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Up To Date

Halloween's Occult Origins

Mansour de Toth

We all know the candy-stuffed commercial themes of Halloween, but what do you know about its occult origins?On Monday's Up to Date, we'll dig deeper into the holiday's roots in spiritualism, religion and superstition.

Pop-culture expert and University of Texas professor Josh Gunn digs deeper into the cultural significance behind the spooky, the scary and the supernatural traditions of Halloween.

Josh Gunn is an associate professor at the University of Texas-Austin. His published works include Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century and articles in a variety of journals, including The Journal of Communication and Religion, Popular Music and Society, the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Telos, Text and Performance Quarterly, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and Visual Communication.

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When I host Up To Date each morning at 9, my aim is to engage the community in conversations about the Kansas City area’s challenges, hopes and opportunities. I try to ask the questions that listeners want answered about the day’s most pressing issues and provide a place for residents to engage directly with newsmakers. Reach me at steve@kcur.org or on Twitter @stevekraske.