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“Unmasking Halloween: Its Origins and Meaning”

“Unmasking Halloween: Its Origins and Meaning”

Last updated on: October 23, 2025 at 10:08 pm by Dan Peterson

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“Unmasking Halloween: Its Origins and Meaning” 2025-10-23T22:08:36-06:00 Dan Peterson

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This film is perhaps the most important and informative documentary ever produced about zombies. It makes for excellent viewing during Halloween season, on April First, and, for that matter, at just about any time of the year. Cook up some popcorn, invite the neighbors over, fire up the telly, and learn!
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I published a seasonally appropriate article today in Meridian Magazine that some readers might be able to enjoy without requiring medical attention: “Unmasking Halloween: Its Origins and Meaning.”

And here’s an article that I published in Meridian back on 28 October 2021 for that year’s Halloween: “Ways of Remembering the Dead.” In it, I discussed the history and development of the Halloween holiday, which is both complicated and, I think, very interesting. (And, I hasten to add, not at all Satanic.)

“The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem under the Command of Titus, AD 70,” by David Roberts (1850) Wikimedia Commons public domain image

Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: “Rituals, Magic, and Outsiders in Tannaitic Judaism: The Case of the Customs of the Amorites,” written by Avram R. Shannon

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: Studies of the Book of Mormon, Bible, and Temple in Honor of Stephen D. Ricks, edited by Donald W. Parry, Gaye Strathearn, and Shon D. Hopkin. For more information about the book, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/seek-ye-words-of-wisdom/.

“Stephen Ricks noted the tendency for magicians to be categorized as outsiders in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. This paper shows how the ancient Jewish Sages used their own ritual categories to create an outsider category that was not quite idolatry, but still not approved, as a way of defining certain ritual practices as outsider magic. For this article, I will be focusing on the Sages of Tannaitic period (ca. 150 BC–AD 200), as expressed in the Mishnah and especially Tosefta.”

The British classic Trapped by the Mormons was made in 1922, but it was hardly the first such film — and goes back to the very origins of moviemaking. Happily, the noble tradition of anti-Mormon filmmaking continues vibrant and healthy still today. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

I’ve always enjoyed the cinema and have been quite conscious of the potential power of film. Still, I never imagined myself actually becoming involved in the production of films. And, while I can’t claim ever to have been present at the creation of such mighty cinematic achievements as Trapped by the Mormons or A Victim of the Mormons or Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay, I did spend much of today working on one of the Interpreter Foundation’s forthcoming Becoming Brigham mini-documentaries.

Up at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Camrey Bagley Fox (who played Emma Smith in both Witnesses and Six Days in August) and John Donovan Wilson (who played Brigham Young in Six Days in August) and I (who played a biceps-flexing muscleman in a San Gabriel High School production of Li’l Abner during the Vietnam War era) participated in a filmed discussion with Matt Grow, who is the Managing Director of the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (For more information on the films that, together, make up The Witnesses Initiative, see here.) Today’s discussion will form the basis of the inaugural episode of Becoming Brigham, which we expect to release in or near mid-January.

This important educational resource was first published in 1884, before movies and cable television had been invented. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). Materials of this kind contribute significantly to greater tolerance and increased understanding between diverse religions and cultures.

Yesterday, I called your attention to the forthcoming three-part Bravo miniseries Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay, which promises to be a landmark venture in ethnographic filmmaking from an eminently qualified scholarly authority. Here’s something on Latter-day Saint responses to the as-yet unreleased miniseries: “”Surviving Mormonism” Is Unhinged In The Best Way Possible | Trailer Reaction and Viral Trend”

In an approach that is somewhat similar to that favored by Bravo (and Hulu and similar platforms), the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail continues its record of publishing articles that reveal the bizarre, dangerous, evil, and sordid reality that is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Surely you haven’t forgotten this classic little Daily Mail gem from just ten days ago, 13 October, about Provo: “Americans flock to conservative city with a scandalous past where religion and reality shows collide and homes are cheap.” Well, here’s the latest from the Daily Mail’s wonderful journalists: “Rich son, 34, murdered parents and housekeeper at $6m Newport Beach mansion ‘after going on Mormon mission sent him haywire.'” Please note how, while not troubling herself to supply any evidence for her claim, the author of the article, Sonya Gugliara, identifies Camden Burton Nicholson’s missionary service as the cause for his evident mental illness.

In this promotional still from the 1911 Danish film A Victim of the Mormons (Mormonens Offer), a typically evil Latter-day Saint missionary (played by Vladimir Psilander) marries a bevy of young virgins in front of the Tabernacle Organ in the Salt Lake Temple, which is depicted with meticulous attention to accurate detail. . (Wikimedia Commons public domain image).

Finally, I close with something that I found right beside the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™: “Opinion: Radical grace — the power that evil cannot defeat,” written by Bob Woodson. In it, he refers to the recent fundraiser for the widow and children of the man who attacked that Latter-day Saint chapel in Grand Blanc, Michigan, where he killed four congregants, wounded several others, and was himself killed by police. For what little it’s worth, many years ago I spent several days in company with Bob Woodson and a number of others for a small dialogue between the West and the Islamic world that took place in Valletta, on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean. Bob Woodson was part of the team from the West.

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