0 MAGIC WORDS • From The Rebel Scot (1647) by John Cleveland, quoted in The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse (1991): Before a Scot can be properly cursed, I must like Hocus swallow daggers first. Hocus Pocus (see also hokus pokus, sucop socoh) Hocus Pocus, gilded words and paper flowers laid sprinkled around. -- Sorana Salomeia, "Simsalabim" (2004) Mystique: These primal, rhyming syllables echo the transcendental incantations of Latin rites, reverberating through hallowed cloisters. They invoke an ancient, unworldly power, especially when enunciated slowly and authoritatively. They conjure a mastery over the power to change one nature or form into another. The words actually constitute a formula: AcB, meaning that the substance of A (represented by the name Hocus) transmutes into the substance of B (now Pocus). The formula is a distillation of the intention: "May that which we call Hocus be changed into Pocus." This distillation, "Hocus Pocus," thereby epitomizes the act of transmutation itself. One can easily imagine a Medieval alchemist, huddled over his instruments, muttering such a formula to himself, as "Hocus Pocus" would be the equivalent to "Lead Gold" ("[May this base metal] Lead [transform into purest] Gold"). "Hocus Pocus" has been called the original entertainer's phrase. Alas, the profound impact of the phrase has diluted over the years, and modern audiences are likely to consider it nonsensical or to associate it with meaning "cheap trickery." However, its age-old power need not disappear forever. When spoken in a voice that disallows mockery, "hocus pocus" recalls the profound mystery that is at the heart of all worldly changes. "Now, a little hocus-pocus. It doesn't matter if you don't believe in hocus-pocus; the basis of this concept is real enough." 0 Meanings: To each his own hocus-pocus, that's what I say. -- Alan Wall, The School of Night (2001) • Angelic name "Behind each word -- though in our wisdom we may be able to discern its humble origin -- a celestial power was posited. Sometimes the apotheosis of the word achieved the height of extravagance . . . Hocus Pocus, for example, was a Prince on high -- or two princes, to be exact. The litera 20 Stuart Wilde, Silent Power (1998)