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Unlucky number seven. I'm Jason Horton. I'm Rebecca Lebe.

And this is Ghost Town. In the 1400s, the word of the law around Europe began and ended with God, of course, by way of the Catholic Church.

It was the late Middle Ages. The bubonic plague had raged throughout Europe and the dawn of the Renaissance was

in sight, the aftermath of old wounds, literally, crossing paths with new ideas and technology.

This all made the church even more fearful it would lose control of its believers. In the spirit

of this fear, many books on magic, witchcraft, and the devil were written

against what the church called the forbidden arts. Today on Ghost Town, a short history and

exploration of the highly dangerous seven arts prohibit, also known as the seven forbidden arts.

In 1456, Bavarian Dr. Johannes Hartlebe became obsessed with the idea of the darker forbidden

arts, so much so that after writing a very boring-looking compendium on herbs, he wrote a bunch

of books about it, including, most famously, get ready, I'm going to butcher this,

the puch aler verbotenkunst, mgelben's under Zobri, in English, book on all forbidden arts,

superstition, and sorcery, containing the oldest known description of witch's flying ointment.

What is witch's flying ointment? Why is that significant? I'm so glad you asked. flying ointment. What is witch's flying ointment? Why is that significant?

I'm so glad you asked. Flying ointment as a phrase is lost to modern history, but you know it

culturally. It's what they believed made witches fly. Again, that iconic image of a witch

...