The Hoof-Prints We Follow: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Satanic History (Patreon)

Satan, Mr. Scratch, the “god of this world¹,” has been a recurrent pop sensation for centuries. They (or she or he depending on which version you’re into) have gone through dozens of reboots, retcons, and updates throughout the years. When the Prince of Lies pops up in pop culture, we are necessarily interacting with several hundred years of devilish history. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina finds a way to combine the last 300 or so years of Satanic history in its depiction of Satan and Satanic religion. The show evokes the Satan of the York and Lancaster Assizes of 1612, the contract signing trickster, and the weird, conflicting impulses of contemporary religious Satanism. 

Consider this your crash course in Satanic history. 

The most obvious connective tissue between CAoS and Satanism are in the figures of the witches themselves. Witches, ever since the accusations of the European Witch Trials, have had a bond with Satan. The accusation goes that a witch only acquires their powers through a pact with the devil. The witches of Greendale exist in a parallel universe version of Salem, Mass complete with it’s own witch trials and perma-Halloween vibe. In the tradition of everything from Lords of Salem to Hocus Pocus, CAoS updates and iterates on New England’s witch history. It’s worth pointing out that any depiction of witches and witch trials in contemporary media are also necessarily bound to the European witch trials. CAoS has plenty of historic connections to the York and Lancaster Assizes in addition to the more local, Salem flavor. In short, CAoS would drive King James VI out of his mind. The witches, women, men, PoC, who were executed and tortured in these “trials” were guilty of nothing except being lower class. It’s through the accusations of “Satanism,” which wouldn’t exist in any meaningful sense for hundreds of years, that the folklore of witches being in league with Satan is built. 

While Satan may have a special place in their heart for granting witches their powers, they’re not above cutting a deal with us regular folk. Some of the earliest records of Satan trading average people worldly gain for souls dates back to Denmark in the 1600’s. This Satan, similar to the cross-roads trickster who will give you a shady bargain but still be bound by their own honor, enters into what is known as “Folkloric Satanism” by renowned scholar Massimo Introvigne—author of Satanism: A Cultural History. Folkloric Satanism is distinct from religious Satanism in that there is no organized structure built around these folk beliefs. That is to say, no churches, covens, or “Dark Popes.” 

CAoS weaves together the power-granting Satan of the Assizes with the bargaining Satan of folklore. The Dark Lord grants witches their powers by the standard model suggested since 1612: signing your name in their book during a really wild party, but is also bound to the legal framework they themselves create. The episode “The Trial of Sabrina Spellman” adds in this litigating, honor-bound aspect of Folkloric Satanism. There’s a lot to get into about the nature of Folkloric Satanism—especially in the American context fo the show, but that’s for next time… The granting of witches their powers and the legalistic, soul selling Satans of history are only two of the three satanic modes we find in CAoS. 

This selling of one’s soul for material gain, interestingly, isn’t a part of modern American Satanism. Both the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple have ambiguous, and outright atheistic in the latter, approaches to covenants with the Beast. Satan is less a literal, biblical figure and more of an inspiring cultural icon—not a god to be worshipped but a role model to be followed. The show unfolds these contrasting, modern Satanisms in the Church of Night and Sabrina’s attitude towards the world. 

Troublingly, Satanism as we understand it today has its roots in extreme right-wing and outright fascist ideologies. Satan hovered in a state of limbo for a few centuries. Popping up most often as an excuse to wield some extra-judicial powers and less often as a metaphor in the world of the occult and sorcery. It wasn’t until Maria de Naglowska that Satan took their first steps to organized religion. Naglowska, known as “The Priestess of Satan,” gained a group of devotees around her Satanic preachings. Naglowska become an acquaintance, and possible lover, of Julius Evola—one of the architects of fascism in Italy before she passed away. In a closer-to-modern context, CAoS’s Church of Night draws heavily from American religious Satanism. 

The Church of Night largely resembles and draws from two, separate institutions: the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple. The Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey, was deeply influenced by the writings of noted shit-for-brains Ayn Rand. Randian philosophy, most exemplified by the American Libertarian movement, has historically had little room for feminism. The Church of Satan is no exception and despite some fumbling in that direction, at best it reduced feminist liberatory politics to a crude sexual liberation and at worst recapitulated to the patriarchy. The Randian focus on individualism abnegates the responsibly for social change to whatever someone else is doing and boils social systems down to individual critiques. This is fundamentally incompatible with left, progressive politics. This is where the next iteration takes place, and CAoS really finds an inspiration. 

While the Church of Satan has fallen out of favor in recent years, seeing their largest social impact being the occasional viral tweet that feels more at home in the 90’s than it does today, a new Satanic force has emerged at the forefront of this dark discourse. One that Sabrina, the character and the show, carries with them. The Satanic Temple has risen up as the successor movement to the Church of Satan. Rather than an overtly simplistic and Randian approach to Satanism, the Satanic Temple takes a much more collective and social focus into its praxis. 

The tensions that surrounds Sabrina in season one are all about her attempting to use her witchcraft and special relationship with Satan to the advantage of her mortal friends and the progressive change of witch-kind. Like the Satanic Temple, she organizes, agitates for pro-feminist policy change, and builds momentum behind popular feminism. The Satanic Temple is known in the American political landscape for pushing back against the religious right by using the American legal system—which has been designed to protect Christian extremism—to advocate for women’s reproductive rights and LGBT rights namely. The show is so closely influenced by the Satanic Temple that TST has even filed lawsuit against Netflix for infringing on their copyright for the use of a statue incredibly similar to their flagship depiction of Satan. While the lawsuit may have been a bit of a stretch given that the copyright protection over Eliphas Levi’s 19th century design has long since lapsed, the resemblance is uncannily and most definitely intentional. These are the historical tendencies which the show is forced to pull against as it attempts to craft a left message of feminism, anarchism, and direct action through witchcraft.

Like a demonic Johnny Appleseed, Satan has been traveling the lands and laying the cultural foundations that lead up to this show. 300 years of Satanic history are distilled by the writers and cultural zeitgeist into CAoS. Complicating and updating old mythologies and forcing early organized Satanism into dialogue with principles further to the left than their creators would have ever intended. To be Satanic is to rebel. Sometimes that manifests in the flailing, Randian Satanism of the Church of Satan, and other times it emerges as a progressive force as with the Satanic Temple. With Sabrina it emerges slightly more left than TST. A Satanic witchcraft not afraid of Direct Action in addition to advocating for popular change. Let’s hope the next iteration of Satanism takes Sabrina’s lead. 

Ave Satanas Ave Domini Greendale 

-Ash

¹2 Corinthians 4:4 “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”