ABSTRACT
The most famous ritual performed in Reclaiming is the “Spiral Dance”. It is celebrated as a Samhain ritual, preferably on the night between 31 October and 1 November. Samhain is one of the Witches’ eight sabbats. According to themselves, this holiday is a pagan, Celtic precursor to the later “All Saints’ Day” or “Halloween”. In Celtic mythology, 31 October is “New Year’s Eve,” marking both the entrance to the winter season and to the new year. The Witches’ Samhain ritual is thus an effort to revive a pre-Christian new year celebration connected to the changing cycles in the natural and human world.
