All language subtitles for Suranne Jones Investigating Witch Trials 2024 S01E02 1080p WEB-DL H264-W0M847

Hi, team. Hello. Hello.

Are we ready to talk witches?

We are ready. How you feeling?

I'm good. I'm feeling it, yes,
I'm feeling witchy.

I'm Suranne Jones.

And, for as long as I can remember,

I've been intrigued by
the idea of witches.

I love that, yeah.

BLEEP the cleaning, I'm going
to ride the broomstick. Exactly.

No, Jackson, don't follow me.

Shall I send you one,
and you respond? Yeah.

SHE HOWLS

SURANNE HOWLS

But for much of history,

witches and witchcraft have been
viewed with fear and suspicion.

You had 200 years where women were
terrified of being called a witch.

I'm going on an epic journey
to uncover what led to some of

the biggest trials in history.

There is a worry
that witches are rampant,

and they are out to hurt
the King and society.

I've already seen how witchcraft
accusations played out in Pendle...

This is the dungeon where
the witches were imprisoned.

Oh, my gosh.

..and why witch-hunts took
hold in Germany.

If disaster strikes,

we become ready to see evil
in other people.

Now, I'm heading to the site of the
most infamous witch trials of all -

the American town of Salem...

The little girls gave
this testimony,

that they have been going
to the woods

and dancing naked in a circle.

..to discover why accusations of
witchcraft caught fire here with

such devastating consequences...

And fingers point wildly.

Suddenly, you just have
this snowballing

number of accusations.

We do need to make clear
that these people were

wrongly accused of witchcraft.

"If it was the last moment
I was to live,

"God knows I am innocent."

..and how their legacy can
still be felt today.

CHANTING: We won't go back!

What do people think
that they are going to achieve

by sending those threats?
I think they want to shut you up.

They want you to be so scared
that you'll stop talking.

Argh! Yes!

Ahhh!

Salem is known as
the City of Witches.

In this quiet town
of New England, in 1692,

14 women and five men were
brutally hanged as witches,

after a number of young girls
began convulsing

as if possessed by demons,

causing wild accusations of
witchcraft to snowball.

It's an extraordinary story
that has echoed down the centuries.

But I want to discover what
really happened here.

Why did witch-hunting hysteria
sweep through Salem

with such destructive force?

Who was accused of witchcraft,

and who were their supposed victims?

And what are the parallels
with the witch-hunts

I've already explored in
England and Europe?

Salem Village was a small
agricultural community

of around 600 white settlers.

They were part of a wave of
English Puritans who had travelled

to the New World in the 1620s.

To understand what they
were seeking here,

I'm meeting Emerson Baker,

Professor of History
at Salem State University.

This is the great
Puritan experiment,

because they're convinced that
they're going to come over here

and they're going
to start from scratch,

and they're going to build this
utopian, Christian community

where everybody walks in peace
and harmony with each other,

with their friends and neighbours,

and it's going to be perfect.

When they get here,
what are the rules?

Like, how... Yeah.
..pure is a Puritan?

How pure are the Puritans? Yes.

Puritan's are pretty pure.

When they come here for
religious freedom,

it's only for the Puritan faith.

They didn't allow things like
dancing or singing.

It was all the glory of God,
so it was a fairly rigid,

strict kind of community.

This is a highly
patriarchal society,

women are seen as basically,

for want of a better phrase,
a necessary evil.

They have to be there because
they have to reproduce.

But they are subservient,
they don't have legal rights.

I mean, women were treated
at this time

at the same level as children.

The settlers had come
seeking a Puritan utopia -

but they were faced with
an unexpectedly harsh environment.

So, they've basically had quite of
antagonistic confrontations with

the Native Americans on the land.

But this is land that they don't
know necessarily how to use.

So, there's dark forest,
there's swampland,

a lot of the land is
actually unusable.

So, this is unforgiving,
inhospitable foreign land that

they have to find a way
to make their home.

As God's chosen people,

the community here believed
they were also in spiritual danger.

Puritans do see themselves
as more susceptible

to witches or magical attacks,

because Puritans also see themselves

as the correct form of Christian.

You have these people who are
terrified that something

could be happening to them.

And that's kind of a perfect storm
for getting a whole lot of people

accused of something for really
no reason at all.

This all made Salem a fertile
ground for witch-hunts.

