The projections are in: American consumers are set to spend over 11.6 billion dollars this year on Halloween. That’s larger than the Gross Domestic Product of some countries. And it should force us to wrestle with a question: why are we becoming increasingly fascinated with Halloween celebrations? Why is this no longer primarily a children’s holiday? Are Millennials just desperate to hold onto something from childhood—something innocent yet thrilling, a way to grasp at a fleeting sense of mystery in an increasingly rational, secular world? Perhaps our growing fascination with Halloween and the "spooky" reflects a deeper trend in our culture.
In the United States, there’s a growing cultural secularization afoot. This is no longer merely a matter of articles from the New York Times heralding an abstracted ideological shift on our university campuses. We see this reality playing out close to home in the lives of our coworkers, family members, and friends. More and more people are identifying as “spiritual but not religious.” One could be forgiven for imagining that this means that folks are becoming more rational and less mystical.
I was recently watching a popular reality TV show in which contestants are brought together to meet one-on-one to find love. But there’s a catch: in the meetings, neither contestant can see the other. The entire courtship process is completely blind, forcing these individuals to get to know one another almost entirely based upon conversational chemistry and expressed values. Now, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I've seen more than a few episodes. And I've been struck by how many contestants this season identified as having formerly been religious. In nearly every instance, this “former religiousness” turned out to be some kind of Christianity. This didn't surprise me, given the sociological statistics about our cultural moment. What did surprise me was how many of these religious “nones” treated things like astrological signs, talk of “evil eyes,” and inner mystical sensitivity as authoritative or meaningful in their lives. Across the socioeconomic, ethnic, and political spectrums which these contestants represented, their worldviews were shot through with mysticism.
It would seem, as Michael Horton observes in his little book What is Secularization?, that secular people aren't becoming more rationalistic when they abandon Christianity but increasingly spiritual. Secular societies don’t become less mystical, but more so. And the mystical or spiritual practices they adopt aren’t really new but tend to be quite old and worn.
Take the popular practice of “manifestation,” for instance (the idea that we can intentionally bring our desires into existence by appealing to a universe which collaborates to make good things happen for us). One hardly has to be an expert in Eastern Mysticism or pantheistic notions of the universe to recognize that modern manifestation reflects rather old ways of thinking about the universe as permeated by a kind of natural divinity. As Lydia Sohn recently pointed out in The Atlantic, manifestation gurus have positively flooded Instagram and TikTok:
The methods for manifestation are as bountiful as the coaches. Take, for example, the 3-6-9 method. In one TikTok video, over ethereal background music, a young woman instructs viewers to write what they want three times, why they’re manifesting it six times, and how the desire makes them feel nine times—from the perspective of having already achieved their goal. (The creator’s goal was to reach 30,000 followers on TikTok.) “The results happened in 3 days,” reads the caption beneath her video, which has more than 150,000 likes.
Manifestation, at its core, assumes that the universe, in all its inky black vastness, has a powerful agency that we can wield with the correct techniques. In fact, the universe actually desires to bring about what you want—if you can just figure out how to tap into it. It assumes that what’s “out there” and what’s “in here” (my spiritual existence and desires) are tuned in a harmonious relationship. You too can realize your desires if you just say the right mantra, believe the right things enough, and live in a way that vibes with the nature of the cosmos.
For a generation that’s increasingly disillusioned by organized religion and fundamentally disconnected with traditional expressions of transcendence—such as Christmas, which has become almost offensively commercialized—it’s striking how legalistic and shame motivated secularized society has become. To live in harmony with the transcendent, you just need to do the right things. To tap into the supernatural, you just need to follow its rules. If it's not working, you're not working hard enough (or "letting go" fully enough). We’re not less concerned about a transcendent world that defies rationality, but more so. We’re not less concerned about our shame so as to ignore it, but our hyper-therapeutic culture is fueled by a desire to root out shame wherever it rears its ugly head.
I don't mean to denigrate counseling or therapeutic practice—that's a discussion for another time—but to point out a trend: shame-talk is everywhere, and so are the proposed methods for dealing with it. In a secularized society, we’re left with a feeling of the transcendent and spooky without any satisfying place to go to lay down the burden of our shame once and for all. No amount of nostalgic thrills, costumes, or candy can do away with the nagging feeling of guilt. We can never manifest away our shame. We might try to manage these feelings by domesticating them into the merely spooky, mostly sugar-fueled distraction of a commercialized Halloween, but the truth will always be scarier and yet more hopeful than we imagine.
The problem is that many of the places where modern people seek transcendence—whether in Halloween, crystals, astrology, or other “spiritual” practices—are ultimately unsatisfying. These efforts often reflect a yearning for innocence, a simpler time where things weren’t so complicated, or a connection to something mysterious. As a result, many find themselves grasping at shadows which provide only momentary relief.
This isn’t to say that it’s wrong to celebrate Halloween. But it’s important to realize that if this is our primary avenue for tapping into transcendence, then we will lose the lasting connection which our souls long for. As Augustine said so long ago, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” This longing for the transcendent cannot be satisfied by our efforts. The stranger must draw near to us; God must come down. This is our greatest desire.
Yet this is also our greatest fear. We long to know and be known, but none of us can manifest this into existence. What will become of us when the transcendent God draws near to us? What will become of our faults, guilt, and shame in the presence of the God before whom shadows flee (1 John 1:5): everlasting blessing, or horrors beyond our comprehension?
The reality is that this God—not witches or zombies or ghosts—is the stranger we most fear to meet. He is holy and we are not. But the invitation of the Scriptures is to step into the presence of God, not in fear of being consumed, but with the confidence that God has made a way for us to know and be known in Christ. He doesn’t do this through gnostic secrets or spiritual, individual, autonomous, enlightenment practices like manifestation. Nor does he withhold himself until we deal with our guilt and shame and clean ourselves up enough to approach him. God, in Christ, makes a way by bearing the shame in our place and making the declaration of this good news available in the preaching of the word to all people—through the free offer of the gospel. Only the gospel speaks to the inbreaking of the supernatural and transcendent into our world. Only the gospel makes way for God to approach us, not as a stranger, but as a friend through the regular, ordinary, means of grace. And only the gospel invites us to step forth into the presence of God, not scared of being consumed but with the confidence that we, in Christ, are welcomed into the divine mystery, safe and secure.
