By MARK O'BRIEN

ALBANY, N.Y. -- While most people know Oct. 31 as Halloween, Pagans call it Samhain (pronounced "SOW-an").

It's an old celebration with Celtic and Gaelic roots as a harvest feast and festival of the dead.

"Samhain has traditionally been a holiday where the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is thinnest," explains Rev. Leigh Dupee of the Pagan Alliance Church.  He spent Friday preparing for the second annual Samhain celebration in Albany through his church.

Dupee says many groups celebrate the holiday in a party-like atmosphere, while others observe it more solemnly, when groups of people communicate with dead loved ones to honor and remember them.

"I'll be inviting my father, who's been dead now for 16 years, just so I feel his presence again," Dupee says.  "Everybody's going to come for something different.  It might be something as simple as just feeling the presence of the person there, feeling a hug, maybe even just hearing their voice again, regardless of what they have to say."

Paganism is growing, depending on whom you ask.  According to a recent religious survey, between 2001 and 2008 the number of Americans who identify themselves as Wiccans or Neo-pagans grew by more than 200,000 people each.  In 2007, the US military approved the pagan pentacle as one of 39 religious symbols veterans can request on their tombstone.

Still, mainstream religions including Catholicism and Islam have dismissed and criticized Paganism.  But Dupee says that's based on misconceptions, explaining that witches are not like what you see in the movies.

Instead, the Paganism Federation describes it as an ancient way of life, the basic tenants of which are not harming anyone, venerating nature, and believing in a higher power or powers.

"As the world learns more about what paganism is," Dupee says, "they may feel that they fit more into that category."

Dupee's celebration begins at 9:30 p.m. on Oct. 31 at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany at 405 Washington Ave.