
TL:DR, avoid like the plague unless your options are limited or your name is Agnes Baker.
The faction is one of the two most resource starved groups in the game (the other being ), powerful economy cards are great but their cost may just be too great for you to pay for. Forbidden Knowledge is one such card, for the vast number of characters the horror is just too great and they perish quickly, Agnes Baker however LOVES this card.
-
4 Resources is good, 4 horror is BAD, from what we can surmise at the moment two points of horror heal is worth a card and two resources, I.E the trade here is very inefficient, not to mention the greatly increased risks in the scenario. Almost no characters have the horror tank to endure this and those who do might want to look at other options, like Uncage the Soul and Emergency Cache, both of those grant similar resource benefits and at no horror cost.
-
Secrets rarely combo, there are just 2 cards in the game that interact with this resource type and those cards are bad on their own.
So, it kills you and compares terribly to other cards, so why does Agnes like it? Heck, this card might as well be her strength card, and a 2-off at that! The main reason Agnes loves it is the fact that she can trigger the trigger outside her normal turn. With generous application of spells and being buried in enemies something like this might happen:
Trigger Forbidden Knowledge in the Mythos phase, shoot something with Shrivelling and pull a , get punched in the enemy phase taking another horror. That's 3 triggers on her ability in one turn which is another 3 points of damage on top of her Shrivelling, enough to kill bosses in solo in one round! Of course, typically, you'll perhaps not draw a special token with the Shrivelling or draw horror inflicting effects in the mythos phase, Forbidden Knowledge is very flexible so you can usually adjust accordingly. To be able to pull off combos like these you absolutely need Fearless and might need to forego a copy, or even both copies, of Arcane Research.