Snake Oil Salesmen

Snake oil is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, a scam or outright lies. A "snake oil salesman" is a similarly common expression that’s used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a proponent of some valueless or fraudulent cure, remedy, or solution. Snake oil comes from the concoction that was sold as a cure-all elixir for many kinds of physical problems and diseases. Many 18^th and 19th-century shady entrepreneurs advertised and sold mineral oil mixed with various active and inactive household herbs, spices, drugs, and compounds, but contained no substances derived from actual snakes whatsoever. It was labeled as "snake oil liniment." The peddler made unsubstantiated claims about its efficacy. These patent medicines claimed as cure for a panacea of symptoms and diseases, were extremely common from the 18th until the 20^th century This was particularly in vogue among vendors who masked addictive drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, alcohol, and opium-based concoctions or elixirs. They were often sold at medicine shows as medications or products promoting health. Often shills were hired to extol the virtues of the product.

There are still snake oil salesmen today in medicine, politics, telephone scammers, and yes, even in churches. That list includes false teachers, faith healers, and prosperity preachers.

An interesting side note, rotgut whiskey of the old West often had two rattlesnake heads in each barrel. Rotgut wasn’t aged and had extremely high alcohol content. Its recipe used dubious quality of grains and corn in its fermentation bases. Whiskey labeled as bourbon was actually distilled from low-grade molasses. Whiskey that was shipped West in the 1800s might have started out as bourbon but along the way, but it was watered down and mixed with other ingredients to increase the profits. One favorite western whiskey recipe was Ol’ Snakehead. Its ingredients were: one gallon of alcohol, a plug or twist of tobacco, black strap molasses, red Spanish peppers for spice, five gallons of river water, and two rattlesnake heads to give it “spirit.” There was a saying, “Drop in a horseshoe. If the shoe sinks, it ain’t ready yet but when it rises to the surface and floats, the whiskey’s ready.”

Now I will share the point I wanted to make about the original snake oil salesman. The Bible says Satan appeared in the Garden of Eden as a serpent. He enticed Eve to eat the forbidden fruit by telling her that she could be like God and know the difference of good and evil. He was a liar then and has been passing on the same lie that caused his fall from Heaven. That old snake wanted to be equal to his Creator and he’s been a snake oil salesman since then.