Halloween is the third-most popular holiday in the United States, behind only Christmas and Thanksgiving. Nearly 7 out of 10 Americans plan to participate in tonight’s festivities. Yet Halloween’s popularity in the U.S. is a recent development. Americans did not celebrate this festival until it was introduced in the 19th century by Irish and Scottish immigrants.

The festival of Halloween traveled to the U.S. from Ireland as a pagan festival called Samhain—though its roots go back even further. One archaeological site that has been closely linked to this festival is the Hill of Ward in County Meath, Ireland. Stephen Davis of University College Dublin began excavations there a decade ago and has found evidence that the hill began to be an important pagan ceremonial site during the Late Bronze Age (1200–800 b.c.). Davis’s team has uncovered evidence of huge fires, which may have been used during Samhain.

The 12th-century Lebor Gabála Érenn (Book of the Taking of Ireland) gives a story of the origin of Samhain. A Druid named Mug Ruith lived during the time of King Conmáel (969–939 b.c. according to Roderick O’Flaherty’s chronology of Irish events). Irish legend says Mug Ruith had a red-haired daughter named Tlachtga who selected the Hill of Ward and established it as a center of pagan worship where a bonfire was lit every Samhain. Under Tlachtga’s influence, the Hill of Ward became the religious center of Ireland. Every Samhain, the Irish would extinguish every fire in the country and sit in darkness until the Druids lit a great bonfire at Ward. Every hearth in Ireland was relit from this fire.

Davis’s team has not uncovered any evidence of Mug Ruith or Tlachtga, yet it has uncovered evidence that pagan ceremonial fires started being lit at the Hill of Ward back to the time when King Conmáel supposedly lived.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry recounts this history in his new book The Psalms of David and the Psalter of Tara, which points out that the Hill of Ward is only 12 miles away from the Hill of Tara. King Conmáel’s Uncle Gede was a righteous Jewish king who established Tara as a center for teaching God’s law in the days of King David. “There is evidence that Gede and Tea may have personally known King David, and that David purchased tin later used in the bronze for Solomon’s temple from Gede and his half-brother Eber Donn,” Mr. Flurry writes. “This is certainly consistent with the significant archaeological evidence—consistent with the Bible—of the extensive reach of David’s kingdom.”

This means Halloween was a counterfeit designed by a literal witch to draw people’s attention away from God’s work. Just like the Israelites in Canaan had to choose between the blessing of Mount Gerizim and the curses of Mount Ebal in the days of Joshua (Deuteronomy 11:29; Joshua 8:30-34), the Israelites in Ireland had to choose between the blessings of the Hill of Tara and the curses of the Hill of Ward in the days of King David and Solomon.

You can read the late Herbert W. Armstrong’s booklet Pagan Holidays—or God’s Holy Days—Which? for a thorough explanation of the holy days that God expects His people to keep. Rather than join a trick-or-treat event tonight, might I suggest you start reading The Psalms of David and the Psalter of Tara for a thorough explanation of the vision the devil was trying to obscure when he inspired Mug Ruith and Tlachtga to institutionalize Samhain.