Modern pop culture loves witches, and witches (mostly) love Satan, but why are the devil and all his fem-affirming works having this cultural moment? We’re joined by Dr. Miranda Corcoran, author of the new book “Satanism & Feminism In Popular Culture: Not Today Satan.”
SHOW LINKS
- From Satanism & Feminism In Popular Culture, Miranda Corcoran, 2026: In the 2010s and early 2020s, the devil was very much abroad. On television and Cinema screens, pop music and politics, the Prince of Darkness reigned. A statue of Baphomet was nearly erected on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol, and in 2014 the satanic children’s big book of activities was distributed to public schools in Florida. Following the 2016 election, Satan’s hoofprints appeared ever more discernible across the cultural landscape. Diabolically inflected popular culture is nothing new: From fairy tales and folk ballads to the black masses of decadent literature and occult flavored rock and roll of the 1960s to 1980s, the devil’s always cast an imposing Shadow over the culture we create. However, in the 21st century, his orientation seem different: He was frequently aligned with girls and young women, functioning either as an ally, a source of power, or an authoritarian patriarch female characters needed to liberate themselves from. InThe Witch the devil frees a Puritan girl from the oppressive confines of 17th century Domesticity, and Twin Temple singer Alexandra James implores her Demon Lover to “deliver me from society’s hypocrisy”. Female witches fight oppressive powers in the chilling Adventures of Sabrina and American Horror Story: Apocalypse. This transformation of feminine evil and subversive feminist images informs the present volume. In particular, we consider how both demonized feminism and satanic feminism transformed following the emergence of religious satanism. The devil provides symbolic language through which a variety of creators can approach questions of power, agency, sexual violence, and Reproductive Rights.
- From Save Our Children From Satanists, Bethan Juliet Oak: The last Decades of the 20th century saw a flood of moral Panic sweep the US and the UK, characterized by widespread public alarm around Satanism. The Panic resulted in a surge of false allegations and convictions of individuals later found to be innocent, some spending up to 21 years in prison for crimes that never occurred. When exploring the Dynamics of Satanism scares, we can see that women take on roles within their narratives. We see self-proclaimed survivors who claim that they themselves were abused by Cults as children. The Panic also furnished examples of vilified women, notably those targeted with allegations of satanic abuse themselves. Jeffrey Victor notes how it was mostly women in prison for false SRA charges, and draws a parallel with witch trials. Perhaps most prominently, we see concerned women and mothers of children taking proactive roles within conspiracy theory networks as it means to spread awareness and protect the children from the cult threat. Scholars stereotype the typical conspiracy theorist as male. But researchers exploring contemporary conspiracism recognize a notable audience of women and mothers. Sociologist Joel Best proposes that the image of the threatened child was particularly powerful during this time, as children can be seen as embodying the future–a future that many people appeared to be lacking confidence in. Journalist Debbie Nathan writes that this preoccupation with child welfare focused on framing the issue through the lens of social deviance rather than structural problems in families and the economy. Pediatricians arose as the nation’s preeminent experts on child abuse and framed the issue of abuse as being caused by bad mothering.
- The Panic ran parallel to a time of Rapid social change with regard to gender roles and family Dynamics. A sharp rise in women entering the labor force led to changes and expectations around women’s roles in the family, which in turn were linked to concerns surrounding a rapid growth in divorce rates. Fears of stranger danger combined with these tensions, causing a broad social landscape of mistrust and guilt. Satanic Panic appeared at least in part to be a projection of mother’s wishes to protect their children among fears that they could not. The conceptualization of Satan as the enemy means that conspiracy narratives often project traditional Conservative Christian values of morality through their rhetoric. Motherhood is often depicted as the intrinsically virtuous Pinnacle of Womanhood, while the notion of bad motherhood or the rejection of motherhood becomes a form of moral subversion. Satanic Panic narratives and any conspiracy that presents itself as a campaign for the children provide a means of signifying good motherhood. These narratives did not seek to critique Society or comment on broader issues facing women and children, instead centering on vaguely defined evil forces. Today, Satanic cult allegations have bled into the far right groomer panic that seeks to associate the lgbtq community with child abuse. The ongoing moral Panic around the trans community in particular often attempts to directly frame itself as feminism. The framing of sex and gender panics as somehow Pro-woman is reviving the rhetoric of Satanism scares, which is again being used to target and scapegoat innocent individuals and communities.
