Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So do Latter Day Saints celebrate Halloween, or are we all dressed up today because we like making fun of ourselves? Welcome to Informed Saints. I'm Jasmine Rampley. This is Neal Rapley, Stephen Smoot, and we're here to talk about Halloween, what Latter Day Saints do to celebrate, if they do, and the kind of history of our observance. So first, obviously, let's explain our costumes. I am dressed up today as gold plates. Like the Book of Mormon gold plates. Neil, who are you today?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: I am either Nephi or Moroni, depending on which source you look at.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: For context, please.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: I am the. I am the ancient Nephite who brought and showed the gold plates in his knapsack to Mary Whitmer.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Ah, okay.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: And I should have a white beard. So just pretend my beard is white and my hair is white and you.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Should have some gold plates. So it's like a couple's costume?
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I was gonna say.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: That's right. You're my gold plate.
[00:00:49] Speaker C: Did you show them your knapsack that you got?
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got my knapsack here.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: And how about you, Steven? What are you dressed up as?
[00:00:55] Speaker C: I am dressed up as B.H. roberts, but specifically, I'm dressed up as B.H. roberts when he, like, disguised himself as a hobo to go retrieved the bodies of. I think it's William Barry and John Gibbs. They were two missionaries who were murdered at Cane Creek, Tennessee. Shout out to Josh Coates, BH Roberts Foundation. He's making a short film about the Cane Creek massacre and BH Roberts. There's a picture we're going to show here, right? This famous picture of B.H. roberts. He's all like a disheveled hobo. Anyways, I'm trying very poorly to recreate that. I do have the writing boots like he has in the picture and everything. Right. So I did come prepared. But, yeah, I'm BH Roberts.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: So for our Halloween episode, we've come as the most niche, obscure, nerdy things we could possibly come up with that are thematically relevant to Latter Day Saint stuff. So to kind of, like, kick off this discussion, we want to react to a TikTok we've seen recently from the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
[00:01:48] Speaker D: I've been to many haunted houses. I love being scared. I don't really know if the church has a strong stance against it, but I do know that anything satanic that can invite in bad spirits is frowned upon. So haunted houses are probably the more playful side of that.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Okay, so in the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, all the Women go to a haunted house and they're like, oh, I don't even know if this is okay with the church or not. I don't know what the church's position is on Halloween, but I'm sure it's fine. So that's the big question of today. Do Latter Day Saints celebrate Halloween? Is it okay to go to haunted houses? All of that. So first of all, what's the church's position on Halloween? Do you guys know off the top of your head?
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I'll tell you this. I was never taught a church position on Halloween growing up. And for what it's worth, in high school, I went to haunted houses and none of my church leaders or my parents ever raised an eyebrow about that.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: So, I mean, this is the place. Monument Park. I don't know if they still do, but they used to turn it into a haunted village.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:02:45] Speaker C: I've been. Because I grew up next to. This is the place. Every year they turned into a haunted village during Halloween time. And I went to it. It got kind of intense. It was. They did a pretty good job with it. I know about it. So I know that this is. The place is also privately owned, as I understand. I don't think.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: And to Clari is the place is like a historical village celebrating the pioneers. So for them to turn it into, like a Halloween thing is you think.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Yeah. You think. Yeah.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: You think. Well, it's like, very church themed. And then it's.
[00:03:10] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: And then suddenly it's all about, like, ghouls and chasing you in the woods kind of thing. Right, right, right. Yeah.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Well, the reason that you've never heard of a position on Halloween is probably because there isn't one. At least. When I searched through the handbook, I could not find any, like, policy the church has on specifically Halloween. Now, the church has guidelines about, like, how to deal with meeting houses. You can have church activities in meeting houses. You should always make sure that you're preserving the spirit of, you know, the Lord's home whenever you're doing stuff in church.
But nothing specifically about Halloween or haunted houses that I could find personally. And so the basic gist is, I mean, the church doesn't have a position.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: On Halloween because it's like, up to your personal.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: It's up to your personal taste. And it really is like a very United States holiday now. It's starting to be exported, ported to a lot of places as well. But the reality is that, like, the church is a global church, so we don't fixate a lot on things that are very United States centric. At least we try not to.