An account by
the Reverend John Hale,

a minister from a nearby parish,
detailed the strange incident

that first sparked accusations
of witchcraft.

It all started on an icy afternoon
in the middle of one of

the coldest winters that
New England had ever seen,

in the parsonage
of minister Samuel Parris -

the parsonage that stood right
here on this spot.

On that cold day in 1692,

Parris' nine-year-old daughter,
Betty,

and 11-year-old niece, Abigail,
began behaving in

an alarming manner.

Both girls described being pinched

and bitten by an invisible agent.

Then they began to bark like dogs.

Sometimes, they would fall
completely mute, and other times,

they would convulse as if
they were having a seizure.

Adults are initially sceptical,

but they maybe tell
the children to pray harder,

to be more Godly, to be better.

However, as time goes on,
they start to be concerned.

They call in a doctor,

and they start to be really worried
that witchcraft is a factor here.

The doctor who visited the
Parris household diagnosed that

"the Evil Hand" was upon the girls,

meaning that witches were
at work here.

Come on in. Oh, wow.

The following evening,

while the Reverend
and Mrs Parris were out,

a well-meaning neighbour called
Mary Sibley decided to try

and discover who the witch was
by baking a witch cake.

What you do with the witch cake
is you take a rye cake

and you add to it -

in this case, as odd as it sounds -

the urine of the afflicted girls,

and you bake it up.

And then, you feed it to the dog.

If I were to curse you,
there would be an energy,

an evil energy that would flow
from me into you.

So, in other words, a part of
the witch would be living in them,

and they would urinate it out.

And in that case,
if they could take that urine

and cause harm to it -

that is, bake it into a cake
and have a dog eat it.

So, you'd have a witch screaming
in pain as the dog ate

the witch cake, you see.

I shouldn't try and make
sense of this? No. No?

I think we're not going to have
a bake off for witch cakes.

No, no, no, no, no!
HE CHUCKLES

So ironically, when the Puritans
want to find out who is a witch,

they do some magic themselves.

The Puritan settlers officially
did not use magic

or believe in magic.

But, of course, because they'd come
from the old world where magic was

a very widely-used sort of skill,

some of them did continue
to believe in magical remedies.

When Reverend Parris found out,

he was very upset, because clearly,

this is an act of magic.

Again, white magic, but still magic.

You're still invoking Satan.

In fact, he said a very famous line,

"The Devil hath been raised,
and you have done it."

Whether it was the magic of
the witch cake

or the Reverend Parris' ranting,

the two girls become lucid for
the first time in a month.

They accused three local women
of bewitching them.

The three accused women are
immediately arrested

on suspicion of witchcraft.

A crime that's punishable by death.

The Salem Witch Trials had begun.

I'm in America to explore
how witch-hunts unfolded here.

In the 16th and 17th centuries,

Britain and Europe saw thousands
executed for witchcraft.

Most of them were women.

Stacy, hi. Hi.

So good to meet you.
And you, too.

I'm meeting historian and
author Stacy Schiff

to discover who was accused
in Salem.

The girls are convinced that
they are suffering

indeed from witchcraft.

They name names.

And at that point, essentially,
you have a witch-hunt.

So, where do we go from there?
Who did they name?

They name three people.

They name people who are
the obvious suspects, in a way.

They name a woman named Sarah Good,

who was a kind of
itinerant beggar woman,

something of a nuisance
to the community.

The second woman they name is
a woman named Sarah Osborne,

who had been bedridden for most of
these months - and in fact,

is dragged out of her sick room
to face witchcraft charges.

The third person
the girls name is Tituba,

who was an Indian -
probably an American Indian,

possibly a Caribbean Indian
enslaved person who lives

in the Parris household,

and sleeps with and praise with,
and eats alongside the girls.

Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne were
the obvious two suspects, in a way -

it's Tituba who's the wild card.

No Black American, no Indian has
ever been accused of witchcraft -

although she doesn't look like
everyone else in the community,

it's a little more inexplicable

because she is on such
intimate terms with the family.

The way in which Tituba
was presented in some accounts

and imagery hints at the suspicion
with which she was viewed.

Tituba might have been accused

because she is a Native American,
pure and simple.

Maybe she was seen as Pagan,
a Devil worshipper,

somebody in the household that is
racially different from those

who were accusing her.

