Hocus Pocus

This was an interesting little tidbit I heard the other day…

Have you ever wondered about the origin of “hocus pocus”, the phrase commonly uttered by magicians?

Well, the story I recently heard was that it came from a corruption of the words of the Latin Mass:

“hoc (enim) est corpus meum”
“This is my body”

It sounded reasonable, but I went and did a little bit of digging…

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says that this explanation was the conjecture of John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury. It can be found in his rather nasty sermon in 1694:

“In all probability those common juggling words of ‘hocus pocus’ are nothing else but a corruption of ‘hoc est corpus’, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation.”

It’s possible that the Archbishop is right here, but it’s clear that he isn’t exactly the most impartial judge!

It has been suggested instead that the phrase is simply “faux Latin”, a collection of nonsense words conjured up out of thin air 😉 to aid the magician in his stagecraft.  I’ve found references to a performer of the 1620s who called himself “Hocus Pocus” and who used the following incantation in his act:

 “Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo.”

Unfortunately, there’s a lack of definitive evidence to confirm with any real certainty the origin of this phrase – there really are quite a wide range of possibilities. Still, speculation is fun 🙂