Samhain Practices

Bobbing for Apples

Historic Roots

  • Celtic & Roman Traditions:
    Apples were sacred to many ancient peoples. To the Celts, the apple was a symbol of immortality and the Otherworld. When the Romans came to Britain, they brought with them the festival of Pomona, the goddess of fruit and orchards. Apples became central to harvest celebrations, blending into Samhain traditions.

  • Divination Game:
    In the Middle Ages and later folk customs, apple games at Samhain (and Halloween) were a form of romantic divination. Young people would try to bite an apple floating in water without using their hands. The first person to succeed was believed to be the next to marry. Sometimes, peelings were tossed over the shoulder to reveal the initials of a future lover.

Spiritual Symbolism

  • The Apple as the Otherworld’s Fruit:
    Cutting an apple crosswise reveals a five-pointed star inside (a natural pentagram). This was seen as a mystical symbol of life, death, and rebirth—perfect for Samhain, the time of honoring the dead and embracing the cycle of renewal.

  • Water as the Veil:
    The apples floating in water symbolized souls or wishes drifting in the liminal space between worlds. Reaching for one was an act of connecting with fate, destiny, or the guidance of spirits.

  • Love & Union:
    Because Samhain is a time of divination, many apple customs focused on love. The apple’s sweet flesh symbolized the blessings of union, fertility, and abundance.

Modern Practice

If you wanted to give bobbing for apples a spiritual twist at Samhain, you might:

  • Dedicate each apple to a question (love, health, spiritual growth) and see which one you “catch.”

  • Bless the water as a liminal mirror, symbolizing the veil.

  • Share the apples afterward as a feast of community and continuity.

Samhain Apple Divination Ritual

Preparation

  • A large bowl or cauldron of clean water, set at the center of the circle.

  • Apples (one per participant), washed and blessed.

  • Optional: carve small sigils, runes, or initials into each apple to represent different blessings, questions, or outcomes.

  • Candles placed safely around the water to symbolize the thinning veil.

Opening

  1. Gather the group around the bowl.

  2. Leader speaks:
    “On this night of Samhain, when the veil grows thin,
    we seek guidance through the sacred fruit of the Otherworld.
    May these apples carry the wisdom of ancestors,
    the sweetness of love, and the promise of renewal.”

Blessing the Water

  • Place your hands over the bowl and say:
    “Water of life, mirror of fate,
    open the veil between worlds.
    Carry to us visions and truths
    from beyond the mist.”

The Apple Game

  • One by one, each person approaches the cauldron.

  • Without using hands, they attempt to catch an apple with their teeth.

  • The apple they retrieve is their message from the Otherworld.

Divination Meanings

  • Plain apple: A blessing of health, sweetness, and longevity.

  • Carved apple: Interpreted by the rune/sigil/letter carved into it.

  • First to succeed: Often seen as “favored by fortune” in the year ahead.

  • Difficulty or struggle: Suggests lessons of patience, endurance, or release.

Encourage participants to reflect: “What does this apple teach me about my path in the coming year?”

Sharing & Communion

  • After all have taken their turn, cut the apples into slices.

  • Share them among the group, saying:
    “As we share this fruit, we share blessing, life, and love.
    What is taken from the water returns as nourishment.”

Closing

  • Leader thanks the water, apples, and ancestors:
    “Guides and beloved dead, we thank you for your presence.
    May your wisdom dwell in our hearts,
    and may the wheel of the year turn with grace.”

  • Extinguish candles.

  • Feast and celebrate!

Divination

Historical Celtic & Pre-Christian Roots

  • Samhain as Liminal Time:
    To the ancient Celts, Samhain (October 31–November 1) marked the end of the harvest and the start of winter. It was not only a seasonal turning point, but also a liminal night when the boundary between the living and spirit worlds grew thin. In such times, people believed that the unseen could be glimpsed more easily.

  • Divination & Survival:
    The year ahead was uncertain—would the harvest stores last through winter? Would sickness or war claim lives? Divination was a way to seek knowledge, reassurance, and guidance about the future. In agrarian societies, this wasn’t trivial fortune-telling—it was a tool for survival.

  • Folk Traditions
    In medieval and early modern times, Samhain (and later Halloween) became especially known for love divinations—apple peel tosses, nut crackling, mirror scrying—often used by young people to see who they would marry. These customs blended Celtic traditions with Roman influences (such as the apple of Pomona).