So, she very well may have
a religion that looks

to them like witchcraft.

So, she might still have indigenous
practises that they would consider

to be malign or magical.

She might have told the girls
about this at some point in time.

When they are accused,
what happens to them?

So, the three women are brought
before two Justices of the Peace,

and there are men of great
fortune in there,

and some were commanding presences.

So, before them, a Salem villager,

particularly a female
Salem villager -

and particularly, a marginal
female Salem villager -

would have felt very
much outpowered.

And in the Massachusetts
criminal code,

witchcraft is the second-greatest
offence after idolatry -

it's followed by blasphemy,
and murder comes only later.

The little girls gave this testimony

that they have been going to
the woods with them,

and dancing naked in a circle.

And this does a lot of things.

It kind of hits every single
one of the bad things

you could possibly do.

First place, dancing -
uh-uh, not for Puritans,

you know, dancing is in and of
itself seen as inherently evil,

because it's slightly sexual.

Again, nakedness, nudity,

this idea of sexuality
that is really on display.

And it really hits on every note
from these classic images of

the Witches' Sabbath that have been
around since the early 1500s.

This idea that witches go
to some place out in nature,

that they bring younger,
less-experienced girls in

and seduce them into doing these
sexualised things that revolve

around demonic energies.

Tituba is seen as being incredibly
sexual because she is native.

And this is a particular way
that native peoples

are othered by Europeans.

Salem magistrate John Hawthorne
led the questioning of the suspects.

Both Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne
denied practising witchcraft.

But, after first also denying it,

Tituba then confessed.

What does she say?

She tells an extraordinary,
lurid tale of having met with,

if not the Devil, then some
representative of the Devil.

She essentially says that
she has flown to Boston -

so she introduces flying
into the tale.

She talks about meeting the Devil
and being tempted by him

to attack Betty and Abigail.

She talks about witchcraft meetings,

including in the Minister's
house itself.

She talks about ways in which
they bewitched the children -

so she starts to identify
the sort of spells that

they'd used against them.

A record of Tituba's supposed
confession was taken down

by the magistrates' clerk,

and has survived in
the Salem archives.

Tituba is said to have confirmed
that Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne

were in league with the devil.

But, even more shockingly,

that there were many
more witches hiding in Salem.

And she says that there are
actually nine witches at large,

not just the suspected three.

So immediately, she opens
this story up to a much larger

infestation of witches.

So, Tituba's confessed,
told this amazing story,

people are starting
to freak out in the town.

What happens next, who was next?

There's a contagion - and there's
a contagion both of ideas,

and a contagion of symptoms.

So immediately, two other girls
begin to suffer from

the same afflictions that
Betty and Abigail were manifesting,

and people begin to point fingers
in various directions.

During the course of that process,

other accusers start
to come forward.

They too are girls from the village,

and they too start to say they are
being afflicted by witches,

that they're suffering
unexplained pains.

They start to say they can see
visions of other people

who are also witches.

And so, the whole
witch-hunt sprouts.

Over the next few months,

many more people were accused
of witchcraft.

At first, it was those on
the fringes of the community

who were named.

But mounting paranoia meant
that soon no-one was safe,

and even some of the
most respected were accused.

So now, let's talk about
how mass hysteria catches fire,

and what it does to a community.

So, at a certain point,
what starts to happen is that

all of the fissures and fractures
that had divided these villagers

begin to manifest in
various kinds of accusation.

And fingers point wildly.

So suddenly, you just have this
snowballing number of accusations.

The wild finger-pointing raged
completely out of control in Salem

and the surrounding villages.

In the seven months from
the first accusations

until the trials were halted,

156 people were charged
with witchcraft.

An extraordinary number for
such a small, isolated community.

The way in which mass hysteria
overtook Salem

was brilliantly captured by one
of the most celebrated playwrights

of the 20th century.

In 1953, Arthur Miller
wrote his version of

the Salem story, The Crucible -

one of his best-known plays.

GIRLS SCREAM

It's on the beam,
behind the rafters! Where?!

Why, why do you come, yellow bird?

Where is the bird? I see no bird!

When I saw it, I was like,
"Wow, that can't be a true story."

It was so fantastical and horrific.

And then you find out that it is.

Her claws!
She's stretching her claws!

