The Origin of Halloween
During the Vedic Period, from 3700 to 687 BC, the planet Mars approached and orbited the Earth one hundred times. It remained in this special geostationary orbit for about fourteen and a half years. During each orbiting period, called a kalpa in the ancient Rg Veda, it remained stationary in the sky, day and night, passing through phases like the Moon every day, but tidally locked directly above Mt. Kailash, which was known by the Vedic people as ‘Indra’s (Mars) ‘home on Earth’. In that orbit, only 33,500 km above the Earth, it appeared 630 times the area of the full Moon, and everyone on Earth knew names for hundreds of features on its surface, enhanced by virtue of the continuously changing shadows as it slowly revolved like a giant wheel. It was sometimes referred to as Yama-Yami, described as a ‘green man with a red cloak’, referring to the vegetation which abounded on part of Mars during the earlier kalpas, and the volcanic provinces, such as the Tharsis Bulge and the Valles Marineris, which covered the remaining part. Because of its distorted shape, (it was called the dog-star) its north pole (rotation axis) was forced to remain facing the Earth. As a result, tidal effects of the more massive Earth first drew all of the water in its northern hemisphere into a giant northern ocean, which scientists today call the Oceanus Borealis based on evidence of ancient coastlines, which can be seen in the figure. More slowly the same tidal effect melted subsurface rock around its north pole and slowly drew this upward until it rose above the northern ocean, forming a large circular island. All cultures in the world believed this ‘risen land’ was sacred, watching and waiting for its appearance at the beginning of each kalpa, and had special names for it, such as the Egyptian duat.
Cyclic Catastrophism is based on the fact that Mars only remained in its geostationary orbit for fourteen and a half years at a time and then left the vicinity of the Earth entering a planetary orbit about the Sun for fifteen and a half years. Many cultures believed that when Mars orbited close to the Earth, the souls of the recently deceased soared to the sacred northern island on Mars (figure), and that each time the planet escaped from Earth orbit at the vernal equinox in the fourteenth year of the kalpa, it carried their souls ‘to the gods’ (the stars). This same function was ascribed to the Vedic Yama-Yami and the Egyptian deity Horus.
This led (logically), to the belief that upon the next capture of Mars, people might be able to contact the souls of the deceased. Because the the orbits of the two planets brought them together again around Oct. 31, some fifteen and a half years after its previous release, seances were held at this date. Once the planets were released into their current orbits in 687 BC, all that remained was the date on which the souls of the deceased might be contacted. This led to ‘all saints day’ and to the more popular ‘fun’ day Halloween.
Over millennia, many ancient customs and beliefs have been handed down, the origins of which are now unknown. Indeed, the notion of purgatory may well have may have evolved from the same cyclics of Mars. The souls of those who passed away when Mars was not orbiting close to the Earth, must have had to wait for it return before they could ascend to the sacred land. Also, because at the end of each encounter the northern ocean overflowed the island, the myth arose of a great island culture called Atlantis which disappeared beneath the sea, (logically) called the Atlantic Ocean.