Chapter 16 tells how to learn the hour of one’s death, and chapter 17

how to know all things, past, present, or future. It was perhaps these chapters that William of Auvergne had in mind when, in censuring works on divination by inspection of mirrors, sword-blades, and human nails to discover stolen articles and other hidden things, he added that “from this pest of curiosity proceeded that accursed and execrable work called _Liber sacratus_.”[906] That work next returns for three chapters to the stars and planets and their virtues and influence.