Nov. 21, 2025
The 7 Forbidden Arts
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The dark arts come under fire in the 15th century.
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WEBVTT
00:00.031 --> 00:01.640
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlucky number seven.
00:02.102 --> 00:02.866
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jason Horton.
00:03.148 --> 00:03.912
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Rebecca Leib.
00:04.334 --> 00:05.822
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is Ghost Town.
00:21.918 --> 00:28.990
[SPEAKER_00]: In the 1400s, the word of the law around Europe began and ended with God, of course, by way of the Catholic Church.
00:29.711 --> 00:36.222
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the late Middle Ages, the bubonic plague had raged throughout Europe, and the dawn of the Renaissance was in sight.
00:36.823 --> 00:42.913
[SPEAKER_00]: The aftermath of old wounds, literally, crossing paths with new ideas and technology.
00:42.893 --> 00:46.777
[SPEAKER_00]: This all made the church even more fearful it would lose control of its believers.
00:47.618 --> 00:56.166
[SPEAKER_00]: In the spirit of this sphere, many books on magic, which craft and the devil were written, against what the church called the Forbidden Arts.
00:56.947 --> 01:08.479
[SPEAKER_00]: Today on Ghost Town, a short history and exploration of the highly dangerous Seven Arts prohibit a, also known as the Seven Forbidden Arts.
01:08.459 --> 01:15.189
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1456, Bavarian Dr. Johannes Hartleeb became obsessed with the idea of the darker forbidden arts.
01:16.030 --> 01:21.859
[SPEAKER_00]: So much so that after writing a very boring looking compendium on herbs, he wrote a bunch of books about it.
01:21.879 --> 01:24.863
[SPEAKER_00]: Including most famously, get ready.
01:24.883 --> 01:25.864
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to butcher this.
01:26.245 --> 01:31.092
[SPEAKER_00]: The Pooch, Aller, verboten, kunst, galbens, undersobree,
01:31.072 --> 01:39.203
[SPEAKER_00]: In English, book on all forbidden arts, superstition and sorcery, containing the oldest known description of which is flying ointment.
01:39.764 --> 01:41.026
[SPEAKER_00]: What is which is flying ointment?
01:41.106 --> 01:42.107
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that significance?
01:42.488 --> 01:43.549
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you asked.
01:44.631 --> 01:48.716
[SPEAKER_00]: Flying ointment as a phrase is lost to modern history, but you know it culturally.
01:49.137 --> 01:58.530
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what they believed made which is fly, again, that iconic image
01:58.510 --> 02:14.680
[SPEAKER_00]: Medieval doctors thought using a paste made of herbs specifically hallucinogenic plants, including Belladana and Hemlock, did that, did the trick, made which is actually fly and knowing how they did that, they might be able to stop this evil evil practice.
02:14.660 --> 02:24.472
[SPEAKER_00]: Leaning into that knowledge's power sentiment came with the breakdown of other forbidden arts, in many of these books, not just in Heart Leaves book but in other studies of Devonation.
02:24.993 --> 02:35.086
[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors believed that if readers, which were few, the upper class, the educated, could identify and classify the seven forbidden arts, they might be able to stop witches and other demons in their tracks.
02:35.807 --> 02:40.633
[SPEAKER_00]: So what were these seven practices that threatened
02:40.613 --> 02:50.798
[SPEAKER_00]: The seven forbidden arts included Nigromancy, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Eromancy, Pyromancy, Kyromancy, and scapulum.
02:50.839 --> 02:54.849
[SPEAKER_00]: These words don't ring a bell based on their middle-aged Latin titles.
02:55.610 --> 02:57.475
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't worry, they will.
02:57.455 --> 03:10.297
[SPEAKER_00]: Negromancy, also known as necromancy, which you might have heard of, or black magic, which you've definitely heard of, is a pretty cover-all art and pretty generic, referring to the magic or supernatural powers for evil or selfish reasons.
03:11.379 --> 03:16.948
[SPEAKER_00]: Think evoking Satanism, demons, and you know general witchcraft.
03:16.928 --> 03:27.906
[SPEAKER_00]: Geomancy is Earth Devonation, originally used to mean methods of divination that interpret geographic features, markings on the ground, patterns formed by soil, rocks, or sand.
03:28.486 --> 03:38.262
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, this evolved into reading tea leaves, or even coins, or tarot cards, which were artistic renderings of earthly depictions and situations.
03:39.490 --> 03:47.641
[SPEAKER_00]: Hydramancy, you can probably guess, divination using water, including the color, movement, or use of pebbles, dropped into some kind of pool or vessel.
03:48.182 --> 04:08.029
[SPEAKER_00]: It can also refer to a trans state by staring at water and has evolved into the modern form of divination called Scrying, which I witnessed firsthand working on a paranormal reality TV show, and refers to looking into a mirror to kind of chant and contact and evoke or provoke the spirits.
