Word: pocus
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...taken, suddenly and forever, out of the world, into an unreal place. This last trick puzzles even people who know just how all the others are accomplished. When someone dies whom they have known, they may go to witch-doctors called mediums who pretend that by saying hocus-pocus or by going into a trance, they can make dead people say things to people who are living. This is false magic; humbler fellows who are content to imitate the mysteries of life and death with 52 cards, a white handkerchief and a tailcoat, are annoyed by such lying fakers; they...
...with as much alacrity as the directors of the party outside. Delegates are to be chosen shortly; then in May will come the march to New Lecture Hall, which will do very well for a convention hall, and the battle proper begins. There is no mystery, gentlemen, no hocus-pocus; every issue plainly before your eyes, every candidate offered for what he is worth. The college side-show serves to whet the appetite while the main tent is being prepared. But the pungency of the 1924 performance is lacking this year. Houston may watch a real struggle: New Lecture Hall...
...matted gray hair and a nose like a spigot who rode on her broomstick way into the sky and ate little children. There was a gingerbread house and a red-hot oven where plop ended the witch pushed by wee Gretel just too stupid to get in herself. "Hocus pocus. . . ." Children loved it. So did grown-ups who quite forgot the tawdry Violanta of early afternoon...
...obvious fact connected with the matter is that people will not be awed into belief by such hocus-pocus proceedings. It looks like a clear case for competent and disinterested physicians to investigate...
Where the word "hokum" came from is clear enough. "Hocus pocus" is a veteran in good standing, meaning " to trick, sham or cheat." Obviously it crept into the theatrical vocabulary through the realization that presenting a new play, skit or act full of old stuff is in a sense cheating the audience...