h • Magic word "Now square the packet, mutter a hocus pocus or two and fan the cards face up." -- Theodore Annemann, Annemann's Card Magic (1977) "Louis mumbled a little hocus-pocus in a foreign language." -- Rick DeMarinis, "Medicine Man" (1988), anthologized in Borrowed Hearts (1999) • "Magical incantation in the language of the gods" -- Carlos Eire, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy (200 ) "[They] began to mutter their hocus-pocus." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Christus: A Mystery" (1872) • Magician "Hocus-Pocus Junior" was the name of an early book on magic tricks published in 176 (James Randi, The Magic World of the Amazing Randi [1989]). "I went to see one Mr. Morrison, the hocus pocus man." -- Royall Tyler, The Contrast (1787), anthologized in Early American Drama by Jeffrey H. Richards (1997) • Magic trick "[S]ome hocus-pocus, some card-sharping trick . . ." -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground, Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1968) • "Make something happen" • Mental focus "Hocus Pocus" is associated with the word focus partially by virtue of its rhyme. In the following quotation, even though "hocus pocus" is used pejoratively, the association to focus as a related magic word is self-evident: "'Focus, focus, focus,' [he muttered] over and over and over, a mantra. Briody thought he might as well be saying hocus-pocus, for all the good it was doing him." -- Thomas Kelly, Empire Rising (2005) • Mirage or illusion -- Henry Miller, Plexus (1987) • Mumbo-jumbo "Blathering Zen hocus-pocus like a wise old man on the mountaintop." -- James W. Hall, Forests of the Night (2005) • Mystery -- Brian M. Alman and Peter T. Lambrou, Self-Hypnosis (1991) "[T]here were crystal orbs, scrying glasses, skulls from tombs, saints' knucklebones, spirit sticks that had been looted from Siberian shamans, bottles filled with blood of doubtful provenance, witch-doctor masks, [and so on] . . . Magicians love this kind of thing; they love the hocus-pocus mystery of it all (and half believe it, some of them) and they adore the awe- inspiring effect it has on outsiders. Quite apart from anything else, all these knickknacks distract attention from the real source of their power: us." -- Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand (200 ) "A genuine sleep scientist or mental health professional is not likely to calm patients' fears or solve their problems by describing recurrent nightmares as mysterious hocus pocus." -- Leslie Halpern, Dreams on Film (200 )