When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Society

Paris To Salem, A Halloween Homecoming Tale

The writer grew up in the town of the infamous witch trials, where Halloween was the most important holiday of the year of her childhood. For the first time in more than a decade in France, this globetrotting sorceress will be flying in to spend October 31 among her native flock.

A photo of a young man dressed up as witch

File photo of a Salem Halloween past

Rozena Crossman

-Essay-

In France, where I've lived for more than a decade, October 31 is mostly just another day on the calendar. Sure, the Halloween marketing machine has tried making inroads on the Old Continent, but they haven't stirred the blasé souls of Parisians who couldn't care less about carved pumpkins and fake blood.

But where I come from, Halloween is much more than a popular fête, it's a sacred holiday.


And this year, for the first time in longer than I care to remember, I will spend it on my old haunting grounds of Salem, Massachusetts, where I grew up in a cauldron of fringe spirituality simmering between Boston's suburbs and the Atlantic Ocean.

From witch trials to retail opportunity

Salem is notorious for the historic witch trials that took place in 1692, where the ultra-puritanical colonial village executed 19 citizens accused of sorcery. The event was popularized with Arthur Miller's 1952 play The Crucible, loosely based on the true story of how a group of local women found dancing frenetically in the woods led to a veritable witch hunt.

But it wasn't until the 1970s that the city began to truly embrace its dark past, when the first witch shop was opened by Laurie Cabot — who was later appointed The Official Witch Of Salem by the governor of Massachusetts. Since then, from a certain perspective, we could say the witches have come back to run the place.

Today, Salem's self-proclaimed witches are a prominent part of the population, taking part in City Council meetings and dotting the streets with their magic stores that sell everything from psychic readings to enchanted candles. The city's logo? A sorceress riding a broomstick.

 ​Laurie Cabot, the official Witch Of Salem

Photo of a crystal ball with a reflection of \u200bLaurie Cabot, also know as the Official Witch Of Salem

Official Witch Of Salem Laurie Cabot

Laurie Cabot's official Facebook page

Satanic temple doesn't scare us

Here's the Salem of my youth I'm looking forward to on Sunday: the people in front of me at the grocery store (any time of year) wearing various capes and pointy black hats; a classmate in high school asking to take the day off for Samhain (the Celtic name for Halloween) since it was a religious holiday; my favorite regular at the bookstore where I used to work being a "freelance priest," dressed like the pope but in all black with a backpack full of faux-papyrus scrolls ... I will once again be strolling around colorful colonial houses decorated with spooky glee — like the guy who built an enormous animatronic dragon sprawled across his roof.

I've seen weirder.

October is an important month for groups of worship beyond the witch movement, which paved the way for all sorts of peripheral religions to prosper in Salem. When the Satanic Temple opened in 2016, the Salem City Council President told a reporter: "It's not really that big a deal. We've had weirder things pretty much on every other street corner."

I'm not sure exactly what to expect, not only after my decade-plus absence but also a year-and-a-half of COVID. Before the pandemic, the 18 square-mile city counted half a million visitors each year for Halloween. An explosion of haunted houses, psychic fairs, costume contests, folklore told by candlelight, labyrinths and witches' balls make even a walk to the grocery store feel like you're participating in the festivities.

It's hard to explain all of this to my enlightened French friends, who carry on thinking it's all a bunch of hocus pocus. Salem on Halloween? You have to breathe it to believe it, like Paris in the spring.


You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Economy

Forced Labor, Forced Exile: The Cuban Professionals Sent Abroad To Work, Never To Return

Noel, a Cuban engineer who had to emigrate to the faraway island of Saint Lucia, tells about the Cuban government's systematic intimidation techniques and coercion of its professionals abroad. He now knows he can never go back to his native island — lest he should never be allowed to leave Cuba again.

Forced Labor, Forced Exile: The Cuban Professionals Sent Abroad To Work, Never To Return

Next stop, Saint Lucia

Laura Rique Valero

Daniela* was just one year old when she last played with her father. In a video her mother recorded, the two can be seen lying on the floor, making each other laugh.

Three years have passed since then. Daniela's sister, Dunia*, was born — but she has never met her father in person, only connecting through video calls. Indeed, between 2019 and 2023, the family changed more than the two little girls could understand.

"Dad, are you here yet? I'm crazy excited to talk to you."

"Dad, I want you to call today and I'm going to send you a kiss."

"Dad, I want you to come for a long time. I want you to call me; call me, dad."

Three voice messages which Daniela has left her father, one after the other, on WhatsApp this Saturday. His image appears on the phone screen, and the two both light up.

The girls can’t explain what their father looks like in real life: how tall or short or thin he is, how he smells or how his voice sounds — the real one, not what comes out of the speaker. Their version of their dad is limited to a rectangular, digital image. There is nothing else, only distance, and problems that their mother may never share with them.

In 2020, Noel*, the girls' father, was offered a two-to-three-year employment contract on a volcanic island in the Caribbean, some 2,000 kilometers from Cuba. The family needed the money. What came next was never in the plans.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest