Long before ghosts and goblins and witches and vampires became fodder for the commercialized world we live in — hundreds of years before Hollywood told us that ghosts were either filmy white or gooey green and witches wore black hats and rode brooms, Halloween was born.

Since the ancient times, some version of the holiday has been celebrated. And while the night can be traced back to many civilizations, according to most sources, one of the earliest known celebrations took place in Europe with a festival practiced by the Celts. As we understand it, the night can be derived from a Celtic feast day called "Samhain" (which means "end of summer") which was observed to recognize the end of summer and the final harvest of the season, a night when they believed the veil between the world of the dead and the world of the living was at its thinnest.

Ancient celebrations of Halloween also took place in other civilizations such as Scotland and Rome, and, over the years, many of the traditions from those other civilizations have mixed in to create the version of Halloween we celebrate today — from ‘trick or treating’ and black cats to the infatuation with ‘black’ magic, evil spirits and supernatural powers.

And while times and customs have obviously changed and the holiday is now much more commercial and secular than religious and holy, the true crux of Halloween remains largely unchanged: it’s about the unknown — from the unknowing Celts who attempted to scare away any suspected spirits by parading around in masks to the skeptic citizens of today who have been brainwashed by pop culture to suspect a man with a Scream face or a white hockey mask to be around every dark corner on October 31.

And there is no denying that the prospect of the unknown is far scarier than any reality could ever be.

So we all know where to find the modern-day Halloween revelers — some having fun, some spooked, but most likely either camped out in a bar or walking the streets on a mission for candy, dressed in their scariest, funniest, or sexiest costume. But what of the folks that celebrate the mysteriousness and intrigue associated with Halloween all year round? What of the people who believe in ghosts the other 364 days of the year? What of those who simply believe in the beauty of the ‘dark’ side of life? Where do you find them on any day, let alone Halloween?

In an effort to find that true meaning of the holiday, MODE settled on two realms of the unknown that satisfied our conditions of sincerity and authenticity: the Goth subculture and ghost hunting.

There are many assumptions that our puritan-based society has inflicted onto the Goth world: Goth citizens have an unwholesome fascination with death, vampirism, and the occult. They are Satanic fiends — ashen make-up, blackened lips and fingernails, grotesquely dyed and ferociously styled hair, wardrobes that rival any fetishistic harem with accessories to excess, and they’re all stippled with tattoos and piercings. They have apathy or even a disdain for goodness. They embrace what is labeled "wicked." Worst of all: they drink human blood.

If all assumptions are correct, then, surely the true spirit of Halloween must lie somewhere in these dank catacombs of the Gothic subculture — then the Goth preoccupation with death, depressing music, and all things black is sure to beat a path directly into the sinister, spine-chilling heart of this holiday.

The trail leading to the sinister, spine-chilling heart of this holiday began with David Nields, tar-haired, pale-skinned, and conservatively pierced with industrial-quality steels. He was skinny as a dope needle and replete with tattoos including Vampirella and a Celtic cross on opposing forearms as well as a goat’s head pentagram twixt his shoulder blades. Ooh. Scary. Except for the fact that he was dressed in earth tones, right down to his khakis.

A complete antithesis of what the storied assumptions predict, Nields is an off-and-on again guitarist/keyboardist for the local Goth band Advent Sleep who pays the bills by pushing literature for a local bookstore. Speaking in a careful, intellectual voice, he told of his lifelong interest in the "dark romance of humanity." And it is this interest, married with his lack of prejudice and love of music, that would eventually swerve him from the path of yuppie-dom that he was expected to follow and lead him onto the alternative road toward Goth.

Lack of prejudice? Love of music? What about blood drinking and evil? Stereotypical assumptions were starting to lose ground.

"The Goth culture is more open-minded than the rest of society," says Nields. "I wanted to be as different as I was, but still accepted at the same time. There wasn’t and still isn’t anywhere else that is as accepting." Nields says that there are no "right" races, sizes, beliefs, or ages in Goth. The central ideology that bonds the participants of the Goth scene is the mutiny of society’s expectation to be mainstream and the desire to have a good time together.

How did such a simple set of tenets become an entire lifestyle?

Nields explained that, although authors like Edgar Allen Poe could be considered Goth, the modern-day movement got its beginnings from a combination of song and attitude. He credits the song "Bela Lugosi’s Dead" by Bauhaus as the probable origin of Goth. It appears in the soundtrack of the 1983 vampire film, The Hunger, which is considered to be the Goth "feel-good" movie of all time. The romantic lilt of the film, coupled with the tongue-in-cheek style of the song, may have sparked what was a smoldering ideal into the subculture recognized today as an eccentric faction of society. Nields admits that he, and much of the Goth circle, has an affinity, if not empathy, for vampires. Not as destroyers of life, but as quixotic, flawed outcasts of society that find power in the night.

