There is so much magic in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Some of it is Wiccan, some of it is practical, and some of it is the kind of thing Jack Parsons was doing when he wasn’t building rockets in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. All of it is cool. But not all of it is equal, as some spells are clearly better than others, either because they are everyday useful or powerful enough to crush your enemies. Here are the best spells used in Chilling Adventures. Some light spoilers.
Turning-on-the-lights spell
Not the most powerful but certainly the most useful. Honestly, I’ve never been so jealous as when Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter series got her dishes to wash themselves, so any kind of everyday, practical spells are worth a vote in my book. I assume the turning-on-the-lights spell is just one of a host of household spells that make life easier.
The forgetting spell
Sabrina telling Harvey she’s a witch and then wiping it from his memory is sad, and has consequences later, but just in general, being able to Jedi mind-trick people into forgetting sh-t is handy.
Astral projection
One neat production design note in Chilling Adventures is the use of cell phones. All of Sabrina’s mortal friends have cell phones, but Sabrina is only ever seen using a landline. It’s a quirk of the retro-contemporary design of the show—shared with Riverdale—but it’s also pointing to her nature as a witch. Being able to project your spirit across planes means you never need to make a call. Have to warn someone about imminent danger? Just astral-project to their location! Need to go on a date but under house arrest? Astral-project to the coffee shop! Astral projection eliminates a need for cell phones and short-range transportation.
Resurrection
Look, Sabrina screwed this one up, big time. But assuming you do the spell correctly and don’t try to cheat the balance, this is the kind of magic it’s good to know in emergencies. You wouldn’t want to use it all the time—even the Cain dirt seems to have long-term consequences as Zelda notes it is taking Hilda longer and longer to regenerate—but as long as you’re willing to make the sacrifice, you never have to lose your star player in the fight against evil.
Hellfire
Being able to summon hellfire is by far the best thing Sabrina has going for her by the end of the season. It also looks totally cool.
Witches’ exorcism
An exorcism designed for witches that involves invoking the names of some of history’s most badass women? YES, PLEASE. It’s worth revisiting this scene just to catch all the names invoked, which include everyone from mythological figures like Hecate and Circe, to Anne Boleyn and Tituba, a slave woman in Salem accused of witchcraft but who managed to survive the trials. It’s one of the most powerful scenes in the show (literally), as Sabrina and her unofficial coven save Jesse Putnam’s life by calling on the power of women throughout the ages.
Bonus round: The worst spell is anything to do with voodoo dolls
Any spell that requires you to be good at arts and crafts is a bummer. Not everyone is DIY-capable, and the number of un-crafty witches who end up accidentally raising golems with their scrambled little doll monsters has to be high.