04:08.009 --> 04:15.839
[SPEAKER_00]: Aromancey is divination using air, currents, clad formations, and even, and more popularly, cosmological events like comets or stars.
04:16.300 --> 04:21.787
[SPEAKER_00]: As you might imagine, this fed into the modern practice of astrology and even astronomy, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
04:22.568 --> 04:27.474
[SPEAKER_00]: Pyramency uses fire for divination, but also includes bone-throwing, ash, and wood.
04:27.974 --> 04:36.345
[SPEAKER_00]: Kiromancey is now known by its modern name, palmistry, reading the palm to look into signs, communication, or someone's
04:36.325 --> 04:41.071
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, something that was completely foreign to me, the seventh and last forbidden art.
04:41.872 --> 04:42.833
[SPEAKER_00]: Scatula-mancy.
04:43.253 --> 04:50.582
[SPEAKER_00]: The practice of divination by use of scapula, or in layman's terms, shoulder blade bones, primarily with animals after a hunt.
04:51.103 --> 04:51.964
[SPEAKER_00]: So how does that work?
04:52.324 --> 04:53.285
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I will tell you.
04:53.325 --> 04:56.028
[SPEAKER_00]: There are two ways to practice scapula-mancy.
04:56.589 --> 05:05.860
[SPEAKER_00]: One, he'd a shoulder blade bone until a crack, and then interpret the resulting cracks in pattern, to gain insight to questions about events, war, et cetera.
05:05.840 --> 05:09.846
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you can just examine a clean bone and see what it tells you.
05:09.866 --> 05:16.016
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the seven forbidden arts, and at the time they were a tool of fear.
05:16.717 --> 05:24.789
[SPEAKER_00]: That is until the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Enlightenment, an era that championed knowledge, reason, and empirical observation to cult.
05:25.450 --> 05:29.676
[SPEAKER_00]: Esoteric arts were reconceptualized then, as a way to learn more about the world.
05:30.317 --> 05:32.100
[SPEAKER_00]: And we did, as you imagine.
05:32.536 --> 05:37.342
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the seven forbidden arts we learned about chemistry, physiology, the stars, and the elements.
05:37.823 --> 05:46.553
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of being feared, the seven forbidden arts were thought of as archaic, simplistic, starting points in an ongoing quest for knowledge for truth.
05:47.274 --> 05:57.767
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we don't think of them as scientific today continuing practice does go to show that one thing that was once forbidden is now part of our curiosity, even our humanity.
00:00.031 --> 00:01.640
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlucky number seven.
00:02.102 --> 00:02.866
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jason Horton.
00:03.148 --> 00:03.912
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Rebecca Leib.
00:04.334 --> 00:05.822
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is Ghost Town.
00:21.918 --> 00:28.990
[SPEAKER_00]: In the 1400s, the word of the law around Europe began and ended with God, of course, by way of the Catholic Church.
00:29.711 --> 00:36.222
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the late Middle Ages, the bubonic plague had raged throughout Europe, and the dawn of the Renaissance was in sight.
00:36.823 --> 00:42.913
[SPEAKER_00]: The aftermath of old wounds, literally, crossing paths with new ideas and technology.
00:42.893 --> 00:46.777
[SPEAKER_00]: This all made the church even more fearful it would lose control of its believers.
00:47.618 --> 00:56.166
[SPEAKER_00]: In the spirit of this sphere, many books on magic, which craft and the devil were written, against what the church called the Forbidden Arts.
00:56.947 --> 01:08.479
[SPEAKER_00]: Today on Ghost Town, a short history and exploration of the highly dangerous Seven Arts prohibit a, also known as the Seven Forbidden Arts.
01:08.459 --> 01:15.189
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1456, Bavarian Dr. Johannes Hartleeb became obsessed with the idea of the darker forbidden arts.
01:16.030 --> 01:21.859
[SPEAKER_00]: So much so that after writing a very boring looking compendium on herbs, he wrote a bunch of books about it.
01:21.879 --> 01:24.863
[SPEAKER_00]: Including most famously, get ready.
01:24.883 --> 01:25.864
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to butcher this.
01:26.245 --> 01:31.092
[SPEAKER_00]: The Pooch, Aller, verboten, kunst, galbens, undersobree,
01:31.072 --> 01:39.203
[SPEAKER_00]: In English, book on all forbidden arts, superstition and sorcery, containing the oldest known description of which is flying ointment.
01:39.764 --> 01:41.026
[SPEAKER_00]: What is which is flying ointment?
01:41.106 --> 01:42.107
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that significance?
01:42.488 --> 01:43.549
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you asked.
01:44.631 --> 01:48.716
[SPEAKER_00]: Flying ointment as a phrase is lost to modern history, but you know it culturally.