I mean, it's like a madness -
when you watch it,

you feel like it's a madness
spreading through a community.

And still now, I feel like
you watch it and go,

"How did this happen?"

Miller's depiction of this
"madness" was intended to reflect

a similar hysteria he saw
unfolding in 1950s America -

with the infamous hunt
for communists,

led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The raw, harsh, unpleasant fact
is that Communism is an issue.

There was this kind of panic,
moral panic about how,

instead of witches,

every street in America was
infiltrated by Reds and Communists

who were going to take it
down from within.

It's the same idea, right?

And then, suddenly, all these
people are blacklisted,

sent off to jail, or out of a job,
etc, etc.

It's the same thing.

What Miller wanted to encourage
people to do was to think

for themselves about persecution,
and to try and stop it.

Let me break the suspense
immediately and tell you

I am not a Communist.

This is a foul philosophy,
this Communistic thing.

I am not, and never have been
a Communist.

The Crucible also explored
the power dynamic

that played a key part in
how events unfolded in Salem.

GIRLS SINGING
I saw Goodie Barton with the Devil!

I saw Goodie Cobb with the Devil!

I saw Goodie Franklin
with the Devil!

There's an accusation
of witchcraft levelled at

one of the younger women.

And, in order to defend themselves,

they start deflecting

and levelling those accusations
at the older women in the community.

But what, in fact, you're seeing
is that the two most disempowered

groups in this town
are attacking each other

in a form of self-defence.

GIRLS SCREAMING

People might think that the Salem
girls were just spiteful women

having a go at other women.

And in many ways, we still live
in this society where people

find that compulsively fascinating.

Pointing at other women
to accuse them of other things,

being frightened of other women.

We are connected to
the witch trials,

whether we like it or not.

Those are the things that have been
with us through all of time.

Salem's dark history means it is
now a centre for the supernatural.

Millions flock to this small
city north of Boston,

creating a witch-based tourist
industry that brings in

$150 million a year.

BELL CLANGS
Gather round, gather round!

This is a warrant for
the arrest of Bridgette Bishop

on charges of witchcraft.

What?!

But beyond the tourist trail,

many who visit are part of
an increasing number

attracted to modern witchcraft.

..For presenting yourself,
this is a warrant for your arrest.

I'm meeting self-proclaimed
witch Pam Grossman.

So, what drew you to witchcraft?

I am a Pagan,

I am someone who does witchcraft.

But I have declared myself a witch.

That's very different than
a stranger calling me a witch.

When I use that word for myself,

it's both as a spiritual person,

but I also do it
for political reasons,

because witches are figures
who are independent,

who are unapologetically powerful,

and who make change in the world.

They transform themselves,

and they transform the
world at large.

And that's who I want to be.

You know, learning and being
with everybody here,

and on this journey is really
making me feel like I'm not alone,

and I'm on the right track.

WHISPERING: That you're a witch.

THEY LAUGH

You're my people, for sure. Yeah.

Pam feels safe describing
herself as a witch,

but the shocking history of the
witch trials means the phrase

"witch-hunt" has become shorthand

for unjust accusations,

Something powerful men are
now using to their advantage.

I want total transparency,
this is a witch-hunt.

The witch-hunts against us
by the Manhattan NDA.

Demented hoaxes, crazy witch-hunts.

You believe that?

This is what we're up...
It's called the witch-hunt.

This is a man who had, arguably,

the most power in the world
when he was president.

For him to misuse that word,

to say that he was
the victim of a witch-hunt,

I think is a gross act of disrespect
against all of the victims

who have lost their lives
for being accused of something

that they weren't by people
who had a lot of power,

the way Trump did.

Throughout history,
there have been people who accused

other people of being witches.

And calling someone else
a witch traditionally was a way

to silence someone,
to shame someone,

to other somebody,

and to render them powerless.

So, here we are in Salem,

and it's important to remind people
that those that were accused of

being witches would not have
considered themselves

witches at all.

There's a T-shirt that's,
you know, very popular.

"We are the granddaughters of
the witches that you couldn't burn."

But this is, I think,
also problematic,

because it makes it seems like

these witches were just these
symbols of feminism and empowerment.

That isn't true.

So, I think we do need to make
clear that these people were

wrongly accused of witchcraft.

They weren't symbols of witches
that you couldn't burn.

They were accused of things
they didn't do.

By the end of May 1692,

about 50 people were being held
on witchcraft charges.

The Governor of Massachusetts
set up a special court

to bring the accused to trial.

Because it's an English colony,

Massachusetts carries with it
elements of English law,

and particularly English
beliefs about witches.

English witch-hunting texts
provided guidelines

for evidence someone was a witch,

such as examining them
for physical signs.

Searching the accused for
the "witch's mark"

features in reconstructions of
some of the most famous trials.

Oyay, oyay.

There be a complaint made before us
this day against Bridgette Bishop.

So, this is local woman Bridgette
Bishop who's being accused.

She's been examined prior
to this trial,

and they're saying that
they found a witch's teat -

which is like a raised bit
of skin, or a skin tag -

and they're saying that
the Devil would suck on that teat.

So, they're setting up
the scene for her

to be in league with the Devil.

Not usual in women.

Much like to a teat.

And that they were located in all
three women near the same place,

namely...

..Alice Pickering midwife.

So, what he's stopped short
in saying is that her witch mark

was found near her vagina,

and often skin tags appear under
the armpits or in warm places.

So, prior to this trial,
she's been violated,

she's been searched before she
even gets to this part.

This kind of sexual humiliation
would be traumatic for any woman -

but it was especially shaming
in a Puritan society

which viewed nakedness as immoral.

While the pressure would lead
some to confess,

many of the accused continued
to protest their innocence.

The trials relied heavily on
evidence provided by a core group

of eight girls and young women

who were allegedly afflicted
by witchcraft.

What we see is a lot of
these people are teenagers,

teenage girls, basically.

Suddenly, in a society which gives
very little credence to women,

but particularly also girls' voices,

they are being listened to
by the men of society.

And this gives them a
fantasy of power.

And, you know, it's hard to know
if they really believed that

they were afflicted of witchcraft.

I mean, I think, as normal
people listen to them,

it must have strengthened
their belief that actually,

something was happening to them.

Most damning of all,

some witnesses claimed
the accused had appeared

in the form of a spectre,
or a vision,

sometimes even in the courtroom.

These visions,
invisible to everyone else,

were accepted as proof
of witchcraft.

For a legal opinion on
the use of this testimony,

I'm meeting Claire Mitchell KC.

What is going on in Salem?
Are they making up evidence?

This is what is called
spectral evidence,

and this is perhaps the
most crazy the evidence got.

Now, spectral evidence
is the evidence of a witness

who testifies in court that
the person they're accusing,

the witch, comes to them
in their dreams,

and they dream that the witch is
doing them harm, and then,

they're weak, and they believe
they've been visited by the witch,

and they have done harm.

So, spectral evidence...

Sorry, I'm trying not to laugh.

I'm looking and going, "Mm..."
"Yeah, mm, spectral evidence."

So, think about it as this -

you could bring witnesses
to court for the defence,

and say, "I am not a witch,

"I did not visit that person
in their dream,

"and the proof of it was
I have five people to say that

"I was sleeping in my bed."

"Oh, well of course that shows
you're all the more

"devious a witch..."

Cos you can split yourself!
Exactly!

"You have the power to be in
two places at once.

"You can be at home with
your friends,

pretending you're having
a normal time

"whilst infiltrating your dreams."

Ghost evidence?

Ghost evidence.

OK, so how...

Hard to wrap your head round
that one. Absolutely.

Because what makes people believe?

Everything is reinforcing your
belief in witchcraft,

and then, in your life,
you're thinking about witches,

your talking about witches.
You're dreaming about witches...

You're dreaming about witches.
..which I understand.

You could not win.

That's the bottom line.
Exactly, exactly.

You could not win
in those circumstances.

It's madness.

You may think that,
but it has legal precedent.

So, we know from Salem that what
they did was they looked back

to England, to the colony
that they came from, and say,

"Has this sort of evidence
been used before?"

And was it? Yes.

In England? Yes.

They looked back and referenced
a case in Berry, where Matthew Hale,

who became one of England's
most senior judges -

he said spectral evidence
is admissible.

So, when they find out that spectral
evidence is admissible in England,

it's an absolute no-brainer that it
should be admissible in Salem.

If you talk about a spectral vision,

you can put almost anything
into it that you want to.