- From Satanic Motherhood & Feminism In Rosemary’s Baby, Lakkaya Palmer: Throughout Rosemary’s baby, Rosemary is perceived as monstrous to a 1960s audience because of her reluctance to listen to male Authority. In the patriarchal world, Rosemary no longer conforms to accepted Norms but throughout the film becomes more Sinister because she refuses male orders. There is an idea in a patriarchal society that powerful women are inherently monstrous. Americans expected women to find fulfillment solely and motherhood, and mothers were under tight surveillance not only by their husbands but also by society and even other women. The introduction of the contraceptive pill could limit the number of children and delay motherhood indefinitely, and women who desired these freedoms were perceived as sexually corrupt. The increasing number of mothers working outside the home led to fears that a working mother would not have the house in order and would leave her children vulnerable. Feminism was seen as a travesty against tradition, society, and god, and any deviation from the idealized model of Christian Womanhood was demonized. Sex was seen as something that should be for reproduction alone. The contraceptive pill was viewed as detrimental because religious authorities saw it as altering God’s will. Abortion was widely criticized as unnatural and sinful. Rosemary’s Baby seems to signify this collapse of traditional motherhood, with Rosemary embodying ideas about feminism and Satanism in a perverse inversion of traditional norms.
- Despite Rosemary being quite keen to have a baby, the conception through the devil is detrimental to Rosemary’s well-being. Rosemary would have been expected in the context of a culture in which marital rape was still widely accepted to quietly endure. Instead, Rosemary repeatedly challenges male Authority with her famous vidal Sassoon haircut, expressing her desire to make decisions independently. Although she does want to have a baby, she becomes a mother against her will, drugged and experiencing hallucinations. When Guy and Dr Sapirstein both treat Rosemary as unreasonable and hysterical when she speak out about the pain she’s experiencing and asks questions about her pregnancy, or when Dr Hill double crosses her, this reinforces the lack of power Rosemary possesses. Her attempts to gain agency result in her Being Framed as paranoid, unreasonably and obsessively anxious, stressful, and suspicious. The medical profession expected pregnant women to defer unquestioningly to doctors. Rosemary’s Baby reflects a historical moment when women were slowly gaining Reproductive Rights and became less trusting of male doctors and more trusting of their own insights. When a mother starts interrogating her agency and reproductive health and starts questioning the men around her, it threatens not only the traditional patriarchal order but all order. A world where women were now accepting new movements such as feminism and perhaps even new religions such as Satanism was a matter of concern for many.
- From Season of the Witch & The Commodification of Satanism, Lisa Ellen Williams: Despite being a horror icon, not all of George Romero’s movies were well received. In 1972 his third feature film released under the title Jack’s Wife, later to become Season of the Witch. The film follows a jaded housewife as she establishes a new identity through witchcraft. Her story is indicative of the cultural anxiety attributed to ideological shifts from second wave feminism and women’s rejection of patriarchal roles in exchange for individualized identities. Romero underscores the commodification of the female identity, revealing that the terms woman and which are synonymous, marketable identities in a materialist culture. As Joan confronts her crises, she forms a pagan identity by consuming arguably superficial Notions about witchcraft, an act akin to the performance of Witchcraft on social media currently. Romero’s intent was to create a drama that focused on women’s issues but Jack’s wife was plagued with problems for budget and distribution. In the late 1960s and 1970s Americans were considering alternative paths. The Vietnam war, civil Rights Act, and second wave women’s movement challenged the idealism of the American dream. In California, Outsiders who promised Progressive ways of life and practices of worship. The growth of modern Pagan witchcraft coincided with an Embrace of counter-culturalism, expansion of personal freedom, progressive political agenda, egalitarianism, and anti-authoritarianism.
