Is Halloween your favorite holiday of the year?

Do you know an adult who has never outgrown the thrill of wearing a frightening mask and costume — someone who really looks forward to pretending to be someone (or something) completely different for one night every year?

Whether you think of yourself or a friend or family member, you may wonder if it is normal or even healthy to make a festive occasion of a day that celebrates themes of fear, death and the supernatural.

In recent years, poisoned "treats" and vicious vandalism have given Halloween, to some, an ugly and menacing aura. It seems to be a day that can bring out the worst in human nature. Some sociologists have gone as far as to call Halloween a "degenerate" holiday.

Interestingly, despite its modern horrors and its ancient roots in death and the supernatural, Halloween has historically been a positive holiday, a celebration of life. The earliest observances of Halloween are unknown, but historians have found evidence of Halloween celebrations in pre-Roman and pre-Christian Celtic communities in Ireland, Wales and the Scottish Highlands.

The Celtic Druids celebrated Nov. 1 as the Feast of the Lord of the Dead as well as their New Year's Day and the first day of winter. It was a day of feasting on the food of the harvest.

The Druids believed that Oct. 31 was the last day of summer, the beginning of a new year and therefore also New Year's Eve with the dead roaming the earth and playing tricks on the living. The frightened Druids tried to ward off the evil by including ghosts in their New Year's Eve feast. They arranged special offerings of food for them and when the evening was over they paraded in masks and costumes escorting the dead out of the village.

In later medieval times, churches organized processions of villagers costumed as angels, devils and saints in observance of the Eve of All Saints or All Hallows E'en. In spite of the Church's effort to make it a positive religious occasion, it was still widely believed to be a night filled with ghosts, witches, goblins and sorcerers.

Halloween's dual identity as both a pagan and Christian holiday reflects the fact that most cultures in our world have a need to try to deal with the most basic conflicts of human experience: life and death, good and evil, humanity and nature, the natural and the supernatural.

The costumes, masks and processions helped early peoples confront their fear of death and the unknown forces of evil. As primitive as these rituals may seem to us now, they were a healthy attempt to bring the most basic human fears into the open in order to face them. In modern times, particularly in industrialized countries, I think that most people no longer believe in the power of unseen forces of evil. We may see that "evil" is really the irrational, anti-social and violent behavior of ill and extremely dysfunctional human beings.

Nevertheless, this behavior is horrifying and terrifying. In my opinion, without consciously realizing it, this is the reason that we carry on the customs of our ancient Celtic ancestors in celebrating Halloween. It is a day when we can express our fear of death and the unknown menaces of life by becoming the dead and the menacing, by celebrating them and laughing at them.

Halloween allows us, in a healthy, non-destructive way, to walk on the dark side for a while. Then, when the night is over, we shed our hideous masks and frightening costumes — like the villagers of long ago, and symbolically cheat death for another year.

Based in Rockport, Susan Britt, M. Ed., a former psychotherapist now Relationship Coach, helps couples, families, individuals and co-workers turn Conflict into Compassion. Questions and comments may be addressed to her at light622@juno.com.