Spiritual Relevance

The Veil Between Worlds

  • Samhain is often called the “Celtic New Year.” Just as midnight is the liminal moment between days, Samhain was the liminal point between years. Spiritually, this threshold was considered a portal—perfect for seeking visions, omens, and messages from ancestors.

Ancestral Wisdom

  • Divination at Samhain was a way of consulting the dead. The ancestors were thought to draw near, not only to be honored but also to guide and protect the living. Practices like scrying in dark water or fire were seen as ways to let their voices and symbols come through.

Facing the Unknown

  • Samhain is the season of death, endings, and descent. Divination was a spiritual acknowledgment that the future is uncertain and that we walk hand in hand with mystery. It was both an act of humility—seeking guidance beyond oneself and of empowerment, claiming foresight to better navigate the year to come.

Common Samhain Divinations

  • Apples: Biting, peeling, slicing for symbols.

  • Mirror Scrying: Gazing in candlelight to see the face of a future beloved or a spirit.

  • Dreaming Rites: Sleeping with symbolic items (like sprigs of yarrow) to dream of the future.

  • Fire & Water Scrying: Watching flames or rippling water for visions.

In Modern Practice

For us today, divination at Samhain is less about predicting literal survival and more about:

  • Spiritual insight for the year ahead.

  • Messages from ancestors and guides.

  • Shadow work—peering into the hidden parts of the self.

  • Ritual connection to the cycles of death and rebirth.

Dumb Suppers

Among the many customs associated with Samhain, none is more poignant or symbolically rich than the dumb supper—a ritual meal held in silence to honor and commune with the dead. The practice weaves together strands of folklore, ancestral reverence, and the spiritual cosmology of liminal time, making it one of the most enduring traditions of the season.

Historical Roots

The origins of the dumb supper are difficult to trace with precision, but its presence in folklore is well documented from the British Isles through the 18th and 19th centuries. In these accounts, the supper was often linked to divination, particularly love divination among young women. A meal would be prepared backward—food cooked in reverse order, places set in silence, chairs turned the wrong way—because reversal was believed to disrupt ordinary reality and invite the Otherworld in. The silence (hence “dumb”) was essential: it created an atmosphere of stillness that allowed subtle presences to be perceived.

For many, the dumb supper was not simply a social gathering but a magical act. It was thought that the spirits of future spouses or of the dead might appear at the table, revealing themselves in candlelight or through subtle signs. In agrarian communities, where Samhain marked the close of the harvest year and the threshold of the dark season, such rites helped people orient themselves to both the uncertainty of the future and the continuing presence of the past.

Spiritual Significance

Spiritually, the dumb supper embodies the core meaning of Samhain: the thinning of the veil between the worlds. Just as the fields lay fallow, and life seemed to recede into the earth, so too was it believed that the spirits of the dead were nearer than at any other time of year. To set a place at the table for them was to welcome and honor those who had passed on, acknowledging their ongoing role in the cycle of life and death.

The silence of the meal functions as more than mere ritual discipline. It is an act of sacred listening. In a culture saturated with noise, both literal and metaphorical, silence opens the senses to the subtle—whispers of memory, fleeting shadows, the brush of intuition. The dumb supper reminds participants that communion with the unseen requires stillness, reverence, and humility.

At its heart, the supper is also an act of ancestral veneration. To eat alongside the dead, even symbolically, collapses the barrier between past and present, affirming the continuity of family, community, and spirit. The meal becomes a liminal feast, bridging life and death, embodying the mystery of Samhain’s teaching: that endings are not final but doorways into transformation.

Modern Practice

Today, many modern Pagans and spiritual practitioners continue the dumb supper tradition, adapting it to contemporary contexts. Some host full meals where one place is left open for departed loved ones, a candle burning in their honor. Others incorporate it into solitary rituals, placing a plate of food at the altar in silence before meditation. While the form may vary, the intent remains constant: to create sacred space where the living and the dead may meet in peace.

For some, the ritual also functions as a form of grief work. To share a meal in silence with the memory of the departed allows emotions to rise gently and gives the mourner an opportunity to express love, longing, and gratitude in ritual form. In this way, the dumb supper continues to serve as both a communal and personal act of healing.

The dumb supper at Samhain is both ancient and immediate, folkloric and profoundly spiritual. It carries forward echoes of past divinations, love charms, and folk rituals, while also embodying timeless truths: that silence is a doorway to the sacred, that the dead are never far from us, and that eating together—whether in life or in spirit—is one of the most intimate ways humans honor connection. In the stillness of the dumb supper, the veil thins, and the communion of generations is felt across time.