- By embracing paganism, Joan positions herself as an example of the Monstrous feminine who rejects the submissive consumerist housewife lifestyle. But Suburban witches were a sexy fad that equated occult affiliation with social currency. Joan acknowledges the transformative impact the occult may have on her identity and lifestyle without comprehending that she is entering another system reliant on restrictive standards and consumerist ideals. She replaces her traditional family with the coven in a subversive effort to belong to a matriarchal order. Ideally a coven serves as the training ground with each member develops personal power, but in Joan’s case both are institutions based on a foundation of obedience. Joan believes witchcraft is the answer to her midlife crisis, but in reality the conversion is simply a matter of relocation. Romero declared that the character of Joan grew out of the time and hoped that Jack’s Wife would transcend feminist discourse about glass ceilings and the workplace and focus on the home and relationships. Similar to Romero zombie films, Season of the witch offers commentary on consumerism and commercialism as Joan reifies her witch identity by procuring items to authenticate her title. The popular Resurgence of the witch identity among women is a source of empowerment, but Season of the Witch warns women to be aware of a faux sense of Liberation.
- From The Symbolic Devil vs The Literal Devil, Stefanie Wess: In the 2015 film The Witch, a family accuses its teenage daughter of being the witch responsible for the unfortunate events that set them. Many cite Hawthorne as an obvious predecessor to the film, as both Hawthorne and Eggers explore gendered double standards of religious Hypocrites. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorn characterizes gender depression as a violation of moral truth, and the novel relies on symbolism as a confident placeholder for the truth into which society will ultimately grow. The witch, truth is neither relevant nor inevitable. Its excruciatingly literal quality emphasizes power, was to inequity that will ultimately be sued by progress. Many read Hawthorne’s fictional explorations of hypocrisy as a means of repenting for the sins of his ancestors, who were instrumental in persecuting people as witches. While Hawthorne was apparently dissatisfied with the “unrelieved Gloom” of the novel, the way that symbolism of the novel both reveals and paves the way for truth gives The Scarlet Letter optimism. In the end, Hester is optimistic about a future where a new truth would be revealed to establish the relation between men and women on sure grounds of mutual happiness. Truth is winning its small battles, and literary symbolism holds the space for the truth that human society is naturally progressing toward. Not so in the Witch, where Robert Eggers describes Hawthorne’s Puritan New England as “storybook” and “uninformed.” In Egger’s film, when we meet the family, William is on trial for a religious dispute between himself and the Puritan Community, the film makes clear that his Christianity is even more rigid than theirs. The very first shot, a closeup of Thomasin’s face as her father is on trial, reveals the rigidity of gender Division and that this division is hierarchical. While the camera stays on Thomasin, it is her father who speaks. In Hawthorne’s world, even when the truth is concealed, it matters, and if Hester was called a witch she would not truly be a witch. But here, Thomasin is a witch, a bitch, and a whore, as soon as she is cold these things, whether or not her actions correspond with those identities. In Thomasin’s dialogue, her repeated question “Is this the truth?” demonstrates her understanding that truth is dictated by power, not by whether or something corresponds with reality. This demonstrates the double bind an accused of Witchcraft finds themselves in, where confessing could lead to forgiveness but not confessing surely led to execution. While Hawthorne insists that the devil is merely a metaphor, Eggers’ devil stands in for nothing. His non-symbolic presence points out that while many consider it backwards or lacking in compassion to entertain the idea of rootless evil, it’s not necessarily wise to cede that idea to the very people perpetuating it.
- From Postfeminism and the Feminization of Fascism in The Love Witch, Mairead Casey: In Anna Biller’s The Love Witch, Elaine’s coven present themselves as radical countercultural worshippers of the feminine through a Satanic aesthetic, but their beliefs are functionally identical to the politics of post-feminism, being transgressive and liberatory but practically conservative. In practice, their gender and sexual politics are cis-heteronormative, patriarchical, and white supremacist. Postfeminism is a worldview informed by feminism but reoriented towards consumerist individuality, where women are encouraged to use self-help to navigate their grievances rather than social movements, and to appropriate sexualized imagery as a means of social mobility. Like postfeminism, Elaine’s coven is fascinated and preoccupied with the female form. They claim to Revere women but demand that women perform extra work to achieve the desired interpersonal rewards of romantic admiration, sexual pleasure, and love. Elaine adopts the coven’s ideology in her pursuits of romance, but finds no viable outcome that satisfies both her desire for a patriarchal masculine ideal and her desire to be loved and appreciated for the person she is. When men succumb to her love spells, they become vulnerable, emotionally needy, and deeply unattractive to her. A man cannot be her masculine ideal and in a mutually loving and respectful relationship with her at the same time.
