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Show Notes
Season 7 Episode 166: Hocus Pocus
The words 'hocus pocus,' were often chanted during tricks involving sleight of hand and would entertain and draw the crowd into a veil of mystery. The words had become familiar in our vocabulary for over 400 years now and has perhaps lost the impact that it once had, but is still used nonetheless to refer to an impossible or unbelievable feat.
The term has its origins in the Latin blessing from our Catholic Mass. Observers and those less informed in the Catholic faith or perhaps not versed in Latin would hear the Priest say during the Consecration portion of the Mass:
Hoc est corpus meum (mayum)
Which means - "This is my body"
To the misinformed and unaware; hapless onlookers of the Mass were told of the great miracle of transubstantiation at the altar and heard the words Hoc est corpus…and explained what they did not fully understand as Catholic hocus pocus – changing wine and bread into another substance, as if magically.