But that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of, like, division about how Latter Day Saints should practice or observe or not observe Halloween. Because there's, you know, it is it. People see it as satanic, see, people see it as pagan, People see it as not really religious. Therefore Latter Day Saints maybe shouldn't, but lots of Latter Day Saints do.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: I have two questions real quick on that point, Jasmine, Maybe you could clarify. Number one, does the church have a position on whether we are allowed to use fake bones or do we have to use real, organically sourced, fresh human bones? That's a question I have. And then another question that I think we should discuss here on the roundtable is, are we losing the spirit of Halloween? Is it becoming too commercialized?
That's a joke from the Onion, one of my favorite videos of all time where they say, are we forgetting the true meaning of Halloween? Is it becoming too commercialized? So maybe we should discuss that too.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: So as far as like, what Latter Day Saints do for Halloween, maybe we could talk a little bit about what do Wards, like, celebrate Halloween together? What do you personally do in your families?
[00:05:04] Speaker B: So I know from, from my own experience, no research went into this, but just from my own experience, most wards will have a, a fall festive activity.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: At least in the United States.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: A party. Yeah, at least in the US there's usually like a chili cook off and people all bring their chilies in and there will be a, like, there will be literally someone will be the bishop or whoever will, will be in charge of judging, like tasting all the chili and, and awarding like a best chili, you know, and this is often, though maybe not always, but this is often Halloween themed. People will show up in costume and it's frequently paired with this like what we call a trunk or treat. Right.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: So what is trunk or.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to say our vaunted trunk or treat. We've got to describe.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Trunk or treat is usually done in the parking lot of the church building where instead of going house to house to go trick or like trick or treating, you go trunk to trunk. Right? The cars are all parked, so the trunk is facing outward. Right. And the trunk is open. And people, people go all out. I don't know if we can find some images on the Internet or something of this to, to show, but some people will go all out in like, decorating their car and trunk to make it really like festive and stuff. But kids will basically go Trunk to trunk, handing out and getting candy from there. Right. And so that is something that is not a part of every ward. In fact, I don't think our ward does a trunk or treat.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: No, but a lot of Latter Day Saints do it. And it's not even necessarily restricted to Latter Day Saints. I mean, other Christians, it's becoming more.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: Popular just to do that because it's, like, a lot easier with your kids. It's a lot less dangerous because you not running down in the middle of the street, especially with little kids.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: I know my first introduction to trunk retreat was actually when I was on my mission. So growing up in Utah, we didn't really do it a lot because I think there was a lot more. There was just kind of like, oh, most of the neighborhood is members of the church anyway. Right?
[00:07:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: But, like, when I went on my mission out to Virginia, all the wards I served in did trunk or treat.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: I did a lot of trunk or treat going up out East.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: So I don't know you weirdos. I never did trick or treat. I was always.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Because you grew up in Utah?
[00:07:16] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I was always hitting the pavement. Right.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Every.
[00:07:19] Speaker C: Every. Every Halloween.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Speaking of hitting the pavement. So do Latter Day Saints do trick or treating? I. The answer is yes, absolutely.
[00:07:25] Speaker C: And I. I have a hot take.
I think that as long as you are dressed up, if you put in a minimum amount of effort, you are never too old to trick or treat.
And I know some people, like, you have to have a kid with you or something. I don't necessarily know if I agree with that. I think that Halloween. I am all about democratizing Halloween as a fun holiday that everybody can celebrate. So if you are an adult, if you are a childless cat lady, I don't care if you are dressing up and you're putting an effort, you should be allowed to trick or treat.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: So another thing that people have, like, divided opinions on is the fact that in Utah, where there are lots of Latter Day Saints, and if Halloween falls on a Sunday, it kind of divides the neighborhood because Latter Day Saints do believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy. And so many Latter Day Saint families don't feel comfortable sending their kids trick or treating or offering trick or treating on a Sunday. And so there's just kind of unspoken, natural cultural tendency to then shift it to Saturday or to do both days. Like the Latter Day Saint families are gonna go trick or treating on Saturday, and then those who want to do it on Sunday will do it on Sunday. So there's kind of like two days of Trick or treating. When Halloween happens to fall on a Sunday, and it's a strange phenomenon you won't see anywhere else.
[00:08:35] Speaker C: I believe there is a rabbinic tractate in the Talmud. I could be wrong, but it does say that if you do not participate in the trick or treating, in the tricking part of Halloween, that's okay, you're not breaking the Sabbath. But if you don't do the treating part, if you don't hand out treats when people come to your door, I don't know, that seems kind of dicey. Yeah, no, there's these funny little quirky regional cultural things.