"The vampire," says Nields. "Is the perfect hero to the nerd who gets beat up every day, the tragic artist, and the ones who are always called ‘fag.’ What better idol than one who sees those jocks who beat you up as food instead of threats?" Nields thinks that, in its own way, the Goth culture does feed off the rest of society by exploiting its rules and uneasiness with alternative lifestyles.

In Goth, there also is a sense of quiet rebellion against the "American Dream" as it stands today. There is no summary of individual worth based on car type, credit line, family life, house furniture, or career choice. Therefore, the "American Dream," in all its unattainable, white-picketed purity, is most directly opposed to the Goth culture’s core values. Therein lies the phobia that society has for Goth: there is no financial gain to it.

The modern world fearing a group who wholeheartedly believes in equal opportunity and equal acceptance? Maybe that unknown concept is the scariest of all.

Referred to as "Super Goth" by the Shampoo staff, Rogers is acknowledged with the propagation of the Goth culture in the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania, Philadelphia in particular, has one of the largest, steadily growing concentrations of Goth goers in the world, rivaling larger cities like New York and Los Angeles in its following. The primary reason for the perpetual growth is the reliable facilitation that Rogers has provided for the Goth scene to congregate. Whether it’s at his record store or a dance club, Rogers has given the Goth populace the space to be Goth.

Like Nields, Rogers is deftly academic and expressive. "There is a common aesthetic within the Goth subculture," said Rogers. "That sees the ‘beauty in darkness.’ That transcends all demographics. We have people who started out as teenagers trying to find their identity in the late ’80s that are still coming here because no other place is as tolerant, as open, and accepting as our culture. They’re out there dancing next to the kids that are just now looking for their identity. You’ll find a 30-year-old software guy who makes $150,000-plus a year talking at the bar with a girl who’s a part-timer at an art store. The usual boundaries of age, race, sexuality, and money just don’t matter."

When asked what the biggest misconception of the Goth subculture is, he and Nields both say it’s the perceived association of Goth with Satanism. "If you polled our dance floor, you’d find Catholics and Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, Christians and Satanists," said Rogers. "And if you polled a baseball crowd, you’d find the same." Some Goth members are agnostic or atheist. That means that Satanism is not believed accurate either since it is, in actuality, a Christian belief. "Not many people realize that Satanism is not a serious religion," says Nields, an agnostic. "Because it simply answers the Christian rule of ‘Don’t do this and that!’ with ‘Why not?’"

To the Goth set, it seems only to matter that there are no rules … excepting one loosely applied one for the Dracula’s Ball this October 28th.

"We do not have a dress code as such," as Rogers’ website, www.ferret.com, explains. "Because we understand that interesting and exciting people come in many configurations, and not all of them happen to own $500 black latex form fitting catsuits. That having been said, we do try to present a certain theme and level of style at the Ball, and accordingly, we encourage certain styles of dress. After all, if you want to see people in jeans and T-shirts, you can go to any old bar or club."

This Halloween, Rogers is throwing the quarterly Dracula’s Ball at the Trocadero Theatre. The Ball is a favorite of the subcultural elite and always promises great memories without the fear of the usual club antics. "The security staff that work Nocturne and Goth events always say it’s an easy paycheck," said Rogers. "You’re not going to find the element here that wants to pick fights. These are people who are tired of being in an atmosphere that injures one another."

Admirable, but hardly bloodcurdling. And not even one drip of blood drinking.

Kelly Weaver is the area’s premiere and most sought-after psychic. She has been locating, communicating with, and dispelling spirits throughout the area for years. She has profiled "Melody" and "Peter," the brother and sister haunting Pete’s Café in New Cumberland. She has met "Charles," the resident ghost at The Iron Kettle in Camp Hill, who loved trains so much that people can still hear him on occasion making "choo-choo" sounds. She has even helped an Enola family appease "Jujuba," a resident Native American ghost that was wreaking havoc in their home, angered with the way his people were destroyed by the white man.

Weaver’s abilities are currently being showcased through not only the local media, but the national media, as well. The third installment of MTV’s new fall show, "Fear," employs her as a medium to locate otherworldly residents to spook teenage contestants within the Buckhill Falls Inn, an abandoned Poconos hotel in which Weaver says she "would never spend the night". Fox Television is planning to revive the ’70s Leonard Nimoy series, "In Search Of…" with Weaver as the central tool in an episode uncovering the chilling secrets of a backwoods residence in Breezewood, PA. She is even called on occasion to do investigative work for local authorities.

So MODE Weekly, an authority of sorts, with downtown offices that are over a century old in some parts, asked her to investigate and rustle us up a ghost. "Sure," she said, as lackadaisical as though asked to help move furniture. "I don’t care." Her relaxed attitude about her relatively unnatural talent forced the MODE staff to act cool about something extremely disturbing. Did we really want to know if someone was watching us?

