Word: hocus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...ever conclusively explained hypnotism. This week a successful practicing hypnotist, Andrew Salter, made a plausible try (What Is Hypnosis- Richard R. Smith, $2). Frowning severely at the hocus-pocus that has surrounded his clouded calling, Salter argued that hypnosis is just another conditioned reflex. No "trance," no "suggestion," no "mind over matter...
Most chillers overcrowd the screen with werewolves or explain away all supernatural antics as the deliberate hocus-pocus of a mad scientist, estate-grabber or Axis agent. The Uninvited blends the everyday with the inexplicable, gets a lot of its best scares out of the everyday. The skittering of a squirrel across the drumhead floors of the vacant house suddenly gives vacancy a cold portentousness. The scraping of a wine glass against a table, during the seance, is more scary than the seance itself. The unexpected smashing of a window while you are watching a rather good Paramount ghost rasps...
...result of all this foolishness, which incidentally, includes one of the cleverest dream sequences we've seen, is that the uncouth sand-hog, whom, Claudette bates, detests, despises--only we know better is transformed by some hocus-pocus into an eligible, even desirable future mate...
Harvard will take the floor tomorrow a much better team than started against Tufts last week. Hocus-pocus at the Dean's Office has taken Dean Hennessy, captain and sole veteran in playing condition, off language pro, and a week of practice has polished the rough diamond somewhat...
...Rabbits. In Leonia, N.J., John A. Earl, candidate for a state senatorship, guarded against hocus-pocus at the drawing for positions on the primary ballot by taking along a magician as a watcher...