It may be that these are
real visions, you know,

that people are genuinely afraid
and genuinely hallucinating.

But it may be malicious
accusation instead.

One of the reasons why
Salem became so out of control

is because the court allowed
spectral evidence.

People think, "Oh, that would
never happen again here.

"We're too sophisticated for that,
we're too intelligent from that."

The people who lived then where as
intelligent as we are now.

We've got iPhones, we've got
all those sorts of things -

but that doesn't mean
we're any more intelligent.

Their belief system at the time
was the Devil was real,

witches were real
and they walked amongst us.

If our belief system were to change,

could we be in a situation where
people are targeted again?

Yes, why not? Yeah.

In fact, recent events have shown
that there are some groups

who are already prepared
to believe extraordinary claims

based on imaginary evidence.

In 2017,

an online conspiracy theory
known as QAnon began to spread.

QAnon is a conspiracy theory
that America is

ruled by a cabal of
Satan-worshipping paedophiles,

and that Hillary Clinton is
kind of the figurehead.

A shadowy, anonymous
figure known as "Q"

appeared in online chatrooms.

He claimed to be a government
official with inside information

that leading Democrats were part
of a deep-state conspiracy

murdering children
and drinking their blood.

That is literally almost
the same as spectral evidence.

It is, this guy is a spectre, Q,

this person posting nonsense
on 4Chan and 8Chan,

is obviously an impostor,

it's obviously made up.

It's nonsense - and yet,
millions and millions of people

have fallen for it.

Spectral evidence.

Hillary Clinton is a powerful woman.

And that kind of is
the definition of a witch.

So, it's interesting that
Hillary Clinton became that focus

of this QAnon conspiracy theory,

and it's so obvious that
that should happen.

I think that it's really easy,

particularly in politics
where women have a voice,

where women have stepped
into the fray

and are giving their opinions,

and they are alongside the men.

It's very easy to call
those women a witch.

The witch has not gone away.

Maybe the witch trials,

like the Salem Witch Trials,
have gone away

but they also haven't.

That's why you see the fact that,
you know, Clinton was accused

of being a witch.

I mean, this is really so strong
and so deeply ingrained,

it makes me wonder
if the idea of the witch

will ever go away in society.

This conspiracy theory
had real-world consequences

when it morphed into a belief that
the 2020 election had been stolen,

contributing to the storming
of the US Capitol.

In 1692 Salem,

society's willingness to believe
in imaginary spectres

was equally devastating,

as the courts found those on trial
guilty of witchcraft.

Between June and September,

19 people were executed -

14 of them women.

"If it was the last moment
I was to live,

"God knows, I am innocent."

Seeing these names...

..really makes it real.

As many memorials do,
that's the point of them.

Erm...

..and I'm really glad it's here,

amongst everything else we've seen.

Innumerable lives have been ruined.

People have been sent to jail,
some of them died there,

they've had their property
taken from them,

they've suffered greatly,
they've been made sick,

they've been terrified.

They know that their neighbours
were out to have them killed.

And that's a terrible legacy for the
whole community of Massachusetts.

Astonishingly, the legacy of
the Salem Witch Trials

continues to impact the rights
of women even today.

I've travelled across continents
to explore what led to some of

the most infamous
witch trials in history,

and discovered their devastating
impact on women.

Centuries ago,
witch trials were born in

a climate of uncertainty and fear
caused by economic hardship,

political upheaval,
and extreme weather.

But these elements are very much
part of our lives today.

So, are women in danger
of being persecuted again?

Hey! How are you?
Hello, how are you?

I'm meeting feminist writer
and campaigner Laura Bates.

So, I think, for younger women,
it's not that witch trials

have gone away, it's just that
they've moved online.

And I think it has so many parallels

with what women went through then.

So, for example, there's
a horrible form of torture

called "pricking the witch" -

and they basically kept women
awake by pricking,

injuring their body with
this small instrument

through the night for days,

until they became so delirious
that they started hallucinating.

And then, what they said was
written down and used

against them as a confession.

You know, you think,
"Oh, my gosh, that's crazy,

"that's totally a thing
of the past."

But then, you look at
the young women I work with today,

and they are sometimes literally
being tortured through the night

by the fact that the 24/7 kind of
bombardment of social media.