- Just as Biller uses the aesthetic of 1960’s sexploitation films to critique countercultural misogyny and racism, she uses the Church of Satan’s burlesque and Carnival imagery to critique anti-feminist postfeminism. Satanic imagery has historically been appropriated by movements of political and cultural dissent, but the Church of Satan was fundamentally chauvinist, and LaVey was explicitly a staunch opponent of feminism, women’s rights, and anything that weakened the distinctions between the sexes. LaVey mandated a hyper sexualization of the female body through the use of the naked female Altar and a colonization of the female psyche through his book The Satanic witch. The psychological reality of this internalization of the male gaze is represented through Elaine’s tragic character:. Elaine’s life is lonely, and the intense romantic competition in which she vies against other women prevents her from forming deep friendships or achieving emotional intimacy and precludes her connecting with other women. How does a person like Elaine become infatuated with a political and cultural movement that seems to be directly against her best interests and makes her feel depleted, unhappy, and destructive? Elaine’s experiences of gendered violence and sexual violence become depoliticized by the contraints of postfeminist gender essentialism, which flattens out all of her traumas and negative emotions and reframes them as low0stakes Romantic quandaries. Elaine’s coven and the conservative movements they resemble, like the Church of Satan, have failed to improve her material circumstances or enrich her emotional life.
- From Ghouls Girls & Ghosts, Colin Bischoff: The Peculiar Satanism found in the music of Swedish pop metal band Ghost deserves attention. While the band has long enjoyed acclaim within the heavy metal Community, bands popularity has exploded in the last decade, earning them a place in the mainstream. In addition to creating a sex-positive counter-mythology that opposes Christian Norms, the band’s female-friendly Aesthetics subverts the hyper-masculinity of the heavy metal genre. The band exemplifies how popular music can bridge the gap not only between heavy metal and feminism but also between mainstream culture and a philosophy built on individuality, alienation, and otherness. Formed in Sweden in 2006 and known formerly as ghost BC, the band’s music has been described as “Mercyful Fate meets Blue Oyster Cult,” “scooby-Doo Chase music,” and “Scooby-Doom.” The the band’s lyrics are consistent with black metal, an extreme metal variant heavily concentrated in the Scandinavian region. Black metal has long been notorious for its espousal of Satanism and anti-christian sentiment, and one of the characteristic features of black metal is its thematic opposition to Christianity. While ghost’s strain of glib pop metal has yet to lead to any church burdens, it is otherwise consistent with more extreme forms. We might conclude that ghost is a non-black metal black metal band. The metal genre is based almost entirely on masculine interests. Rock has a history of being coded as expressive of male sexual desires, and women as the objects of that desire. In Ghost’s case their music cannot entirely shed the baggage of its genre, but it can counteract heavy metals tropes by using Satan to empower women. Ghost’s interest in redeeming the witchy women of History spans multiple Studio albums. The song “Elizabeth” concerns the infamous Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory, rumored to have murdered hundreds during her reign. In a 2014 interview, a ghoul describes the track as a love song and acknowledgment of the “gray zone” surrounding the legend. The song “Stand By Him” criticizes witch-hunting, and a ghoul says this song was written from a feminist point of view. Videos for Cirice and Hunters Moon tell the stories of young girls receiving power and legitimate the concerns of teenage girls in ways that are not objectifying or sexualizing. The video for “call me a little sunshine” shows a woman in a 19th century setting colluding with a Demonic figure, and the video’s end signifies a kind of demonic salvation principle. In her article “He Can Be Whatever You want Him To Be,” Catherine Hoad argues that Tobias Forge forsakes traditional stardom for one that Privileges Music over performative masculinity. Perhaps the band’s suggestion is that what is underneath the robe and mask viz the performers gender expression is less important than the artistic expression in which the performer takes part. By finding common ground between feminism and Metal and between Satanism and the mainstream, Ghost draws attention to the fact that what is needed in the heavy metal community is a more is more of a woman’s voice , a bit more Sympathy for the Devil, and bit more ghoulish music through which individuals of all Stripes can come together.
