in the early 1900s replaced many African-American sharecroppers in the South and pushed them to cities (causing the Great Migration of Exodusters).

Then came the Enclosure Movement. Laws took away the shared land hereditary serfs or peasants had legal guarantees to farm to feed their families, turning peasants into landless workers who had to sell their labor to survive. Even peasants who had won freedom were forced off manors as landlords bought up lands around the hereditary titled communal lands they depended upon to eat, blocking access to their own plots. They became wage workers and had no way to feed themselves except by working for others.

Peasants ended up working in early factories called manufactories or in the “putting-out system.” In the putting-out system, families specialized in one part of making goods at home (cottages). For example:

• One family raised sheep.

• Another sheared wool.

• Another spun yarn.

• Another wove cloth (textile/fabric).

• Another sewed clothes.

A merchant paid each family piece by piece and then sold finished products.

In manufactories, all steps happened under one roof, often using water or wind power. This in-between stage from feudal serfdom to wage labor is called mercantilism (an old system where nations got rich by taking colonies for cheap labor, raw materials, and forced markets, and hoarding gold and silver).

Mercantilism led European countries to build empires (imperialism) and take colonies (colonialism). This race for power and colonies led to the creation of the United States, and later to World War I because of militarism, imperialism, and tangled alliances. The mercantile system during the Age of Empire and Colonialism was like baby capitalism being born.

At the same time, wooden fenced markets called burghs popped up outside castles. Improvements in siege weapons (like catapults and trebuchets) changed towns, which used to be thatched-roof wooden houses surrounded by wooden fences. Marketplaces copied these walled village designs.

In England and Germany, “burghers” or “burgesses” set up these wooden palisaded open air markets called burghs there, while in France, the “bourgeoisie” (say it “boor-zhwah-ZEE”) made markets called bourgs, old words for secular cities where peasants lived. They got rich trading silk and other goods. This is why Karl Marx later called the capitalist class the bourgeoisie. They rose thanks to plague labor shortages and Middle Ages trade.

These markets helped move Europe from feudal (warring kingdoms with obligations owed from serfs or peasants to their lords or abotts or abbesses, and obligations for them towards their peasants, and obligations for them towards a king or queen, or greater and lesser lords, and so on)  systems to early capitalism. They sparked the Age of Exploration and empire, along with manufactories and the putting-out system. Extra income from cheaper, faster production was reinvested to make more profit.

All these economic changes gave rise to free labor and strong nation-states, but also gave the church huge power. 

The church tried to keep control over everyone’s lives, which is part of why Christian symbols later got turned into “Satanic” and Samhain traditions were twisted

Clovis I, the Frankish king, forced conversion by sword. A few generations later, another king gave even more power to the church. Powerful monarchies under the Pope’s church super-state formed, like Charles I’s Holy Roman Empire. This made the church very strong and led to oppression of pagan and folk religions.

After Charlemagne (say it “SHAR-luh-main”), or Charles I, tried to rebuild the Catholic Roman Empire from Aachen, Germany, the pope crowned him emperor. This act, called investiture (say it “in-VEST-ih-choor”), gave the pope power over kings and made the church a super-state above all kingdoms.

Charlemagne’s empire and papal power led to the Crusades (say it “kroo-SADES”), wars to control Jerusalem and protect pilgrims. Crusaders brought back scrolls and books, restarting learning lost during the Middle Ages.  It was also to protect trade routes with China, although that is often notmentioned.  

Ancient knowledge from Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, gathered by Alexander the Great and saved in Alexandria, then bettered by Greek philosopher Aristotle at his Lyceum and other Greek scholars and mathematicians, then preserved by the Roman Empire until its fall was kept after its fall by Muslim scholars and Irish monks. 

Without Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Empire, and the rise of the nation-state with powerful monarchs under the influence of the Papacy, the Crusades and the later Renaissance would not have happened. The church became super powerful and rich.  And would then do anything to protect that power and wealth, including using Christian symbols to destroy its enemies and gain more power. Charges of Satanism became the church's most powerful tool to that end.

The Renaissance rediscovered ancient ideas and mystery symbols like the Goat of Mendes, which showed duality (balance of opposites). This new learning led to questioning the church, which caused the Protestant Reformation, Catholic Counter-Reformation, inquisitions, witch crazes, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment.

Renaissance scholars mixed old Greek, Roman, and Egyptian ideas in Renaissance Hermeticism (secret spiritual teachings from ancient Egypt and Greece from the first century Common Era differentiated as Greco-Egyptian Hermeticism by contrast). Many Christians misinterpreted these as “Satanic” because of their religious bias and strong prejudice against anything that questioned church doctrines as heresy, and anything but the Pope's interpretations as Satanism.

These misunderstandings stuck and still shape how people see Christian and pagan symbols today.

How Goat Imagery Got Associated with Satanism

Lévi’s mix-up plus Christian bias made both pentagrams seem evil. People feared and even executed others for using these symbols — perhaps 60,000 Europeans were burned as witches for using Christian symbols!

The Bible never mentions Baphomet. The word likely came from Crusaders twisting “Muhammad” into “Baphomet,” wrongly suggesting Muslims worshipped idols.

In Leviticus, goats appear as “bad” in sacrifice rules. Jesus also separated sheep (good) from goats (bad). In 1307, the Knights Templar were falsely accused of worshipping a goat-headed idol named Baphomet under torture. There is no proof anyone did.

During the Renaissance, scholars brought back balance symbols, like the yin-yang. The Ram of Mendes (mistakenly drawn as a goat) showed duality and balance in Hermeticism, but Levi's use of the tetragrammaton five pointed star and his unfortunate mistake in depicting a ram as a goat made it easy for the Church to equate both with Baphomet worship and Satanism.   

Lévi’s misunderstanding plus church fear stuck. Christian star symbols, upright and inverted, became “Satanic.”

Movies like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby in the 1900s turned Christian mystical symbols into “devil signs.” In America, Spiritualism rose in the 1800s as people grieved lost children and Civil War deaths. The Fox Sisters claimed “spirit raps.” Mary Todd Lincoln held séances. William Mumler took “spirit photos.” Harry Houdini exposed many fakes, but millions still found comfort.

Science later made people doubt spirits. But Christian fundamentalists called old symbols “evil” and scientists and scholars the “superstitions of backwards simple people."     

Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan in the 1960s used Lévi’s goat image to mock Christians, but the joke went over their heads and back-fired badly.  LaVey's usage of the Goat of Mendes as Baphomet in an inverted pentagram was commentary on unthinking Christian anti-intellectualism (resistance to thinking and reading) and refusal to learn things because they were certain they knew better.  In interviews and articles, he clarified he hoped it might get people to investigate this history.   It didn't.  It back-fired and ironically helped fuel the Satanic Panic of the 1980s–1990s because Christians forgot these symbols were originally Christian.

Halloween turned from a healing grief ritual into a store-bought event, losing community and soul.