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Originally Posted by tw
Fall - when the leaves die and we all call that pretty. No wonder "freak events" such as Halloween and Texas Chain Saw murders are celebrated during the fall.
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Ever wonder why Christmas (you know, the birth of Jesus?) is celebrated in Winter? It is because The Church (tm) chose to place the event in conjunction with Yule, the traditional celebration of Pagan peoples held at the Winter Solstice. In many Pagan belief systems, that day is the day when the Sun King is reborn; when the sun begins to return to the Northern Hemisphere and the days start to get longer.
As luck would have it, the Sun King dies at Halloween (properly known as Samhain) and begins his journey through the underworld. Samhain is the Pagan New Year, and the highest of our Sabbats.
Summary? Your characterization of Halloween in equivalence with "freak events" like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reveals a certain bias which some may find distasteful, but your association of Samhain with death is entirely correct. However, not all cultures see death as an ending. Some see it as part of an ongoing, greater cycle, like that of the changing position of the sun in the sky and the symbolic Sun King's life cycle. These are events that are celebrated, and not considered to be any more freakish than the changing of the seasons.