Our family. Maybe I'm like, outing myself as an apostate, but our family is always super liberal with our Halloween policies. So, you know, just whatever was kind of for fun that we wanted to do, we would always do it.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: And I just know that, like, every time it falls on Sunday, like the community Facebook groups I'm in kind of like, there's always posts about, like, yeah, either non members feeling left out because they thought trick or treating was happening on Sunday and then no one came to their house because all the Latter Day Saints went on Saturday, or vice versa. Like, it always becomes a topic of conversation. And I don't know, we're trying to, you know, observe our religion as best we can, but we also want to be inclusive of everyone in our neighborhood.
[00:09:29] Speaker C: The spirit of the law. Is it a wholesome, recreational family activity to walk around the neighborhood and say hi to the neighbors on a Sunday, on a Sabbath?
[00:09:38] Speaker B: That's.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: It depends who you're dressed up as and what pranks you're doing.
[00:09:42] Speaker C: Yes, that's right. And see, that's. That's why, like I said, like, we need to some kind of a theological treatise on this, because I would maintain, if it's with your family, if it's not, like you're not going crazy or whatever with it, but if you're just walking around the neighborhood saying hello to the neighbors, here's our kids dressed up as, you know, whatever. I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't know. I'm going to get a call from my state president.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: You know, I think that's fine. I tend to be more of a traditionalist when it comes to, like, Sunday trick or treating, but hey, well, I.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Think my family, we usually, you know, if. If it landed on a Sunday or whatever, I think we usually did Saturday. But at the same time, like, if someone trick or treated to our house on a Sunday, like, we weren't gonna.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Be like, Turn him away.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: No, Saul.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: That's a recipe for eggs at your house, my dude. If you're gonna turn him away, that's literally in trick or treat.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: If people come trick or treating, right. You give them candy still. Right. And you. You don't make them feel bad for trick or treating on Sunday or whatever.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: And I think that's where a lot of trunk or treat traditions came out for people outside of Utah is when especially it falls on Sunday. And Latter Day Saint families don't wanna do the trick or treating on Sunday, but they want some way to celebrate. Like, then the ward can kind of come on Saturday where it would be out of the cultural norm for wherever they live.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: I think Stephen, though, makes a reasonable case that this is actually maybe not necessarily an inappropriate activity for the Sabbath. I mean, like, are you gonna cause.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: A wedge in our mind?
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Normally, under normal circumstances, would you consider going around the neighborhood, visiting with neighbors and, you know, honestly, giving candy away? That's a charitable thing to do, right?
[00:11:14] Speaker A: And honestly, it's.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: Especially in this economy. Yeah.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Seriously, it is one of the most social and friendly events of the entire year where it doesn't even matter, like, who you are if you're a member of the church or not. Like, it's a chance to actually meet your neighbors for the first time. It's one of the few American holidays left where we're actually communicating with people in our neighborhood and not just in our own isolated social group. So I do think it's a. It's a cool. I love it. It's an exciting tradition where people I don't normally interact with, I get a chance to meet and say hello to.
[00:11:40] Speaker C: So this raises a natural question, perhaps. And here we are dressed up for the occasion.
If it's not a religious holiday, it's not Christmas or Easter.
Why do Mormons love Halloween so much? Seems like everybody's wondering, right?
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it is kind of odd because we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, are a religious group, and Halloween is kind of the secular, spooky, paganish holiday. So, like, why do we love it? Is it because we're satanic? Is it because we're pagan? But Latter Day Saints seem to get really into the holiday. I mean, clearly. I mean, I see, like, lots of Instagrammers posting about, like, the most intense Utah neighborhood decorating for Halloween, and they're like viral Instagram posts and TikToks about how into Halloween people get. Or, like, you see the couple's costumes, the family costumes.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: Those are Kind of awesome.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: All out with it. Oh, there goes my gold plate.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: You've lost 116 pages of the gold plate.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: 16 pages there. And so like there is kind of a phenomenon where a Latter Day Saints really do love Halloween for some reason. And I don't know, my instinct is that it's just like super family friendly for the most part. Like it's such a great opportunity. Not just the gathering of neighbors as we talked about, but to like be together as a family to interact with your kids. It's like super creative. If you are someone who loves to dress up, this is great. You get to come up with like a fun couples costume or family costume where your kids are different pieces of the equation and you get to decorate your house. And like we get into Christmas decorating too. But Halloween's just like a fun macabre.
