Funky origin of a common saying

I'm just about finished with "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" by Yuval Noah Harari (also the author of "Sapiens" which I posted about a few weeks ago). It's an interesting book about the past, present and how the future may look like nothing we've seen due to technology. I'll let you read it and decide for yourself.

He spends some time talking about religion. As many know, in the Catholic Church during communion, the priest proclaims that wine is Christ's blood and bread is Christ's body. Traditionally, the priest uttered these works in latin, "Hoc est corpus!" - This is the body!

In the minds of illiterate peasants who had no knowledge of latin, this got garbled into the powerful spell "Hocus Pocus". And now you know...