This is Halloween night,

the time of strange creatures and weird happenings. Halloween is taken as a light festive time, fun for the children and maybe a little work for the adults, but nevertheless, Halloween is symbolic. It gives a hint of another world, it suggests something that is not a part of your everyday life and that hint is quite correct, because there is another world and while on Halloween it’s lighthearted and fun, behind it is something that is very, very existent in the lives of every human being on earth.
Behind the masks and the playtime there is something that is dreadfully serious.

So serious and far from the fun of going around in costumes and masks, so serious that it punishes everyone. No one who comes into this world can escape what is behind the outward symbolism of Halloween. What that something is, simply stated, is the cause of all grief, all shaking fear, all difficulties - summarize it with the one word - evil.

    from a talk given 10/31/1986
  Vernon Linwood Howard's Higher World - MP3 CD Volume 7, talk 161, track 7