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From communion with the dead to pumpkins and pranks,

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Halloween is a patchwork holiday stitched together with cultural, religious, and occult traditions that span centuries.

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It all began with the Celts, a people whose culture had spread across Europe more than 2,000 years ago.

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October 31st was the day they celebrated the end of the harvest season in a festival called Samhain.

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That night also marked the Celtic New Year and was considered a time between years.

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A magical time when the ghost of the dead walked the earth.

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It was the time when the veil between death and life was supposed to be at its thinnest.

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On Samhain, the villagers gathered and lit huge bonfires to drive the dead back to the

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spirit world and keep them away from the living.

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But as the Catholic Church's influence grew in Europe, it frowned on the pagan rituals

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like Samhain.

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In the 7th century, the Vatican began to merge it with a church-sanctioned holiday.

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So November 1st was designated All Saints Day to honor martyrs and the deceased faithful.

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Both of these holidays had to do with the afterlife and about survival after death.

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It was a calculated move on the part of the church to bring more people into the fold.

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All Saints Day was known then as Hallowmas.

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Hallow means holy or saintly, so the translation is roughly Mass of the Saints.

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The night before, October 31st, was All Hallows Eve.

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which gradually morphed into Halloween.

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The holiday came to America with the wave of Irish immigrants

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during the potato famine of the 1840s.

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They brought several of their holiday customs with them,

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including bobbing for apples and playing tricks on neighbors,

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like removing gates from the front of houses.

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The young pranksters wore masks so they wouldn't be recognized.

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But over the years, the tradition of harmless tricks grew into outright vandalism.

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Back in the 1930s, it really became a dangerous holiday.

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I mean, there was such hooliganism and vandalism.

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Trick-or-treating was originally an extortion deal.

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Give us candy or we'll trash your house.

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Storekeepers and neighbors began giving treats, or bribes,

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to stop the tricks, and children were encouraged

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to travel door-to-door for treats

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as an alternative to troublemaking.

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By the late 30s, trick-or-treat became the holiday greeting.