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Witches' BrouhahaWhy Halloween can be an organizational nightmare for pagans.

By Lee Ann KinkadePosted Friday, Oct. 30, 2009, at 9:33 AM ET

For most people, Halloween represents candy, costumes, and scary movies—a diversionary, tongue-in-cheek day of miming sin and deceit. But for pagans, the holiday is a time for ardent ritual, a celebration of the thin line between the living and the dead. As Lee Ann Kinkade writes in this "Faith-Based" from October 2008, planning and performing rituals doesn't come naturally for witches and warlocks. Fiercely independent and eager to question authority, their freewheeling nature can make celebrating Samhain a hassle. The article is reprinted below.

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In a grove near you, pagans are gathering to celebrate Samhain, the night when the veil between the living and the dead, between this world and others, is thin. We will wear cloaks and have ritual daggers, called athemes, at our waists. The prerequisite silver jewelry will gleam in the firelight. Natural fabrics flow as freely as the mead. There will be an unfortunate excess of tie-dyed material. In other words, we will look most like your picture of witches.

This picture leaves out an important detail, and I don't mean the whole human-sacrifice-and-stealing-Christian-babies thing. Planning a ritual, whether it's for Halloween or any other holiday, is a conflict-filled battle. It's like trying to herd jack rabbits on horseback. Those who practice witchcraft tend to be strident nonconformists, and the very nature of paganism, which has no unifying body or text, means that we have no obligation to believe the same thing or listen to anything beyond the dictates of our own consciences to unite in perfect accord. Often we flow together, achieving unity in which we are transported beyond ourselves, connected with the earth we love and the energy we feel from it.

And just as often, we don't.

A few weeks before the ritual comes the discussion. It may begin with a priestess asking what song we should sing for the Spiral Dance, the part of the ritual in which we dance clockwise ("sunwise" is our term for it) to generate energy and to unite us with the god and goddess. One person suggests "There Is No End to the Circle." Any number of coven members nod; the rest groan. Somebody says, "We did that last year." Somebody else: "Exactly. It's traditional with us." Another person asks, "So, we're faux fam-trad now?" A new coven member tries to remember what, exactly, a fam-trad coven is. Inspired by the discussion, someone spontaneously sings out, "There is no end to this song, there is no end." The high priestess glares. Eventually, the debate is resolved simply because everyone is sick of talking about it. Now the rest of the ritual has to be planned—and it's just more of the same. Scintillating debates may rage on such issues as vegan vs. nonvegan cakes and alcoholic vs. nonalcoholic ale. The more essential parts of the ritual, the invocation of the elements and the arrangement of altars, seem to work themselves out fairly easily. Like most family fights, any acrimony is focused on the details.