A closer look
Every cartoon magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat owes their catchphrase to massive medieval illiteracy. In the Middle Ages, Catholic priests performed the Eucharist entirely in Latin, famously saying 'Hoc est enim corpus meum' (This is my body) to dramatically transform the bread into the body of Christ. The uneducated peasants sitting in the back pews couldn't speak a word of Latin, but they knew this was the exact moment the big magic happened. So, street jugglers and charlatans started mimicking the priests with a rhyming gibberish parody: 'Hocus Pocus'.