Someone can share an image of
them non-consensually,

or even create using,
you know, DeepFakes.

And then, maybe it's being uploaded
to different social media platforms,

and then, these comments are
pinging through the night

and she's being called
a slut or a slag.

It feels like that same bombardment.

In the 15th century,

the invention of the printing press
helped spread the idea of

the witch as an evil woman,

using her sexual power over men.

Could the Internet be having
the same effect today?

So, let's look at this on
a larger scale now,

and touch on something
that's horrifying to all of us,

which is the extreme misogyny.

With someone like Andrew Tate,
who's been in the public eye

the past couple of years. Yeah.

He's talked about women being
responsible for their own rapes.

He's talked about women
being the property of men.

So, I think Andrew Tate very much
isn't new, he hasn't created

the problem of extreme misogyny,

he's just one example of it.

But he is being facilitated
in reaching particularly

vulnerable young people with those
ideas on social media platforms.

And that's a real cause for concern.

So, you know, a good example of this
is that, just on TikTok alone,

his videos have been viewed
11.6 billion times.

And that is just more than
the number of people on the planet.

And that's one man.
And that's one man.

And that's just on one platform.
Yeah.

I think what's really
significant at the moment

that people don't necessarily grasp

is the sheer scale of
algorithmically-facilitated

mass radicalisation into extremist
misogyny that's happening online

right under our noses.

And we've never seen anything
like that in history.

So, does it feel like
it's getting worse?

Does that...
does it scare you?

I think it is really frightening.

I think a lot of people would be
really shocked if you kind of

laid bare the reality of
the situation we are in.

We know that, at the moment,
just 1.4% of rapes

that are reported to the police
result in a charge or summons

for a perpetrator.

Anywhere essentially where it is
a woman's word against a man's,

a woman comes to harm.

Do you know, that makes me so -
that's really, it's not...

I mean, it's hit before, but just
putting those two things together,

"It's your word against mine..."
Hmm.

I feel really upset.

Because, when you hear it in
the context of the witch trials,

you feel like you're in
the 17th century. Yeah.

But, when you have just put it
together with rape trials today,

that's really made me feel
very, very uneasy.

The fact that we still haven't
escaped the shadow of

the witch trials is demonstrated
by one of the most controversial

legal rulings of recent times.

CHANTING: We won't go back!
We won't go back...

In 1973, the landmark case
Roe vs Wade meant that

a woman's right to terminate
her pregnancy became protected

by the US constitution.

Our bodies!
ALL: Our choice!

In June 2022,

the Supreme Court
overturned that ruling.

And as a result,
abortion is now restricted

or effectively banned in
many US states.

Our bodies!
ALL: Our choice!

The decision by the court
is atrocious.

It talks away my own bodily
autonomy and the right of us

to make a decision about
when and where, like,

when we can have a family.

Let's be very clear.

The health a life of the women of
this nation are now at risk.

This is a sad day for
the country, in my view.

Historic legal precedents
were quoted to support

the court's decision -

including those by Matthew Hale,

the judge whose ruling made spectral
evidence admissible 300 years ago

in the Salem Witch Trials.

He's the guy who allowed
invisible evidence

to be admissible in court.

The fact that he has any say,

or like, we're referring to women's
autonomy over their own body

in the 21st century is madness.

These issues are baked into
our justice system,

and the fact that 400 years later,

this deeply misogynistic man
who was, you know,

you could argue was responsible for
the deaths of so many women,

has now been part of stripping
so many more millions of women

of their rights to autonomy
over their own bodies,

it's just horrifying, especially
over and above the objections

of hundreds and thousands
of women protesting,

using their voices today.
I know! Who are alive today!

We've worked so hard
at telling women to speak up,

but it does feel like we're in
danger of being silenced still.

In the course of my work,
on a bad day,

I can get 200 rape and death
threats in a single day from men

who won't just say, you know,
"Shut up, you're a witch,"

which they do say,
but they'll say, you know,

it'll be a long, thousand-word email
about the seven different knives

they're planning
to disembowel me with,

and the order they're going
to use them in.

How they'll find my family and
what they'll do to me.

And that has an impact.

It makes you think twice.

You go on the news to talk about
something, and you come home,

and the first message you get says,

"I'd like to use your hair
as handlebars

"and rape you until you die."

It makes you think twice about
going on the news again.