01:49.137 --> 01:58.530
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what they believed made which is fly, again, that iconic image
01:58.510 --> 02:14.680
[SPEAKER_00]: Medieval doctors thought using a paste made of herbs specifically hallucinogenic plants, including Belladana and Hemlock, did that, did the trick, made which is actually fly and knowing how they did that, they might be able to stop this evil evil practice.
02:14.660 --> 02:24.472
[SPEAKER_00]: Leaning into that knowledge's power sentiment came with the breakdown of other forbidden arts, in many of these books, not just in Heart Leaves book but in other studies of Devonation.
02:24.993 --> 02:35.086
[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors believed that if readers, which were few, the upper class, the educated, could identify and classify the seven forbidden arts, they might be able to stop witches and other demons in their tracks.
02:35.807 --> 02:40.633
[SPEAKER_00]: So what were these seven practices that threatened
02:40.613 --> 02:50.798
[SPEAKER_00]: The seven forbidden arts included Nigromancy, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Eromancy, Pyromancy, Kyromancy, and scapulum.
02:50.839 --> 02:54.849
[SPEAKER_00]: These words don't ring a bell based on their middle-aged Latin titles.
02:55.610 --> 02:57.475
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't worry, they will.
02:57.455 --> 03:10.297
[SPEAKER_00]: Negromancy, also known as necromancy, which you might have heard of, or black magic, which you've definitely heard of, is a pretty cover-all art and pretty generic, referring to the magic or supernatural powers for evil or selfish reasons.
03:11.379 --> 03:16.948
[SPEAKER_00]: Think evoking Satanism, demons, and you know general witchcraft.
03:16.928 --> 03:27.906
[SPEAKER_00]: Geomancy is Earth Devonation, originally used to mean methods of divination that interpret geographic features, markings on the ground, patterns formed by soil, rocks, or sand.
03:28.486 --> 03:38.262
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, this evolved into reading tea leaves, or even coins, or tarot cards, which were artistic renderings of earthly depictions and situations.
03:39.490 --> 03:47.641
[SPEAKER_00]: Hydramancy, you can probably guess, divination using water, including the color, movement, or use of pebbles, dropped into some kind of pool or vessel.
03:48.182 --> 04:08.029
[SPEAKER_00]: It can also refer to a trans state by staring at water and has evolved into the modern form of divination called Scrying, which I witnessed firsthand working on a paranormal reality TV show, and refers to looking into a mirror to kind of chant and contact and evoke or provoke the spirits.
04:08.009 --> 04:15.839
[SPEAKER_00]: Aromancey is divination using air, currents, clad formations, and even, and more popularly, cosmological events like comets or stars.
04:16.300 --> 04:21.787
[SPEAKER_00]: As you might imagine, this fed into the modern practice of astrology and even astronomy, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
04:22.568 --> 04:27.474
[SPEAKER_00]: Pyramency uses fire for divination, but also includes bone-throwing, ash, and wood.
04:27.974 --> 04:36.345
[SPEAKER_00]: Kiromancey is now known by its modern name, palmistry, reading the palm to look into signs, communication, or someone's
04:36.325 --> 04:41.071
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, something that was completely foreign to me, the seventh and last forbidden art.
04:41.872 --> 04:42.833
[SPEAKER_00]: Scatula-mancy.
04:43.253 --> 04:50.582
[SPEAKER_00]: The practice of divination by use of scapula, or in layman's terms, shoulder blade bones, primarily with animals after a hunt.
04:51.103 --> 04:51.964
[SPEAKER_00]: So how does that work?
04:52.324 --> 04:53.285
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I will tell you.
04:53.325 --> 04:56.028
[SPEAKER_00]: There are two ways to practice scapula-mancy.
04:56.589 --> 05:05.860
[SPEAKER_00]: One, he'd a shoulder blade bone until a crack, and then interpret the resulting cracks in pattern, to gain insight to questions about events, war, et cetera.
05:05.840 --> 05:09.846
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you can just examine a clean bone and see what it tells you.
05:09.866 --> 05:16.016
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the seven forbidden arts, and at the time they were a tool of fear.
05:16.717 --> 05:24.789
[SPEAKER_00]: That is until the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Enlightenment, an era that championed knowledge, reason, and empirical observation to cult.
05:25.450 --> 05:29.676
[SPEAKER_00]: Esoteric arts were reconceptualized then, as a way to learn more about the world.
05:30.317 --> 05:32.100
[SPEAKER_00]: And we did, as you imagine.
05:32.536 --> 05:37.342
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the seven forbidden arts we learned about chemistry, physiology, the stars, and the elements.
05:37.823 --> 05:46.553
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of being feared, the seven forbidden arts were thought of as archaic, simplistic, starting points in an ongoing quest for knowledge for truth.
05:47.274 --> 05:57.767
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we don't think of them as scientific today continuing practice does go to show that one thing that was once forbidden is now part of our curiosity, even our humanity.
