It turns out that The Satanic Temple is very business savvy. A statue that appeared in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina reportedly uses many of the same design elements of a monument that the group copyrighted.
Images of the goat deity Baphomet are central to the organisation and are used to “encourage benevolence and empathy among all people”. Therefore when it became clear the series had used a replica of a statue copyrighted and protected by the Library of Congress, without the permission of The Satanic Temple, they announced they would take legal action last month.
The action is being led by Lucien Greaves, a co-founder of the Satanic Temple who posted a comparison of the figures online.
He went on to explain his decision in a blog post which also clarified that they do not own the rights to all images of Baphomet, rather this depiction of the figure standing in front of two adoring children. “We are claiming copyright infringement for their use of our unique Baphomet monument design in their show as a central icon for a cannibalistic cult,” he said. “We are not laying claim to Baphomet itself, but rather our original interpretation of Baphomet that has become a central icon to our organisation, much like a corporate logo.”
In The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina the Baphomet figure represents Satan, the villain of the series. As reported on Dazed last week noted that most witches in real life would refute the existence of a “devil in the craft”.
Similarly, Greaves grievances lie with the misappropriation of existing cultures to embellish the drama between good and evil in a fictional show.
He wrote on Twitter: “I’m amazed that anybody is confused as to why we would seek legal remedy over Sabrina using our monument. Would they be as understanding of a fictional show that used a real mosque as the HQ of a terrorist cell? A fictional Blood Libel tale implicating real world Jews?”
In a statement shared with Broadly over email, he outlined that one of the central missions of The Satanic Temple was to “fight back against witch-hunts and irrational mob panics”.
Read more about the series and its representation of the occult in our latest review.