[00:13:06] Speaker C: Halloween is the end goal. It is the apotheosis of the tiger mom of the lds, you know, mom talk. Tiger mom that has like eight kids and they need to coordinate every last little thing. It's like the final boss of that, like high functioning, you know, like mom that's always involved in all kids lives. I don't know, it's kind of fun when you see some of these big family costumes. Yeah, it's been great.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: It stresses me out. But I love it when a whole.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Family does like a thematic costume or something. It's certainly fun. But I'll be honest. Like this question, the fact that a lot of people ask this question just perplexes me because I never, I mean, I guess just growing up in it, I didn't know that like we were more into Halloween than other people.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Oh, it totally perplexed me too because growing up, like, I don't know, my family didn't like Halloween that much. And so I'm like, well, we're not that into it.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: I mean. And I feel like, you know, growing up in Utah, I feel like, you know, you, you can find a spectrum easily enough on like love of Halloween. Right. Like I certainly did know people growing up and know people now who are super into Halloween, right? They get super dressed up, they deck out their yard.
They do, they love watching horror movies all October, right?
[00:14:19] Speaker C: That's what I do. By the way, they go through the.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Hitchcock collection or whatever.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: I'm lightweight.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: But like I also know other like myself, I'm not anti Halloween. I'm not against it, but I don't really get all that into it. The one thing I have that, that's a little unusual, I suppose I have a heavy metal Halloween playlist that I listen to every October.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Well, there you go.
[00:14:38] Speaker C: Very appropriate.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: I don't. I don't have that for any other holiday, I'll admit.
But other than that, I don't really do a lot to get super into Halloween. And I know a lot of other people who are just kind of like. So I. I don't know. I guess I didn't. I didn't know we had a reputation as Latter Day Saints to be more into Halloween than others.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: I think it's kind of a dichotomy. I think the Latter Day Saints who love Halloween, love Halloween and really do get into it. And then there is another contingency who are a little skittish about Halloween or feel uncomfortable with it because it does celebrate some of the more macabre, verging on satanic aspects of humanity. And so, like, some people really, like, just. Just don't feel comfortable celebrating.
[00:15:16] Speaker C: I've got a fun anecdote on that point.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:15:19] Speaker C: On when Halloween tends to cross the line.
So I will shield the identity of this individual, but it's a family member of mine who, back in the day, they were asked to give the opening prayer to a. The ward had turned their ward building into a haunted house. So maybe this is like pre regulation, pre correlation days or whatever.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Haunted house in my ward. Boldly.
[00:15:42] Speaker C: Okay, so it happened recently. But. Yeah, but. But back in the day, you know, they turned the ward house into a haunted house. And they asked this family member to give the opening prayer. And they said, I don't think you want me to give the opening prayer. And they said, oh, come on, do it. And they said, no, really, I would not do. Oh, come on, just give the prayer. Okay, fine. And they got up there and they gave the prayer and they said, heavenly Father, please forgive us for desecrating your holy house with the satanic pagan ritual or whatever. And like they went all out on it. Right. So it's touchy for some people I know who, who you know, especially if you. If you can cross a line with getting into the, like the overtly satanic or the overtly, like evil, like, you know, spooky or whatever. But, like, there's. I think everybody knows there's like a line you can cross where it becomes a little much. Apparently this happened in that situation. So I know not everyone's a fan.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Well, yeah, and I do think the church does not. I mean, they. They discourage doing like, overtly Halloweeny, spooky things in the church buildings now because of Situations like that.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: And the reality is, like. Like, Latter Day Saints believe in the supernatural. We believe in the dark side of the supernatural as well. And so we do know that these are things we really shouldn't. Like you shouldn't be playing with fire. And so all Latter Day Saints, though, there is some kind of line you don't want to cross. If we're dressing up, having family fun, maybe even reveling in just, like, human nature to be spooked, like. Sure. But the minute we start delving into things that can be, like, satanic or things that can be, like, really fearful and be taking the spirit out of our lives, like, I think that's when a lot of Latter Day Saints are like, we really shouldn't be doing.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: And it should be, of course, a spirit of, like, fun and a spirit of maybe, like, kind of friendly mischief as opposed to a spirit of, like, gory, you know, satanic evil. Like, that's. Yeah, exactly.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: So as far as, like, how we got to this place where some Latter Day Saints love it and some Latter Day Saints are very uncomfortable with it, let's talk about the history a little bit.
