My friend Peg Kay Aloi, a modern practicing witch, has two articles out on the “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina." In the first one, on Arts Fuse, she reviews the third season of the show and discusses the importance of the season's plot arc (spoilers aplenty).

Also at the end of Season Two, Sabrina’s Aunt Zelda (the excellent Miranda Otto) renounced her marriage to Faustus, who turned out to be a misogynist patriarch. The coven of Satanic witches who preside over the shadow side of Greendale are a sort of elite society with their own boarding school. The daytime Greendale is all Scooby-Doo high school hijinks (with some intersectional activism and coming-of-age drama thrown in). Because of her duel nature, witch and mortal, Sabrina straddles these worlds. In Season One, her Sweet Sixteen Party was also her Dark Baptism, the ritual when witches must proclaim their allegiance to the Dark Lord. The Satanic antics are all rather arch and fantastical (Aunt Zelda’s smiling “Praise Satan” is now a popular meme), making this all rather fun and entertaining.

In her second piece, for Refinery 29, Peg compares the show's TV hocus-pocus to modern, real-world witchcraft.

RIGHT: Sex can be part of witches’ magical workings

The show’s emphasis on sexuality keeps it firmly in the “adult” genre while also portraying a fascinating yet sometimes controversial aspect of modern witchcraft. Many of the seasonal holidays of Wicca have their origins in ancient rites performed by Europeans — including the rather erotic ritual of Lupercalia seen previously in Season 2, episode 3.

Anthony Bourdain left us earlier this year, but the joy he found in the world's many cultures and traditions will always be around for us to savor.

In this quick holiday story, written by Bourdain, North America is given a brief, dark, humorous peek into the mythos surrounding Krampus, a goat-demon who comes during the Christmas holidays to punish children who misbehaved over the last year. A good pal of Santa Claus, Krampus, and the dread he has instilled in rotten kids for generations, most likely pre-dates Christianity.

From Wikipedia:

There seems to be little doubt as to his true identity for, in no other form is the full regalia of the Horned God of the Witches so well preserved. The birch – apart from its phallic significance – may have a connection with the initiation rites of certain witch-covens; rites which entailed binding and scourging as a form of mock-death. The chains could have been introduced in a Christian attempt to 'bind the Devil' but again they could be a remnant of pagan initiation rites.

Merry Krampusnacht! Read the rest