As with other shows involving witchcraft, one of the most fun things about Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is the exploration of the magic system. Sabrina's magic system is rooted in Satanic ritualism and paganism, although the Satanic aspects are exaggerated to highlight the malevolent and cultlike nature on which a belief system can take.
At times, the show's magic system even has the witches and warlocks reach out to what are considered Pagan Gods. Some of these spells are performed successfully, while others failed with disastrous results. Here are the five best and five worst spells performed on the show.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the latest season.
Worst: Resurrecting Tommy
In the first season, Agatha and Dorcas of the Weird Sisters went behind Prudence's back and used voodoo magic to cause a collapse in the Greendale mine, killing Harvey's brother Tommy and four other miners in the process. Since Sabrina and Harvey were dating at the time and Harvey was understandably devastated, Sabrina brought it upon herself to resurrect Tommy.
Sabrina, Nick Scratch, and the surviving Weird Sisters performed the resurrection spell after sacrificing Agatha. Agatha was resurrected using soil from Cain's garden and Tommy was also resurrected but without his soul. The spell caused Agatha to become deathly ill and since Tommy was soulless, he was robotic and ultimately had to be killed once again, making the resurrection a terrible spell and ultimately not worth the trouble.
Best: Helping Theo's Basketball Tryout
Theo, at the time known as Susie, and Harvey tried out for Baxter High's basketball team. When they tried out, Theo was not yet out identifying as male and received a lot of negativity for trying out for the all-boys' basketball team. He also struggled with the athletics and game of basketball during tryouts which often resulted in missing the basket.
In the middle of tryouts, Sabrina showed up and started muttering spells in order to improve Theo's performance and help him make baskets. Theo ultimately made the team and the spells have continued to work for Theo, allowing him to keep his spot on the team and excel at basketball.
Worst: Mandrakes
In the show's second part when Sabrina wanted no part of her fate as Lucifer's herald, she created a mandrake in order to separate her mortal and witch selves, in the hopes to negate the prophecy. The spell at first seemed unsuccessful, only for Sabrina's witch form to appear later and kidnap Sabrina's mortal friends to make more mandrakes.
Not only did Sabrina and her friends have to reverse what she had done in order to prevent the mandrake from causing harm, Sabrina inadvertently fulfilled the prophecy by killing her mandrake self, meaning her attempts were futile.
Best: Stage Magic
Viewers likely rolled their eyes when they first heard that stage magic was going to be performed in a show that regularly depicts witchcraft, especially since it was going to be performed by Nicolas Scratch, a powerful conjurer.
However, Nick's depiction of stage magic was interesting. He used aspects of his conjuring magic in order to add a witchy spin to the otherwise mundane (to witches) art. While the results did not end well for Sabrina, it was the work of the Weird Sisters and not Nick's stage magic that is to blame. Furthermore, it was also part of a vision provided to Sabrina through a tarot reading, meaning the outcome is less important than other spells on this list.
Worst: The Exorcism
During the first part, Theo's uncle Jesse lived with Theo and his dad because Jesse was believed to be sick. It is later revealed that he was in fact possessed by a demon after running into one in the mines. Sabrina wanted to help him and learned of a way for witches to perform an exorcism.
The exorcism was ultimately successful, even though Ms. Wardwell, who was actually Lillith, killed Jesse later the same night. In spite of the success, the exorcism brought Sabrina closer to fulfilling a prophecy that she would later try to avoid.
Best: Haitian Blood Spell
At the beginning of the third part, Prudence and Ambrose travel to New Orleans in search of Father Blackwood in order to kill him. There, after a failed attempt to kill who they thought was Father Blackwood, they seek out Mambo Michele Marie Le Fleur and she teaches them Haitian blood magic to track down Father Blackwood quickly.
Using Prudence's blood and a map, the spell was successful in finding Father Blackwood, who happened to be in Scotland. It was also interesting to see different and less represented forms of magic and witchcraft in the show.
Worst: Manipulating Results For Queen Of Feast Of Feasts
During the first season, the Church of Night celebrated a holiday known as the Feast of Feasts, in which a witch is chosen to be the queen and is ultimately feasted upon by the coven. Prudence was chosen, presumably by the Dark Lord, as the queen, but Constance Blackwood, Father Blackwood's wife at the time, revealed that she manipulated the results.
Constance's manipulation of the results caused someone else to sacrifice themselves for the role of queen and contributed to Constance's downward spiral, which likely contributed to her death in childbirth.
Best: Whispering Gallery Spell
During part three, Sabrina started taking on more responsibilities as the Queen of Hell, one of which was taking souls to Hell. One of the souls, Jimmy Platt, made a deal with Lucifer that if he gave Lucifer an innocent soul, he would live an additional seven years. He kidnapped children for their innocent souls, and this time around, when Sabrina came to collect, he had kidnapped Lucy Anderson.
In order to find her, Sabrina and Roz performed a whispering gallery spell so that they could communicate with Lucy. The communication led Sabrina to Lucy and both girls were ultimately saved by Lillith.
Worst: Shirley Jackson's Protection Spell
Shirley Jackson taught at The Academy of Unseen Arts alongside Zelda Spellman and under Father Blackwood. Once Zelda joined the staff, Shirley immediately took a disliking toward her and instigated a rivalry between the two witches. Shirley went so far as to awaken Constance Blackwood's ghost on the eve of Zelda's wedding to Father Blackwood. Because of this, Hilda tried sorting things out with Shirley.
When talking with Hilda, Shirley confessed to using a spell that protects her from magical attacks. Hilda then reveals that she laced the biscuits Shirley had been eating with cyanide and Shirley died. A spell that protects against magic but not something like cyanide is not an incredibly powerful spell and Shirley probably should have used a stronger spell.
Best: Astral Projecting
Astral projecting is one of the most-used spells in the show. It was first introduced when Ambrose used it to go on his first date with Luke while under house arrest. Since then, Sabrina has used it to communicate with her mortal and witch friends, either appearing in their houses or at the Academy.
Astral projecting has its flaws such as being unable to touch or be touched, but it is still an incredibly useful spell and is used as a form of communication in order to quickly and efficiently convey messages.