Supernatural Scholar Dishes on 2020’s Lunar, Timely, Scary Halloween
As author of “Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul: On the Highway to Hell and Back,” Dr. Regina Hansen is an expert on all matters of Halloween, from its pagan origins through its modern celebration as a community candy swap. Dr. Hansen, faculty coordinator of the Metropolitan College online Undergraduate Degree Completion Program (UDCP) and a master lecturer of rhetoric at BU’s College of General Studies, was asked this week by CNN (via 7 News Boston) about the 2020 alignment of Halloween, a full moon, daylight savings time, and the pending presidential election. It’s a spooky concoction, in her estimation. “The metaphysical energy of this moment is huge,” she noted.
The latest BU Today features a conversation with Dr. Hansen delving into the holiday’s history as an artifact of co-mingling ideologies, detailing how it became the festivity we enjoy today. “In America, the real explosion of Halloween happened when the Irish immigrants came and brought their practice with them. It looked like a really fun thing to do. So other people wanted to do it,” she told BU Today, in last year’s interview.