In between performing songs from her new album on her current UK tour, Natasha Khan, AKA Bat for Lashes, spends some time howling at the audience and furiously hitting the stage with a huge stick.
The reason? “We’re all witches,” said Khan, 44. “It helps me to tap into that subconscious world of witchery, and show how really powerful it is to witness a woman on stage feeling confident in her magic.”
Khan also showcases her howling in a new two-part documentary, Investigating Witch Trials, which begins on Channel 4on Sunday night. It is fronted by Suranne Jones, the
Doctor Foster star, who travels from Pendle, near Oldham, to Salem, Massachusetts, both the scenes of infamous witch persecution. Jones and Khan howl to release pent-up energy, which the Bat for Lashes singer recommends to everyone as an act of self-liberation.
By “witches”, Khan doesn’t really mean the mythical crones of fairy tales. “Deep down inside of us we all have access to a place of intuition,” she said. “A witch is just a wise woman who can access this power.”
The Channel 4 film examines how the word witch was used, especially in the 17th century, as a tool for suppressing women, which Khan believes came from a place of fear. “Witch became a dirty word when it was really describing women who had knowledge of medicines and herbs and had an intimate connection with nature.
“The word was used by patriarchal society because they feared the power of a woman. Having had a baby, I know that women are powerful and amazing, to be able to grow another life inside their body. That power alone could have been seen as quite scary,” she said.
The documentary shows women are now embracing the word. “I love the idea that women are reclaiming the label witch,” Khan said. “I’m not sure I would say I was just a witch myself, because I think witch is just one aspect of being a woman. It’s an archetype, like the maiden, the mother and the crone. And I think we hold all these archetypal aspects within ourselves.”
Khan, who is performing on Monday night at the Barbican, does believe in magic, though: “As a singer, I believe I’m casting spells at the audience, changing the energy in a room. I think the way I use this energy in my work... relates to a natural wisdom we all have.
“Having become a mother, and now being in my mid-40s, I feel more confident in my magic.”
In Investigating Witch Trials, Jones documents the case of the Pendle Witches. In 1612, the most famous witch trials in England were carried out at Lancaster Castle after accusations of witchcraft against two local families: the Devices and Chattoxes. Ten men and women were hanged for witchcraft after the trials.
Jones also speaks to art historian Luisa MacCormack, who points to the infamous book the Malleus Maleficarum, published by a German catholic clergyman in 1486, as instrumental in the persecution of witches, with its anti-women screeds, including: “Their minds are warped, twisted like the rib from which Eve was formed.” It was believed witches consorted with the devil and stole men’s penises, keeping them in “nests” in trees.
Jones points out that, historically, men thought to practise magic had their power attributed to learning and knowledge, gleaned from ancient books. For women, it was because they had sold their souls to the devil.
Khan has designed her own tarot-style deck of divination cards, which she calls the Motherwitch Oracle, and which she demonstrates to Jones in the documentary. She created it to tap into “the part of myself that was nourished, and jumped into life, when I gave birth to my daughter”.
She believes that modern life has obstructed the connection women have with the natural world, and that is partly why there has been a resurgence of interest in witches, and the reclaiming of the name. “We all live in spaces that are distanced from the natural world,” she said. “And I think many of us are grieving that loss, and a lot of us really need that medicine right now.”
