My Halloween: Spellworkings, divination and drinking rum with ghosts

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Santa Claus might be the Christmas guy, but I’m the Halloween guy! It’s one of the busiest times of the year for me. Not only do I have a string of spellworkings to do for clients – typically out in the woods after nightfall – but I also spend a couple of hours doing divinations.

Halloween is the traditional time for fortune telling, so I always crack open my old pack of tarot cards to see what the upcoming year holds for me and for a select group of clients who always book a reading at Halloween.

Once the spellworkings and divinations are done, it’s time to dine with the ghosts of my ancestors. I set set extra places at the table, along with six shot glasses and a bottle of Cuban rum.

At the stroke of midnight, I pour a glass of rum for each of my ancestors and drink a toast to them.

Do they really appear at the table?

Well, I can feel their presence and I can see them with spirit vision when in trance. But if anyone else were there at the table, they might well not see anything – although I’d wager they’d feel the sudden chill that invades the room when my ancestors arrive.

While this might sound like an eccentric practice, it has a precedent in old English history.

At Halloween, and at other major festivals in Anglo-Saxon times, the tribal chieftains would have a table set for the gods in the great halls. Goblets would be spilling over for Odin (Woden), Thor (Thunor), Freya, and the rest. This was when the Anglo-Saxons were still pagan, which was between the late 6th and 7th centuries AD – although some stayed loyal to the old gods beyond that time.