Outside of work her obsessions are writing novels, creating costumes, belly dancing and seeking out the weird, the strange and the curious as inspiration for stories.

I’VE been thinking about ghosts a lot lately.

Why, you ask? There’s no such thing as ghosts.

Well, yes there is. There’s sure as hell something out there, no matter what you do or don’t believe. I could tell you all about footsteps in my house when nobody’s there, or the tall guy who walks around when – er – nobody’s there.

I’m pretty sure a great many of the people reading this have way better stories of their own about haunted houses.

There are things out there that we can’t explain, and coming up to Halloween is the perfect time of year to think about them.

October 31 is an interesting little date. To some of us, it’s better than Christmas. We get to dress up, have a party and make light of scary things.

To others, it’s a more frightening time. Centuries of superstition don’t just leave our collective psyche when we shine the bright light of reason on them. They lurk, and fester, and make us look over our shoulders when the backs of our necks prickle on a dark night.

But why is this?

It’s because no matter how much time has elapsed, our ancient traditions, beliefs and superstitions remain a part of us.

Halloween, or All Hallows Evening, is a Christianised version of an ancient Pagan festival originating in various parts of Britain. 

It is said to have been a harvest festival, but is better known as a festival of the dead: In Pagan traditions, it is the time when the veil between our world and the world of the dead is at its thinnest, allowing ghosts to walk among us on that one night of the year.

Many familiar traditions have grown up around this belief, such as the lighting of a candle to guide the souls of the dead home. This translates to the practise of carving a jack-o-lantern, which serves a similar purpose, but looks a lot more scary.

Halloween in the Northern Hemisphere is also said to be a doorway into the season when the lush growth of summer turns to the barrenness and death of winter, and snow lies on the land.

This tradition is curiously echoed in the southern hemisphere, where summer is similarly a time of barrenness and death as the land is gripped in extreme heat after the lush growth of winter and spring.

The commercial Halloween holiday is not yet as much of a “thing” here in Australia as it is in America, although every year we do see more merchandise (why yes ... I will be buying a skull that flashes different colours this year!) and a growth in the number of kids going trick or treating.

However, that old hangover of superstition still clings to our psyches. October 31 brings out some unpleasant people, particularly in city areas, where in a curious twist on the traditions, eggings are not uncommon.

Meanwhile, the more innocent pursuit of dressing up as something spooky and gathering together for a party continues unabated, while we celebrate, as we have done for centuries, the night of the dead, the thinning of the veils and the undeniable presence of that something that is out there.

In case you’re wondering, I’ll probably end up going to Halloween this year as the ghost in the machine.

Happy Hallows Evening. 

Have your say: what do you like about Halloween? Leave us a comment or better still send us your own opinion piece or trick or treating photos. Email kim.treasure@fairfaxmedia.com.au