I tend not to keep Hallowe'en as a special day for ritual (I prefer Walpurgisnacht and the Winter Solstice) perhaps the reasons I don't hold a ritual on Hallowe'en are:

1) the same reasons Christians downplay Christmas - too commercial

2) the same reason serious drinkers stay in on New Year's - too many amateurs about.

Instead I enjoyed a quite meal with friends of a like mind.  However, on both sides of the Atlantic, Christians were getting their panties in a bunch about what I might be doing.

 Here's a sample of the less mad:-

THIS IS EXTREMELY SERIOUS.
Minutes ago I spoke with friend Dr. Norman G. Marvin,M.D. and he is so concerned at what he has learnedabout Barack Obama?s familyin Kenya that he is calling a special prayer meeting in his home to prayagainst the witchcraft curses attempted by them against John McCain and SarahPalin?ÿPRAY TODAY AND CONTINUALLY THAT ALL SUCH CURSES BE BROKEN AND SATAN?SPLAN FOR AMERICA BE DEFEATED?
Bree Keyton, a young woman evangelist who had justtraveled to Kenya and visited Obama?s home village and what she found out abouthis relations with his tribal people was chilling. And his ?cousin? Odinga wasdreadful.ÿShe said the witches, warlocks and those involved in satanism and theoccult get up daily at 3 a.m. to release curses against McCain and Palin so B.Hussein Obama is elected...
Bree Keyton went and visited Obama?s tribal people andshe found out Obama is 75% Arabÿ and his family are Muslims. Odinga is strilltrying to become the President of Kenya. If he does, he will make a lawforbidding all public preaching and institute Sharia Law. Bree K. said Odingahas made a pact with satan.

Halloween Today:

Halloween is an old thing, it?s been around for thousandsof years, but despite it's crude, disgusting, and evil history, has it improved? Is it still Satan?s holiday? My answer to that is ?yes?. Because even though we live in the computer and wireless age, and everything is quick and easy, and the Word of God is being spread faster than ever, and religious rituals involving immoral deeds is found upon by even non-Christians, the acts and spirit of Halloween remains the same. This included sexual rituals and human sacrifices. There are young women who are 'chosen' to bare the child who will be offered to the spirits on Halloween night every year. There are babies born to die in satanic rituals and acts. There are women who are raped in the woods on Halloween night for some satanic rituals. This stuff is real, and as Christians, I don't think we should turn a blind eye to it. We need to wake up,and see what we are celebrating every year.

"There is another religious group which is equally serious about its Halloween celebrations: the Satanists. Halloween to them is amore sinister and direct celebration of death and Satan; they celebrate [it] as one of his two highest holy days. At Halloween the sacrifices of some of these satanic cults are unspeakably vicious and brutal" (Like Lambs To TheSlaughter, Johanna Michaelsen, 1989, p.190).
This includes a series of six weeks of rituals including the slaughter of a small animal like a bird or cat, progressing through each week with a larger animal such as a goat, and then the murder of a small infant or child until the final night where they ritually murder not only another child but also an adult female (Ibid, p. 192).

Those who oppose Christ are known to organize on Halloween to observe Satanic rituals, to cast spells, to oppose churches and families, to perform sacrilegious acts, and to even offer blood sacrifices to Satan. Last year, Newscasters in numerous cities warned their viewers to guard their animals on Halloween night. Dogs and cats are thought to be the most often sacrificed animals on Halloween, and many S. P. C. A. centers will not allow black cats to be adopted until after Halloween. In rural communities, it is not uncommon for farmers to awake to find the mutilated remains of their farm animals (cows, calves, chickens, even horses) that were ritualistically slaughtered in Satanic sacrifices. The practices that accompany such sacrificial rites are almost too revolting to believe-the drinking of animal(or human) blood and urine, the digestion of entrails and organs, orgiasticrituals, substance abuse, and something becoming more frighteningly common across the U.S.-human sacrifice. The 700 CLUB interviewed several people last Halloween (several of which were teenagers) who actually participated in or witnessed human sacrifices while involved in Satanism. No one scoffs at such stories anymore, as police departments around the country have had to scurry to develop a whole new field of investigation dealing with the gruesome reality of Satanic sacrifices.

Even the thought of this 'Holiday' is sickening to me. I really do hate it. And the fact that some love and celebrate it, it saddens me. Now I know you're thinking, What do you have against my kid dressing up like a Transformer and getting some candy?? But so much more goes on than that. In Pagan religions, this is the most central day for them. The worst sacrifices go down today. Animals will die today. Innocent children will die today. Bad things will happen.

OK, enough nonsense.

Some of the more outrageous claims (not included in the above) as to what might happen on Oct 31 are clearly the work of people with mental illnesses who believe that the world is run by a secreat cabal ofSatanic owl-worshippers (it's not - yet).

Most are clearly written by people who have no idea of Satanism beyond the 'Michelle Remembers' scare stories that were circulated inthe 1980s and 90s. Monitoring this activity through Google shows that the same stories are being cut and pasted from Christian blog to Christian blog, with no other fact checking other than it has already appeared on a Christian website.

Apparently, when talking about Satanists, the 9th Commandment (not bearing false witness and other kinds of fibbing) does not apply.  At least I hope so, I wouldn't like to think of all those devout Christians being thrown into the lake of fire on a technicality.

We worship Satan and liberally indulge in the seven deadly sins - is that really not enough material there for them without making things up?

Part of the what fuels these unwholesome Christian delusions (other than wishful thinking) is their failure to understand that Satanism - or indeed any other religion - is not just an upside-downy version of Christianity.

They grovel to Jehoval for favours or forgiveness and they assume that we grovel before Satan in the same manner.  Christianity is obsessed with the idea ofsacrifice, either on the grand scale of the crucifixion or the martyrdom of the saints, or on the more mundane scale of giving up earthly pleasure - fasting at Lent, abstaining from sex and other carnal joys, in exchange for a better life in the next world.  And make no mistake about it, self interest is at the heart of all these little sacrifices - Christians seek to buy eternal life by bribing God.

It never seems to occur to them (perhaps because it never could) that we do not need to sacrifice anything to Satan to get what we want:  we take only what we are entitled to and what we have the right to seize from life.