Is 2015 the 666th recorded Halloween?

Rumours are spreading online that Halloween 2015 will be the 666th instance of the celebration.

As if Halloween wasn’t spooky enough, rumours are spreading on social media that this is the 666th celebration of the popular celebration, and with 666 commonly being identified as the “mark of the beast” according to the Book of Revelation, should we be trembling with fear at the prospect of two sinister supernatural references joining forces on a single day?

Well no, since this certainly isn’t the 666th instance of Halloween. In fact Halloween 2015 has no number, since the celebration of Halloween doesn’t really have any “official” starting date. I.e. there was no first recognised Halloween.

Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, like many Western festivities, is the result of a progression of different types of celebrations from many different cultures that have simply evolved into what we know as Halloween today.

In fact the very first roots of Halloween are disputed by scholars even today, with many pointing to pagan, Celtic, Welsh and other European cultures that celebrated the day long before it became a celebration of ghouls, witches and ghosts. The date has been associated with harvest festivals in pagan and Celtic culture, and in Christian culture for remembering those who have “reached Heaven” on All Saints Day.

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The traditions associated with October 31st today are much more modern, and certainly do not date back 666 years. In fact modern trick-or-treating, for example, is less than 100 years old, gaining popularity in the late 1920s, and appears to be an off-shoot to the only-slightly older custom of guising that was popular in the late 19th century in Scotland where children would dress “in disguise” to knock on doors to receive coins, apples or nuts. Before guising, the tradition of knocking on doors for rewards has hazy origins at best, with several possibilities offered to explain the tradition.

Jack O-Lanterns also fail to date back that far, with the earliest incarnations of them actually being made from turnips in Europe during the 19th century where the faces of goblins and ghouls were etched onto the vegetables. The popularity of carved pumpkins did not gain in popularity until the 20th century when they became synonymous with ghastly faces and candles were placed inside.

Even the word Halloween fails to date back 666 years, and is itself an evolution of literary cultures. The first usage could be traced back to the term Hallowed Evening – in the 18th century – Hallowed as a verb translates as to make something holy (e.g. “Hallowed be thy name” in the Lords Prayer) or as a noun meaning saint. This was later shortened to Hallows Even (Even being the Scottish word for eve) and then later shortened to Halloween.

Whatever Halloween was like 666 years ago, it wasn’t anything like it is today, nor would it had been identified as Halloween. None of the modern traditions were included, and even their early incarnations, if present, would have been unrecognisable. Thus to say that Halloween 2015 is the 666th instance of the celebration is a frivolous, arbitrary and baseless claim at best.