I mean, I went cold when
I heard some of those things,

I've heard a lot of stuff
whilst making this film -

but to hear from someone
who receives those threats,

what do people think that
they are going to achieve

by sending those threats?
I think they want to shut you up.

They want you to be so scared
that you'll stop talking,

stop doing stuff.

That's horrible, that's just awful.

We're conditioned
to think of humanity as

progressing along a continuum,

and constantly getting
better and more enlightened,

and clever and cleverer,
and more prosperous.

But at the moment,
it doesn't feel like that.

It feels like we're
somehow retreating,

that this eclipse of reason
is pulling us back into the world

out of which the Salem Witch Trials
and all of that emerged.

So, how do we escape
this terrifying legacy?

Perhaps the answer lies
with the witch.

The image of the witch is,
in some ways, starting to change,

especially with people who are
very willing to say that

they themselves are witches.

I think that's really freeing
for a lot of people.

This idea that, you know,
you could be a witch and

you can regain some kind of power,

I think witchcraft offers that.

Along this journey,
I've met some amazing women

who have embraced the identity
of being a witch.

Hello? Hi!

Semra is known as
"the Witch of Hackney Wick",

specialising in witchcraft
rituals and healing.

Do you get any negative attitudes
by proudly saying you're a witch?

If ever I get an eyeroll
or somebody, you know,

is sort of a bit funny about it,

my go-to comment is,
"Give me a strand of your hair.

"Give me a strand of your hair
and let's see what happens."

THEY LAUGH
And they don't.

They will never give me a
strand of their hair -

not that I'd do anything to them,

but it's just always a great way
to prove, because really,

you don't believe in it?

Semra has created a spell
to break the cycle of persecution

for women past and present.

So, we're going to use walnuts.

So, walnuts in magic are very much

about discernment and judgment,

and they look a little bit
like a brain. Right.

So, we're going to smash them up,

because we're going to be
breaking down old beliefs.

Yes! OK? Yes.

And we're allowed to get
a little bit angry and release

when we're smashing, as well.

I love that you say we're
"allowed" to be angry. Yes!

Cos that's the one thing
we're not allowed to be,

isn't it? Yes, exactly!

Or difficult. Or difficult!

"Difficult" is a huge one
for women, isn't it? Yeah.

And I just feel like I've got
a lot of anger around that.

As we're holding our hammers,

think about all thew women that were
persecuted and lost their lives.

Yeah. Think about all the women
that don't have the same freedom

that we have in the world.

Think about women who were
persecuted for speaking up,

women who were persecuted for
living their lives differently.

So... Change this narrative.
..let's change this narrative.

These people were not witches,
you know?

No-one is consorting with
the Devil, no pacts were made.

Seems like I shouldn't have
to say that, but I do.

I will no longer feel guilt.

I am powerful.
I am not afraid to use my voice.

People seem to think that witch
trials are a relic of the past.

But what they don't realise
is that witch trials can happen,

and are happening,
over and over again.

Yes. I own my power,
I step into my power. Yes.

I will...
No longer be silenced.

I will no longer be silenced.

The more work I've done on this,

the more angry I've become about it.

I think we can see,
in today's society,

the legacy of the witch trials,

and that makes me really angry.

Argh! Yes!

Ahhh!

BOTH: Whoo!

The history of witch trials
is women being blamed

for things that they could
not possibly have done,

and they were targeted because
they were vulnerable in society,

because they didn't have any power,

and they were easy to blame
for society's ills.

We can look at modern-day events,

and we can say, "Look, we are
still targeting the vulnerable

"for things they can't have done -

"have we really moved on
from those days?

"Or are we just targeting
different people with more

"sophisticated ways of evidence?"

And social media,
what evidence do you need?

Let the ash just fall,
one, two, three...

..that's it.

That one really set on fire.

We need to make change,
and the way that we need to do that

is by helping young people
have a voice,

not let them do it on their own,
by encouraging them to say

"Well, how can we change things?"

You keep this somewhere safe.
Mm-hm.

And they're just this brilliant
reminder to bring you

back to this moment.

Aww, thank you. Thank you so much.

Hopefully, people will think
of something else

when they hear the word "witch,"

and they will feel like that
maybe is a conversation towards

feminism and female power,

and they will understand
that the witch trials

was a repression of that.

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