Day 1: Introduction

Hello there! Welcome to a blog focused around the show Supernatural and the ideas and themes it steals from Judaism and Catholicism.

You’re either reading this because you’re a professor who has to, a huge Supernatural fan, or a huge theology fan! For whatever reason you’re reading this now, I hope you enjoy it! This blog was created as a project for a class, but I chose to put it out here on the internet so other fans of the show can see Supernatural in a new way.

Supernatural focuses around Sam and Dean Winchester, two brothers raised to hunt monsters and ghosts. The first two seasons focus on two brothers travelling around the country hunting. In the third season the theology of angels, God, prophets, and the apocalypse were introduced, borrowing much of these ideas from Judaism and Catholicism.

Sam and Dean were raised by their father, John Winchester, who became a hunter to avenge his wife’s death.  It was later revealed that she was killed by a demon, which is the first introduction of demons into the show. Demons are common in the Supernatural universe, and they will get their own post.

The existence of souls and Hell was established in the beginning of the second season when John made a deal with a demon to trade his soul for Dean’s life. In these deals, humans sell their souls for some sort of benefit, usually living well for ten years, but when the human dies their soul is sent to Hell. After Sam dies at the end of the second season, Dean makes a deal to sell his soul for Sam’s life. At the end of season three, Dean’s time is up and his soul is sent to Hell.

In the season four premiere, Dean was saved by a being he had never believed in before- an angel named Castiel. This is the first official introduction to angels (they were mentioned in season two but dismissed). From this point on, Castiel is a main character on the show, and many other angels from both Judaism and Catholicism make appearances.

We find out that while in Hell Dean began the process of releasing Lucifer from his cage in Hell by breaking the first of 66 seals on Lucifer’s cage. Sam, Dean, and Castiel try to prevent the other 65 seals from being broken and triggering the apocalypse. SPOILER ALERT- they fail. Season five focuses on the apocalypse which draws mainly from the Book of Revelation from the Christian tradition. We’ll explore the Catholic themes in season five later, particularly the one about the apocalypse.

So why pick Supernatural as a focus of Catholic and Jewish themes? Well in this short little blurb we’ve already touched on many Catholic and Jewish ideas: angels, demons, Heaven, Hell, the existence of God, Lilith, prophets. The list goes on. Each day of blog posts will be dedicated to the different ideas taken from these theologies, and specifically how they are used and what that could suggest about Judaism and Catholicism in general.

*Disclaimer: I own nothing. All video, audio, pictures, and other material belong to the CW.*