Last bit of Halloween controversy: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was a bit of alright. Although set in the present day (well, “this year”), it gave me a retro-90s vibe in tone and content. It pressed on social issues that are pretty evergreen, and if you thought it was too woke, I ask you: in 2018, what is “too woke”? Because there are some people that just don’t get the point until they’re hit with the malleus maleficarum.
Speaking of witch hammers and wokeness, one thing I found endlessly fascinating about Chilling Tales through my own lens is the ways it challenged patriarchal religion… through Satanism. Satanism in feminist thought? Now, hold on a second before you panic because it’s not as unlikely as you think.
It’s true that Sabrina herself seems to embrace a form of witchcraft that has grown in traction through hashtags and social media attention. At this point, there is no shortage of resources for intersectionality in pagan practices, and the clamor for these groups and resources highlight how very exclusionary the pagan community has become.
Call outs for pagan communities to do better and stop appropriating have been around for a while, but it was only a matter of time before someone veered off – way off – to the left-hand path. Sabrina brings us something we haven’t seen before and probably won’t in any mainstream media for a long time in its critiques of Satanism and the many branches of Satanic feminism in general.
If this is your first time hearing the term “satanism feminism”, it’s fairly simple to explain. To sum up: Satanic feminism takes the core principals of feminism under the umbrella of Satanic practices, whether they be theistic Satanism (actually believing in Satan as a deity) or non-theistic (Satan as a concept or symbol of freedom). It’s not hard to imagine why feminists would be drawn to Satanism. As a philosophical belief, it tells its followers to draw on their inner power, hold themselves as powerful beings, and most importantly to take no isht and (maybe) do some harm. It’s not retaliatory but it’s not passive, either.
But at the same time, Satanism as we know it was developed by patriarchs who apparently had no time to engage their female audience. Aleister Crowley regularly usurped the works of the women in his life, calling himself a co-conspirator. Anton LaVey gave us The Satanic Witch, which tells women to use their sexuality as their strength. An empowering feminist message on the surface, it turns into a sexual manual that infers that the only power and strength that women have is their sexuality. And as it turns out, Satanism exists in a pretty binary world despite symbolism that calls itself fluid. So if you’re inspired by Baphomet and think you want to answer the call? It’s an uphill climb.
What’s all this have to do with Chilling Adventures? These schisms exist within feminism itself, with or without the Devil. But Chilling Adventures shows what happens when men are put in charge of anything, no matter how far off the beaten path. If it sounds familiar, it’s because it is in fact the same old story. There are the women on the show who, analogous to Blanche Barton’s essay “The Satanic Feminist”, uphold the patriarchal dominance of Satan at all costs to maintain their own status. There are women like Hilda who just don’t have a way out. We have Sabrina as a new witch resisting these rules and forming her own coven as a protection. And then we have those who wish to retain power in exchange for freedom, choosing to subvert the Dark Lord on his own dime. There’s also the implications of Sabrina succumbing to the version of Satanic feminism described in LaVey’s Satanic Witch as represented by Ms. Wardell, considering she spent most of the show reclaiming witchcraft for herself and tearing it away from the patriarchal institution represented by Blackwood. But without a guide, what’s a new witch to do? Read the books, sign the contract. But maybe we’ll have a whole other season to explore that.
Am I conjuring things out of thin air? Maybe this is all hocus pocus. But there is no denying that there has been a resurgence in discussion of the crossroads between Satanism and feminism. Such discussion can be found in books and music, even offshoots of Satansim have engaged in feminist causes and recognized that he hasn’t been easy for women in the past. And now, if you wish, we have criticism of it from a Netflix series about a teenage girl who happens to be on the run from Ol’ Scratch himself. Chilling Adventures is far from a perfect show and its ambitions get a little ahead of it, but it certainly gets the wheel rolling on some interesting conversations for the rest of the spooky season and hopefully going forward into 2019.