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‘I cast spells at the audience’: Bat for Lashes on howling, magic and new documentary on witch trials

Natasha Khan joins Suranne Jones to speak out for women persecuted in the infamous trials – and channels their powers on stage

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. 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.

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