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October 31 used to be a public holiday mostly in English-speaking countries, but in recent years Halloween has become celebrated almost all over the world. Why did the eve of All Saints’ Day take root with us and what meaning do we put into it? Psychologies expert and analytical psychologist Lev Khegay answered these questions.
Lev Hegai, Jungian analyst, psychotherapist, vice-president of the Russian Society for Analytical Psychology.
Psychologies: Why did we even get into the fashion to celebrate Halloween?
Lev Hegai: The idea of borrowed holidays and customs is not new: this has always been the case when, for various reasons, this or that culture dominated. There are a lot of Western attributes in our lives now. The boundary between the Eastern and Western worlds has been erased, it is more appropriate to speak of a globalized world. Actually, Halloween is a celebration of this new world. It is celebrated both in China and in Africa, and in this regard, we cannot go against the trends of the rest of the world. Different cultures have brought their own meanings to it. In the official religion, such a phenomenon was never welcomed, and in folk beliefs there was always such an outlet, the opportunity to “play”.
In our religious tradition, Halloween, of course, also could not take root, so it became just its secular imitation. Its popularity stems from the lack of carnivals in our culture. Carnival was present on holidays like Ivan Kupala Day, but this was considered a pagan remnant. In Soviet times, both were etched out, a shortage of carnival formed, and it is very necessary from a psychological point of view. People need to release tension, relax. Halloween is especially successful on our soil also because it is October 31 – a cold, dark time of the year, anticipating a depressing winter. In this carnival, we are saved from the autumn exacerbation of depressive moods.
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Psychologies: Among other things, archetypes are also revealed in this holiday.
Lev Hegai: Oh sure. The archetypes of vampires, the walking dead, zombies and other fashionable heroes of popular culture find an unconscious response in us, because any person is afraid of death, for us it is inevitable. And the action with dressing up as representatives of evil spirits also has a counterphobic element. It’s like a cure for a phobia, a kind of fight against fear. Moreover, we like to play it collectively, at fun parties, in clubs.
Psychologies: Why are Halloween and Valentine’s Day popular with us?
Lev Hegai: Because these are the strongest polar human experiences: love and death, eros and thanatos. It is the power of life and death that is behind all other opposites that determine the conflicts and dynamics of everything that happens. In these borrowed holidays, these two elements – love and death – are presented in the most vivid form. Little has been said about these basic human experiences in our culture. There was no form for their expression, they were repressed. That is why they came to us from the West.
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