Rating Sabrina on its Witchy Accuracy
Recently I’ve been binging the new season of Sabrina on Netflix and I definitely have some things I want to share. I thought it would be fun to analyze this show a bit and look at the way they choose to portray certain historical elements of Witchcraft and Paganism. Firstly, obviously this show is not trying to be historically accurate and that’s totally fine. I actually really love how campy and ridiculous this series is. And of course if they tried to accurately portray modern witchcraft the show wouldn’t be nearly as exciting. Though, I do find it fun that they did bring in some historical elements of witchcraft and that's what we’re going to go over today.
SATANIC WITCHES?
The first interesting thing about this series is that the witches in the show are Satanic Witches. This is quite a bit different from other tv shows that are inspired by lighter forms of witchcraft, like Charmed for example. I think the way that they chose to portray Satanic witches and their worship of the dark lord is a super fun part of the show as it shows a type of witchcraft that you usually don’t see in pop culture.
So, did Satanic Witches who worship Lucifer actually exist in history? Today there are a small handful of people claiming to be Satanic Witches, though historically we don’t have much evidence for this kind of witchcraft. This might be surprising as the most commonly known historic events featuring witchcraft are probably the witch trails in Europe and America where people were killed for supposedly worshiping the devil. In reality, the vast majority of the people killed were not witches and definitely not satanic witches. Most of the people who admitted to worshiping the devil were only saying so because they were being tortured at the time.The witch trials as a whole was mostly an excuse for the church to kill off a bunch of protestants, any “undesirables” in society, and anyone who might be still holding on to Pagan traditions.
Now, that doesn’t mean witches didn’t exist in the past, they definitely did but hardly any of them would have been practicing Satanic Witchcraft. So while this aspect of Sabrina is super fun, it’s not really based much in history.
THE CUNNING
One of the characters in the show has something called The Cunning. In the show this means that she is a seer and can gain information psychically that others cannot. Historically there are many accounts of women who are considered seers or able to see the future. The most famous historical seer is probably the Oracle of Delphi, but each culture has their own version of this practice. But why in the show did they use the term, The Cunning? I find this interesting as it connects with a group of historical magical practitioners called The Cunning Folk.
While the Cunning Women and Men would not have called themselves witches, they were practicing a form of witchcraft. This magical tradition started in the Medieval period and was mostly focused in Britain. Many of our surviving historical spells and witchcraft traditions come from these people called the Cunning Folk. They used spells, charms, and talismans for a variety of services for their community such as protection, locating missing people and property, helping to heal others, and telling the future.
In the most recent season Roz speaks with her deceased grandmother who tells her that her family could not call themselves witches because they were good Christians. This is interesting because similarly the Cunning Folk considered themselves to be Christians and they even often used bible verses in their spells and charms. I’m not sure if the producers knew this about the Cunning Folk when creating this show but I think this detail is kind of interesting.
The Green Man & The Wicker Man
In Season 3 of Sabrina, they come across a group of Pagans trying to resurrect the Green Man. Historically, the Green Man is a fascinating and mysterious Pagan deity. He is primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, represented in the cycle of growth each spring. In Sabrina they try to resurrect the Green Man by creating a giant humanoid effigy, more commonly known as the wicker man. Then they try to sacrifice a virgin, in this case Harvey, by putting him inside of the wicker man.
The Green Man and the Wickerman are not really related historically though we do have some accounts of a wickerman being created. One of the most popular accounts of pagan human sacrifice comes from Julius Caesar during his conquest of Gaul where he reports to have seen the burning alive of victims in a large wooden effigy. Though considering the Celts were his enemy at the time it is possible he exaggerated some details. So, while it’s likely that some human sacrifice occurred among the Pagan Celts and Anglo-Saxons we don’t really know too many details and it’s likely that the violence was probably a bit exaggerated.
As a side note, the whole representation of Pagans in Sabrina was definitely a bit ridiculous. And I find it weird that shortly after the Pagans are defeated, the Satanic Witches stop worshipping the dark lord and start worshiping the Greek Goddess, Hecate. So even though the Pagans were their enemies in the 3rd season, in the 4th season they kind of become pagans themselves.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In general, I think this show is super fun and even though they're not aiming for historical accuracy, I do like how they at least tried to incorporate different aspects of witchcraft & paganism in the show. So, in general I would give this show a 2/10 on historical accuracy. Though if I were to rate the show as a whole, I’d probably give it a 7/10 because it’s super fun and enjoyable to watch.