[00:17:32] Speaker C: Oh, okay.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: The history of Latter Day Saints and Halloween. From what I've been able to gather that there's not like, a ton of. To. There's not a ton of research that's been done on the history of Latter Day Saints.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Sounds like someone needs to write a journal of Mormon history.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: Hey, get Chris Blythe on this right now. Chris will talk about it.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: But from what I understand, the history of Latter Day Saints and Halloween basically mirrors the history of Halloween in general.
So Latter Day Saints come on the scene in the 19th century, were founded in 1830 formally, and Halloween at this point has been around for a while. So Halloween comes from. There's a lot of different ideas about where the origins of Halloween. Part of it is pagan. I forgot the word you said.
[00:18:07] Speaker C: Samhain.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Samhain, which is a Celtic festival. Yeah, Celtic festival. Where kind of the origins of trick or treating may come from, but then there's also. It ties into more Christian practices of All Saints day, which is November 1st, where you celebrate ancestors, you celebrate all of the saints and. And the holy ones. And the idea is that the day before All Saints Day, which is a very holy day, the day before that is all hollows. Eves is the day where, like, the spirits of the dead can kind of cross over to the earth, and maybe even, like, Satan has a little bit more power on that day leading up to the more holy Day of All Hallows Day. And so like, that's kind of where the Halloween itself get its origins. But from what I understand, by the time the church comes on the scene, like trick or treating kind of starts to coalesce towards the end of the 19th century, leading into the early 20th century in the United States. So obviously I forgot the name of the word again. The Gaelic holiday, Samhain. Samhain starts to coalesce this concept of like ghouling or souling where you'd go to different houses and you'd try to ask for like a soul cake or you would go dress up in disguise. Then as you have a lot of immigration into the US From Ireland and Scotland, some of this gets imported into the US and by the early 20th century, that's when trick or treating starts to kind of coalesce as an American tradition that lots of people start doing. And so that's where you start to see this show up with Latter Day Saints as well. In some of our earlier church magazines, you'll see references to this. So I'm, I'm not exactly sure what year this one's from. 53. 6 63. Okay, so this one says pick and treat.
Try pick and treat at your house this Halloween for healthy, wholesome, character building fun. This is an article from the church magazine from the 1960s. And it's just like trying to play on trick or treating. But it's supposed to be like this more wholesome version where instead of tricking people, we actually like, let them pick.
[00:20:05] Speaker C: A treat, speak about wholesomeness and Halloween stuff. Can we pull up, Spencer, pull up that song.
This appeared in like the 1950s in the children's Friend, I think is where this appeared. There's no such thing as a Witch. They had a little song you could sing. When you're all alone in the country and the night is dark as pitch Just be bold because you've been told there's no such thing as a witch when the noisy wind is howling and your ears are all a twitch Laugh, ho ho because you know there's no such thing as a witch. We'd have to do the whole thing. There's a couple other standards.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: You know what year this was again?
[00:20:40] Speaker C: I think this was 1955.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: Is when this, this came out funny.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Because you see stuff like this.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: But yeah, 1955, children's friend. That's, that's pretty great. And actually our friend Matt Roper, I learned about this from him because he remembered seeing this as a kid. It was still around in his day growing up. And it was, you know, and look like, like. It is also a good way, Halloween, to sort of teach your kids the difference between, like, make believe and what's real. You know what I mean? And when you're at a young, impressionable age and everything, like Santa Claus and Jesus and witches are all real at the same time, this might be a good time to kind of demythologize. Demylogize it a little bit. Right. And to sort of explain these differences to help them, like, cope with the reality of, like, fear or the unknown or whatever. So I don't know. That's. I just think that's kind of a. A fun, clever way to kind of turn Halloween into something wholesome.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Right, I agree. I mean, you have references like that where they're clearly teaching, like, oh, there's no such thing as witches. But at the same time, like, you'll see in the Friend magazine in like, the 70s and even 80s, like, references to witches and pumpkins and ghosts and things like that in a very just, like, tacitly accepting way. And mostly it's just fun.
But you also have things like people having, like, Halloween parties all the way back in the 40s. There are.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: We got a picture of that, right?
