It was a stroke of genius by the framers of the Constitution to schedule the elections immediately after Halloween. We are in the right frame of mind — so thoroughly accustomed to thin disguises, thinly-disguised blackmail, and magical thinking that we can no longer tell the difference between fact and fantasy. Halloween is not an easy time for those of us brought up to respect the principles of the Enlightenment. According to those principles, we human beings can only take our next step forward by banishing all our fantastic supernatural beliefs, and building a world based on scientific knowledge and humanistic principles. On Halloween we take several steps backwards. In the 18th century, philosophers like Voltaire confidently expected that superstition — "that infamous thing" as he called it — would soon vanish, and that the world would move into a golden age of reason and science. How disappointed he would be to see us now, still captivated by some of the oldest and silliest