- From Save Our Children From Satanists, Bethan Juliet Oak: The last Decades of the 20th century saw a flood of moral Panic sweep the US and the UK, characterized by widespread public alarm around Satanism. The Panic resulted in a surge of false allegations and convictions of individuals later found to be innocent, some spending up to 21 years in prison for crimes that never occurred. When exploring the Dynamics of Satanism scares, we can see that women take on roles within their narratives. We see self-proclaimed survivors who claim that they themselves were abused by Cults as children. The Panic also furnished examples of vilified women, notably those targeted with allegations of satanic abuse themselves. Jeffrey Victor notes how it was mostly women in prison for false SRA charges, and draws a parallel with witch trials. Perhaps most prominently, we see concerned women and mothers of children taking proactive roles within conspiracy theory networks as it means to spread awareness and protect the children from the cult threat. Scholars stereotype the typical conspiracy theorist as male. But researchers exploring contemporary conspiracism recognize a notable audience of women and mothers. Sociologist Joel Best proposes that the image of the threatened child was particularly powerful during this time, as children can be seen as embodying the future–a future that many people appeared to be lacking confidence in. Journalist Debbie Nathan writes that this preoccupation with child welfare focused on framing the issue through the lens of social deviance rather than structural problems in families and the economy. Pediatricians arose as the nation’s preeminent experts on child abuse and framed the issue of abuse as being caused by bad mothering.
- From Refeeding the Monstrous In the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Veronica Briatkova: The issue of Free Will surfaces in the 7th episode of the first season with the celebration of the Feast of Feasts. This centuries-old tradition coincides with Thanksgiving, but instead of a traditional dinner the witches and warlock’s Feast on one of their own. The Chosen witches is always female, chosen to honor an ancestral witch who killed herself and offered her body so the coven would not starve after it was banished from town. Historically, cannibalism functioned to create a line of demarcation between European and colonized territories, and thus became a staple of travel literature, fiction, and film, eventually making people rethink what it meant to be human. The geographical boundaries of what was considered civilized corresponded to the boundaries of European ideas about identity. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina locates cannibalism near a small town like any other across the United States. Considering historical shifts in the treatment of cannibalism, this confronts feminism because the cannibal was now a witch, which has become a symbol of feminism in popular culture. The forest surrounding Greendale adopts the demarcating role, and the Spellman house is located at its edge between the wilderness and the Mortals, symbolizing Sabrina’s liminal experience. Sabrina challenges the tradition because of her connection to the mortal world where cannibalism is taboo, and for her barbaric. On the other hand, she is a witch, and cannibalism is part of her culture, which creates internal conflict. This Echoes the criticism was made against those who viewed cannibalism as the marker of otherness rather than as a way of rationalizing europe’s obscenities to make them palatable and livable. Most witches in the show do not seek interactions with Mortals, as traditions like the Feast of Feasts make any reconciliation or confrontation undesirable.
- The Thanksgiving holiday as it is known today was created in the second half of the 19th century to strengthen American patriotism and core values. The turkey as a centerpiece represents a national communion. The Feast of Feasts serves a similar purpose. This cannibalistic Feast is a perverted Thanksgiving as well as a Holy Communion, an example of counter myth. Not only is the Christian rite subverted as a taboo and sinful murder, but this subversion of the Christ narrative suggested Satanic feminist interpretation giving female witches power that cannot be attained by their counterparts. Ironically however, utilized in a manner that makes her a servant to the patriarchy’s harmful ideology. Female bodies are thus not only monitored and regulated but women are bodies before they are people. Sabrina’s confrontation with the other witches over this practice describes the conflict between members of second and third wave feminism. Sabrina’s opposition is motivated by the instinctual understanding that a tradition that kills a witch does not have the covens or women’s best interest in mind. The feast is a political act and an act of violence for the sake of power, which hides behind its ritualistic function and a subversive feminist narrative.