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah, we've got some pictures that we found from, like, old mission photos from the 1940s of northern states of people, like, gathering for a Halloween party or like, eating the treats after the Halloween party or wearing masks or costumes. So, like, Latter Day Saints very much were observing Halloween the same way that the broader ladder or United States culture was.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: You know, that picture reminds me of, by the way, have you seen those, like, uncanny Mickey Mouse costumes from back in the day, like the original Mickey Mouse costumes? We can show a couple here. Like these, like, terrifying, you know, uncanny. I don't know. It's kind of. Whenever I see old Halloween pictures, that's what it reminds me of is like, the Uncanny Valley, creepy Mickey Mouse, you know, mascot costumes.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: So, yeah, it generally follows the broader sway of history. But that leads us to today, where we've already talked about how there's kind of like a division between those who love, love, love Halloween and those who feel kind of uncomfortable about it. And so let's watch this video that Gwen put together, at least a clip of this. Why don't Mormons celebrate Halloween?
[00:22:51] Speaker E: LDS people are very much into Halloween. They're kind of interested in what is dark, the dark arts. They have a fascination with that.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: They do magic.
[00:22:59] Speaker E: A lot of them watch Harry Potter and They're into that kind of stuff, like palm readings.
I've seen it.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Okay. They like Harry Potter.
[00:23:05] Speaker E: Oh yes. That's an important movie for them.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: I will plead guilty to enjoying Harry Potter like any good millennial.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: Yes, I'll plead guilty.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: And so you know that's true.
Well, I don't know if it's true that Mormons are uniquely fans of Harry Potter, but it's true that there are many, there are many Latter Day Saints, especially around our age, who enjoy Harry Potter.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: We're the last demographic that's supporting J.K. rowling, rallying as everybody else turns on her.
Can I just say briefly on the point of Harry Potter, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know which camera I'm looking at, but whichever one. Ladies and gentlemen, Harry Potter is fiction. It's not actually satanic. And I promise you the author of Leviticus did not have Harry Potter in mind when he said, like, you shall not suffer a witch to live or whatever has nothing to do with that. It's okay to enjoy Harry Potter. You heard it from me. Okay?
[00:23:54] Speaker A: I mean, you say that, but I remember what, 20, 30 years ago, when Harry Potter was first becoming a thing, there like was conversations among the Latter Day Saints about like, is this okay? Because it is witchcraft. And so I think like, it underscores that for the most part Latter Day Saints like love having fun. We enjoy fantasy, we enjoy fiction, we enjoy things that like open our creativity. But we are sensitive to things that maybe cross the line towards Satanic. We would never actually enact satanic things. Like we're not going to be doing rituals around Satan.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: We don't perform satanic rituals in the temple or otherwise.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Many like apostles and general authorities have like condemned things like witchcraft and palm reading and like energy. Like a lot of things that we would consider like outside the realm of priesthood are things that our church leaders have like cautioned against the so called.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Occult as, as people would say.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: But anyway, it's all good, clean fun. And so my verdict is that I enjoy Halloween quite a bit. I enjoy it with my family.
What's your opinion of Halloween at 1 out of 10?
[00:24:51] Speaker C: 1 out of 10. 10 out of 10.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:54] Speaker C: Seconded. Halloween is good, clean fun. It's probably my favorite secular holiday, right?
Always have enjoyed it as a kid. Still enjoy it. Now we're doing a family costume this year. We're all going as Star wars themed, right? So we'll have like Luke and Leia and Baby Yoda or something for our, for our little one, you know, or something like that. So yeah, I think when it's, when it's done safely, when it's tasteful, when it's done in the right spirit of spooky fun, good times for everybody. And you get free food and treats out of it. 10 out of 10 for Halloween. Absolutely.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: I, I'm. I will agree. 10 out of 10. Halloween's great. It's just a lot of fun. And again, yeah, just don't take it too seriously. Don't take the dark elements too seriously. It's just. Hey, it's just fun.
[00:25:39] Speaker E: Fun.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: Agreed. So enjoy your trunk or treat this year.
I hope you have a fantastically creative family costume or couples costume or just single person's costume. Happy Halloween and we'll see you next time.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: Share your costume ideas in the comments.
[00:25:55] Speaker C: Oh yeah, also, don't be that family that gives pass along cards instead of candy when they come to your house. Okay? We all know who you are.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Be the full candy bar.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: Absolutely. Be the king size candy bar people. Absolutely.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: There you go.
