By Larry Marsh, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist

Barely visible in the flickering light, the witches in their pointy hats gather around the fire and chant: "double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble...." With scary monsters and with all those strange creatures flying through the night sky, what is Halloween all about anyway?

Ever since the dawn of time when man met man on the plains of Africa, mystery and obfuscation have been used to empower some and enslave others.

Children exploring the world for the first time are enchanted by the harmless tales of magic potions and headless horsemen. Before long the young too catch on to the ruse and report back to us the sad news that "a goblin ate my homework."

As we grow older we transition from flying through the sky with Peter Pan to remotely flying our invisible and mysterious Predator drones. The mystery of our financial markets empowers wizards called "quants" to do great things, except when they don't. In a few cases life savings are lost when a trusted adviser turns out to be the Wizard of Oz. In deference to the fine print that only those initiated in the rituals of mortgage banking can understand, we are induced to sign on the line only to ultimately see our dreams of home ownership disappear like invisible ink.

Starting in January of 1692 the "witches" of Salem were also the victims of mystery when town folk accused them of casting evil spells. Only in recent years have the hallucinations that some endured back then been traced to possible mold in Salem's 1691 wheat crop.

Halloween with all its "Frankenstein" type monsters reminds us of the mystery of our own brain. Our brain consists of three distinct sections. Our large, ancient, reptilian brain craves immediate gratification. Our smaller, middle section is our limbic or emotional brain. On top of those two resides our neocortical brain responsible for our logic and language. Halloween is all about our mysterious reptilian brain. We are wary of being deceived by others, but all too often we deceive ourselves by giving in to our reptilian brain.

Our reptilian brain wants life to be simple and focuses on the negative. We must eat or be eaten. Our immediate fears must be resolved through fight or flight. It's our reptilian brain that demonizes our enemies. We want the world to be explained as just good or evil with no shades of gray in between. Like the evil witch on her broomstick casting her political and financial spells, our reptilian brain has no tolerance for the weak or the naive.

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