17: All Hallow’s Special!

In America, we celebrate Halloween with costumes and trick or treating. In Germany, Allerheiligen is a holiday of paying respects to the dead, and showing reverence for all the saints of the Catholic Church. In Mexico, Dia de los Muertos involves the building of shrines and offering of food to the deceased. Among the ancient Celts, there was Samhain, a time in which the veil between worlds became thinner. Where do all these death holidays come from, and why do so many cultures, with different religious traditions, set aside a day for the ritualized celebration of the dead? And, most importantly for the subject of this podcast... what can Nietzsche tell us that can help understand this anthropological puzzle? Today, we're talking all things Halloween, from a Nietzschean lens. We discuss the effect of darkness and night upon the psyche, the overactive imagination and collective dream state of early man, how we never stop believing in fairytales, and why rituals help spiritualize the wicked thoughts and feelings of mankind. Join us for a special, creepy episode of The Nietzsche Podcast. Muahahahahaha! Episode art: Hans Baldung — Die Hexen (“The Witches”, 1510), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons