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Dear everyone,
    Halloween is coming up soon (October 31). It would be interesting to hear how people celebrate it, and how it might fit into a pantheist context.
    Originally this was the eve of the Celtic festival Samhain, the end of summer/beginning of winter, and the eve of the Christian All Hallows or All Souls day (resident mythologists please correct me if I'm wrong). There are clear connotations of a "Day of the Dead" on which departed souls are placated to make sure they don't cause havoc among the living, as a punishment for being neglected.
    We don't believe that natural forces need placating, nor that the dead have spirits that will plague us if we don't honour them.
    But a day for honouring the dead is a useful concept that is very much part of a pantheist approach, and Halloween could serve us well for this.
    We don't believe in personal immortality. And yet don't most of us hanker after being remembered in some way? One of the most formative experiences in my religious development was, in Bali, seeing the shrines of dead ancestors in people's gardens, little pagodas on stilts. Another came in Singapore's Chinatown, where I passed by a booth where a large family were having their annual celebration dinner for an important ancestor. They had his photo on the table and were all circling around it. There was something a bit patriarchal about this: I doubt if women ancestors, or "unimportant" ancestors get this kind of treatment.
    As well as the Lares and Penates, which were in origin the spirits of household departed, the Romans used to keep shrines in the corner of their houses, with death masks of departed relatives. At certain times, and at funerals, these masks would be worn by those of the living who most resembled that ancestor, thus stressing the continuity of families through time......

After the burial of the body . . . they place the image of the dead man in the most conspicuous position in the house, where it is enclosed in a wooden shrine. This image consists of a mask, which is fashioned with extraordinary fidelity both in its modelling and its complexion to represent the features of the dead man. On occasions when public sacrifices are offered, these masks are displayed and decorate with great care. And when any distinguished member of the family dies, the masks are taken to the funeral, and are there worn by men who are considered to bear the closest resemblance to the original, both in height and in their general appearance and bearing. [Polybius, Histories, vi.53]
In the times of our ancestors portraits modelled in wax were arranged, each in its own niche, as images to accompany the funeral processions of the family; and always, whenever someone died, every member of the family that had ever existed was present. The pedigree, too, of the individual was traced by lines to each of the painted portraits. Their record rooms were filled with archives and records of what each had done.
                        [Pliny, Natural History, xxxv.2]

........It seems to me that the practice of honouring and remembering ancestors is an excellent one. I believe we should keep family trees for as far back as we can trace (my cat has one, and its much longer and more complete than my own). We should keep photos and key mementoes of people and pass them down through families.
    These practices have a dual function: for the individual contemplating their own death, they are comforting, they provide an idea of some kind of continuation after death, a guarantee that they will not vanish into total oblivion (not that there's anything wrong with that).
    For everyone they provide a time to think about the continuity of life, and about the progress of time and history.
    This would be a time to visit the places where remains are buried or ashes scattered, a time to get out old photos and mementoes and talk about them.
    Should we use pumpkins, or are they too scary? [Kids today seem to tolerate or seek out higher levels of "scare factor" than many adults.]
    Best wishes,
    Paul