Dark Origins Of Valentine's Day

The Dark Origins Of Valentine's Day

by Arnie Seipel

February 13, 2011

Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled.

A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine — one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine — one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.

Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.
Those Wild and Crazy Romans

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.
The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.
The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival – or longer, if the match was right.
The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.
Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love."
Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." That was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some point, in part because they sound alike.

William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentine's Day in his work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe.

Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas

William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentine's Day in his work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe.

Shakespeare In Love
As the years went on, the holiday grew sweeter. Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became the tokens-du-jour in the Middle Ages.
Eventually, the tradition made its way to the New World. The industrial revolution ushered in factory-made cards in the 19th century. And in 1913, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass producing valentines. February has not been the same since.
Today, the holiday is big business: According to market research firm IBIS World, Valentine's Day sales reached $17.6 billion last year; this year's sales are expected to total $18.6 billion.
But that commercialization has spoiled the day for many. Helen Fisher, a sociologist at Rutgers University, says we have only ourselves to blame.
"This isn't a command performance," she says. "If people didn't want to buy Hallmark cards, they would not be bought, and Hallmark would go out of business."
And so the celebration of Valentine's Day goes on, in varied ways. Many will break the bank buying jewelry and flowers for their beloveds. Others will celebrate in a SAD (that's Single Awareness Day) way, dining alone and binging on self-gifted chocolates. A few may even be spending this day the same way the early Romans did. But let's not go there.

Cemetery Work--Part 2

Protection from Random Dead

It’s never a good thing to have random dead spirits hanging around you. It may seem cool to others, but random dead spirits mostly have a desire to feed on your energy and magick. And if these are dead spirits of violent or mentally ill people, then all the worse as they tend to be dangerous and unpredictable. Being able to tell what type of spirit is around you is not always easy, even for seasoned worker. Spirits can be tricky in concealing their identities and can blend into the shadows or even into one another. Therefore, it’s best when planning a trip to the cemetery to protect yourself from attracting the attention of a potential “friend”.

There are many methods of protection, so use the ones most known and comfortable to you. Here are a few things I’ve found effective. Use a protection oil (a blend that can be used directly on the skin) on your hands, back of the neck, top of the head, in the bellybutton (seriously, most people ignore that spot, but it’s a major opening into one’s body/spirit), underarms, crooks of elbows and knees, and bottom of feet. Cascarilla is sometimes used in place of the oil. Wear protective jewelry. Carry a protective amulet or talisman or gris-gris. Tie a red string around your waist (next to your skin, inside your clothing). Carry salt with you to throw over your shoulder (without looking back) as you leave the cemetery, as salt drives away the dead.

Some people will not speak to anyone else after leaving the cemetery until they arrive at their next destination and cross over a protected threshold, usually the person’s house but it can also be a church. This is so their voices are not recognized by anything from the cemetery and so they don’t provide any openings for spirits to enter through. While inside the cemetery, you might be under the protection of the guardian you honored, however, once you leave, you’re on your own.

If you perform an especially strong or malicious working while in the cemetery, chances are you’ve gotten the attention of many more spirits than you probably want to. One method of keeping these spirits from following you home is to remove your outer-most layer of clothing, turning it inside-out, and putting it back on. This is very difficult to do without drawing attention to yourself unless you are doing this in a remote cemetery at night. It’s illegal to be in most cemeteries after dark or passed their public hours, however, if you’re planning a work that calls for such extreme protection, I hope you’ve found a cemetery that will allow you the freedom and privacy for not only the protection but for the work as well.
Grave Dirt

Properly collected grave dirt can be used for a variety of works, but most commonly it is used for dark purposes. Drawing on the magickal laws of contagion and “like attracts like”, grave dirt brings forth its immediate connection with death, the dead, and the underworld. If the dirt is from an actual grave, as opposed to dirt from the cemetery grounds, it also can also call upon the properties of the gate or veil between life and death, as every grave is potentially a portal into the Underworld. There are sources that list either ground mullein or patchouli as substitutions for grave dirt, but these sources are absolutely WRONG. There is no substitute for grave dirt. It must be, exactly as its name implies, dirt from a grave, or at least from inside a cemetery. Most likely, these incorrect assumptions were the musings of squeamish practitioners, for whom I have no tolerance. Mullein and patchouli can both facilitate magickal connections with the cemetery if, like any other herb, they are actually found growing within one, but that is still not a substitute for actual grave dirt. If one is going into a cemetery to collect herbs, then why not just collect dirt, as well? There are herbs and trees that have Underworld and Death associations, but none of them are used in the same manner as grave dirt as far as I’m aware.

Properly collecting grave dirt can be simple or complicated, depending on your intentions. The first set of actions that place into motion the ritualistic collection of grave dirt is discussed above in properly honoring the guardian of the cemetery upon entering. This makes sure that no one in the cemetery sees you as a thief or an easy target. Next, go to either the grave you intend to collect from or the area of the cemetery grounds. If you are collecting not from a grave but the cemetery grounds, it’s very simple. Kneel down, knock three times on the ground, and state, mentally or aloud, your intention. It can be as general as “I am collecting this dirt for any future magickal workings that call upon the virtues of the cemetery,” or it can very specific. The important thing is to state some intention, magickally charging the material, otherwise you just have dirt. Collect the dirt, and place three coins into the hole, covering them with any loose dirt as well as hiding as much as possible all traces of your actions (fallen leaves from nearby help with this).

To collect from a grave, do as above, but at the end add an offering for the person whose grave it is, such as a small amount of whiskey or rum or Florida Water. Collecting from a grave can get complex. Sometimes we collect from a grave for its “portal to the Underworld” properties, and sometimes we collect to either capture the essence of the type or person buried there, such as a murderer or insane person, or to try to call upon the actual spirit of the person. The latter is much more difficult and rarely successful. Research often has to be done, as well as a preliminary trip to the cemetery to locate the grave prior to any working (more so for actual workings, rather than grave dirt collection).