Weaver arrived, primped and proper, looking nothing like the hunched, anemic Gypsy witch that we had expected.

She was led around our labyrinthal office space to "get an initial reading." She started in the storage room, which was a carriage house at the turn of the century. She stopped, closed her eyes, and clasped her hands together as she "centered herself," explaining that she was issuing protection from whatever evils might be present. Her husband, John, explained some of the ghost-hunting gadgets he had: the digital camera, which picks up spectral, electromagnetic disturbances more easily and a laser thermometer to detect cold spots that an entity might cause. Weaver was then to be led to the upstairs rooms, but she lagged behind, stopping because "they" were talking to her. Pimples rose on a few forearms. She was led out to our sales offices, commenting from time to time on her intuitions: "She’s a woman…died about 33-34…she’s very anal-retentive about the dirt…she’s been following us…she joined us in the carriage house."

Then in the manager’s office, Weaver physically felt the ghost. "She was just pulling my hair, John. She wants me to see something in here," indicating the office’s attached bathroom. She was a bit agitated. Weaver narrated her perceptions as they came to her. "Her name is Rebecca J-e-n-something — I can’t get the whole last name. She keeps trying to explain that she’d ‘never keep house like this.’ She’s so embarrassed. Man, is she a fussbudget! I keep seeing her with white gloves saying, ‘It’s filthy in here!’ and ‘Don’t look in here!’"

Weaver made her way up and around an ancient stairwell in the MODE compound. There, another ghostly hair pull occurred. The camera flashed, revealing something in Weaver’s hair that was barely apparent to the trained eyes of John Weaver. We all then tried to switch the setting of our eyes to "ghost detector". It’s harder than it looks.

When we had finished our tour of the facilities. Weaver was ready to do the "real reading."

She sat in a green leather chair and began to relay messages from our supernatural resident.

"Rebecca" died in the late nineteenth century from something that suffocated her, quite possibly the flu, which claimed millions of lives during that time. She had reddish-brown hair that she kept up, but, if unfurled, would flow past her waist. She died in her thirties, but appeared to Weaver in her twenties, and was wearing her favorite light blue dress. She loved plants and herbal remedies, one of which she gave as advice when the Publisher’s son, was crying: "Chamomile will help screaming." She hated cigars and smoking as much as she loved herbs and insisted on toting around her large atomizer filled with fragrance to combat the "uncouth habit". Weaver could see her spritzing it frantically about. And she was bossy. Weaver looked to her husband to confirm whether or not they’d ever encountered a bossier, more controlling ghost than Rebecca.

There were other minutiae of Rebecca’s life that are just as boring as the rest of our own lives, making her even more authentic. She was distanced from her husband, who was chosen and arranged for her by her wealthy father. She was very protective of her children, hard on the house staff, and strict in her convictions. This is someone that we all know in our own circles.

After 15 minutes of description of Rebecca, her children, her husband’s infidelities with the help in the carriage house, and her intense, repeated disgust of how poor MODE keeps the place compared to her spic-and-span routine, Weaver opened her eyes, looking halfway in a trance, and said to us, "She wants to know if you have any questions."

Oops. We had no idea that we would even have a ghost among us let alone have an opportunity to ask questions.

We were not prepared for this interview.

The editorial assistant then offered to bring in some opera for Rebecca and, suddenly, she changed her snobbish tone. "Oh! You would be so dear to me if you would play some opera for me," she purred. Weaver then told the assistant that Rebecca was stroking his face calling him "Dear Boy". What a pushover.

Rebecca said we could find an engagement picture of her in the "society page," and we researched as best we could, but to no success. We will keep trying, though, and once found, we will publish the picture of our prissy, little poltergeist. At any rate, she was happy to be talked about again.

Where the Mild Things Are

In Harrisburg, parties like the Red Hot Strawberry Ball, events like pumpkin-carving contests, and the always-amateur ritual "mischief night" are the celebrations of Halloween that we have grown accustomed to. We are a mild town. And we like it that way. But we do have our spooky little corners upon which we don’t like to shine the light. And those corners are the unknown, if you will.

The Goth population is definitely more different on the outside than many others, as well as very complex, selfless, and thoughtful — making them just as different within, too.

Ghosts are perceived, with thanks to movies and media, as frightening and hateful. But there are some spirits that simply have quirksome, stuffy personalities, who want only to be heard and cared about, just like living people. Whether or not Rebecca truly exists is only a belief away. Christians make that leap of faith every moment of every day.

Maybe that sudden burst of sweet aroma, possibly spritzed from an atomizer, that the editorial assistant smelled the day after Weaver’s visit — as he played Puccini — was imagined. But it’s much more fun to believe it was reward from a long-dead woman who loves opera.

Happy Halloween!