The Satanic Temple Claims Sabrina Illegally Copied Baphomet Statue

Netflix

The Satanic Temple have stated that they are taking legal action regarding Netflix original The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina‘s use of a statue.

The statue in question is one of Baphomet, which was designed by the organisation back in 2015 and depicts the deity sitting beneath an inverted pentagram with two children standing at either side.

A Baphomet sculpture can be seen throughout Sabrina – it sits in the centre of the witchcraft school Sabrina attends, called the Academy of Unseen Arts.

The Netflix original was released on October 26 and comprises of 10 episodes which follow the teenage witch as she nears her sixteenth birthday.

Netflix describes the plot of the series as such:

Magic and mischief collide as half-human, half-witch Sabrina navigates between two worlds: mortal teen life and her family’s legacy, the Church of Night.

The series is admittedly very different from the 1990s comedy on which it is based. Netflix describes the show as ‘violent’, ‘dark’, and ‘scary’, and therefore viewers can expect a much darker version of Sabrina.

Netflix

As such, the series explores darker themes and sees Sabrina fighting dark forces such as Satan himself, who is represented by the Baphomet statue.

Which brings us back to why The Satanic Temple are taking legal action against the series. Lucien Greaves, spokesperson and co-founder of the organisation, took to Twitter on October 28 to make his views clear.

He wrote:

Yes, we are taking legal action regarding #TheChillingAdventuresofSabrina appropriating our copyrighted monument design to promote their asinine Satanic Panic fiction.

The Satanic Temple is a religious organisation which – according to their website – follows satanism, which should ‘provide a narrative structure by which we contextualize our lives and works’.

The organisation unveiled their Baphomet statue in 2015, in response to Oklahoma’s installation of a 10 Commandments monument outside the Capitol in 2012.

VICE reported that after this protest, the Oklahoma Supreme Court decided that the six-foot statue of the 10 Commandments must be removed from the capitol grounds – a clear victory for The Satanic Temple.

Although this issue with Sabrina is, indeed, a copyright issue, the organisation sees it as much more than that. Greaves believes that their ‘central icon’ – the Baphomet sculpture – is being depicted in a wrongful way, and as such is creating panic regarding their culture.

Speaking to Broadly, Greaves stated that satanists need to protect their culture:

One of the central missions of The Satanic Temple has been to fight back against witch-hunts and irrational mob panics.

[There are] signs of a Satanic Panic revival today, and as Satanists we need to do all we can to fight back against negligent and harmful representations.

Another co-founder, Malcolm Jarry, supported Greaves’ claims 100 per cent, stating that the organisation will take ‘aggressive actions’ to protect the statue’s copyright if a resolution is not made.

However, Lisa Soper, the production designer of Sabrina, spoke with Broadly about the statue, saying:

I think that’s kind of a coincidence. When you look at Baphomet, there’s really only a couple of statues of him—which, they have their statue, and we’ve got our statue in the show.

She went on to explain:

It’s no different from, in my opinion anyhow… from any other of the mass amounts of iterations of him that have been around.

Let’s hope it can be resolved soon.

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Lucy Connolly

A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).