Posted on Wednesday 26 May 2004 to Miscellanea
Commenting on my earlier post about Abracadabra,
Mike Brown points out that the magic word hocus pocus also has an interesting
history. He quotes from a biography of Harry Houdini by Bernard C.
Mayer that says that
When the unlettered congregations attending the sacrement of the Eucharist, heard the Latin 'hoc est corpus' chanted during the awesome transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, the words came out as 'hocus pocus', the traditional watchword of conjuring...Searching around a bit further, I discovered that the first reference to the word hocus pocus was in a passage (displayed below) from a book written in 1656 by Thomas Ady and known as A Candle in the Dark (see p. 26). Ady's book was "A Treatise Concerning the Nature of Witches & Witchcraft: Being Advice to Judges, Sheriffes, Justices of the Peace, and Grand-Jury-men, what to do, before they passe Sentence on such as are Arraigned for their Lives as Witches" and in it he discusses, amongst other things, the art of the fairground conjurer who practices deceit rather than witchcraft.
The first is profitably seen in our common Juglers, that go up and down to play their Tricks in Fayrs and Markets, I will speak of one man more excelling in that craft than others, that went about in King James his time, and long since, who called himself, The Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was he called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currantly without discovery, because when the eye and the ear of the beholder are both earnestly busied, the Trick is not so easily discovered, nor the Imposture discerned...
The term jugler was used at the time to describe conjurers and tricksters as well as the the performers we know as jugglers today and the invocation of latin-sounding gibberish was part of the the act to confuse and impress onlookers. As the 17th century wore on hocus pocus became synonymous with "juggling" (the word magician, on the other hand, continued to be reserved for genuine practitioners of the "magick artes").
What, do they consult Jugglers and Hocus-Pocusses? No certainly they consult Witches or Wizzards, and Diviners...
--- Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus: OR, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions (1688).
It is to John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, that we owe the etymology of hocus pocus as a corruption of latin words of the Eucharist. In his sermon xxvi he suggests that
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.The phrase hoc est corpus meaning "here is my body" certainly sounds plausible but it needs to be understood that Tillotson was militantly Anti-Catholic and the sermon in question was a polemic against the Catholic notion (or trick as he puts it) of the transubstantiation at communion of bread and wine into the the blood and body of Jesus Christ. As such and without any evidence to back it up, Tillotson's statement can only be considered as conjecture and, for that matter, the conjecture of a hostile partisan in the religious dispute then raging.
Dom Claude made a gesture of impatience. "I am not talking to you of that, Master Jacques Charmolue, but of the trial of your magician. Is it not Marc Cenaine that you call him? the butler of the Court of Accounts? Does he confess his witchcraft? Have you been successful with the torture?"
"Alas! no," replied Master Jacques, still with his sad smile; "we have not that consolation. That man is a stone. We might have him boiled in the Marche aux Pourceaux, before he would say anything. Nevertheless, we are sparing nothing for the sake of getting at the truth; he is already thoroughly dislocated, we are applying all the herbs of Saint John's day; as saith the old comedian Plautus, -
'Advorsum stimulos, laminas, crucesque, compedesque,
Nerros, catenas, carceres, numellas, pedicas, boias.'
Nothing answers; that man is terrible. I am at my wit's end over him."
"You have found nothing new in his house?"
"I' faith, yes," said Master Jacques, fumbling in his pouch; "this parchment. There are words in it which we cannot comprehend. The criminal advocate, Monsieur Philippe Lheulier, nevertheless, knows a little Hebrew, which he learned in that matter of the Jews of the Rue Kantersten, at Brussels."
So saying, Master Jacques unrolled a parchment. "Give it here," said the archdeacon. And casting his eyes upon this writing: "Pure magic, Master Jacques!" he exclaimed. "'Emen-Hetan!' 'Tis the cry of the vampires when they arrive at the witches' sabbath. Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso! 'Tis the command which chains the devil in hell. Hax, pax, max! that refers to medicine. A formula against the bite of mad dogs. Master Jacques! you are procurator to the king in the Ecclesiastical Courts: this parchment is abominable."
--- Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame
