Snake Oil

The Chinese water snake is a species of mildly venomous, rear fanged snake native to Asia. As the name suggests, it is a highly aquatic species, and it adapts well to human altered environments, namely rice paddies.

For centuries, oil from Chinese water snakes has been used in traditional Chinese medicine. While the snakes offer usefulness for food or skins, they are extremely high in omega-3 fatty acids. When boiled, the oils rise to the top of the pot where they can be skimmed off and use to treat a variety of ailments including fever, joint pain, headaches, and general inflammation. Modern science has indeed proven that omega-3 fatty acids are quite effective at alleviating these symptoms.

As immigrant Chinese laborers began arriving in the United States in the 1800’s they brought with them many of their traditional medicines. American frontiersmen were quick to notice the effectiveness of the snake oil and began using it themselves.

A few frontiersmen took the further step of realizing the profits that could be made from selling the snake oil. They did not get far before running into a snag, however. They didn’t have any Chinese water snakes, nor did they have a way to get any.

This was the 1800’s though, long before the pesky FDA started meddling in things. If you can’t get Chinese water snakes, just use something else! Many enterprising salesmen turned to snakes they did have. Rattlesnakes. Rattlesnakes unfortunately contain very little by way of omega-3 acids, so the treatment was ineffective. One brand – Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment, took it even further. Their product contained exactly zero snake. It was made of mineral oil, beef fat, red pepper, and turpentine. Not only did the oil fail to cure inflammation, but it also usually left the patient worse off than they were prior to the oil.

When the FDA finally came around in 1906, Stanley was one of the first to be slapped with a fine, a cease-and-desist order, and the term “snake-oil-salesman” became the slimy insult that it is today.

Modern snake oil salesmen come in many forms. They sell herbs and medicines that have no evidence to support the claims. They may offer multi-level-marketing products promoting hair growth and weight loss. Whatever the variety they share one thing in common, a common huckster is trying to pull one over on you.

Peter Popoff was one such huckster. Peter however, had no oils, pills, creams, or serums. Peter offered healing through no physical product at all. His came from the power of God.

Popoff was born into a ministerial family. His father was a former serviceman turned traveling preacher on the revival circuit in the Southern US. By the time he was 14 Peter himself was making appearances on the circuit with his father. Billed as the “Miracle Boy Evangelist” ads claimed he was born in a West Berlin Bomb Shelter, and had been rescued from a Siberian prison camp.

The Miracle Boy Evangelist also had in him the power of healing. His televised sermons grew so popular that they began to be televised nationally in the 1980’s. His miraculous “curing” of ailments was the central focus of the shows. The would tell attendees to “break free of the devil” by throwing their prescription pills onto the stage. He went as far as to command people in wheelchairs to arise and walk, which they would do, to the joyous cheers of the faithful. Peter demonstrated the power of prophecy in him by calling individuals from the crown on stage. Without knowing or asking Peter was able to tell the people their addresses, names of their loved ones, and what their specific ailments were. Thousands of sick and ailing believers flocked to his sermons to be healed. Others were not so easily convinced.

In 1986 James Randi, yes, the same James Randi who exposed Uri Geller. Randi has made his career exposing charlatans, but Peter Popoff may have been his easiest bust ever. When he walked into his first sermon, Randi was handed a prayer card, and instructed to fill it out, including his ailments. It asked for his name. His family members names. His address. His medical history. Everything Peter would need to make “prophecies”.

Randi Hypothesized that Popoff likely had someone radioing him information on people as he called them to the stage. Randi returned to another sermon, this time bringing with him radio equipment. In very little time he was listening live as Peter Popoff’s wife, Elizabeth, fed him information on his audience members. Randi brought clips of those broadcast with him to the Tonight Show when he publicly busted Popoff, but he went even a step further. To fully seal the deal, Randi planted an accomplice in the audience. His plant was suffering from aggressive uterine cancer. Popoff called the woman onto stage and healed her of the cancer. That woman came with Randi to the tonight show, but the thing is, the woman healed of uterine cancer, was actually a man in disguise.

Popoff initially denied the claims by Randi. But eventually he caved and admitted that “occasionally” he used a listening device with Elizabeth on the other end. Less than a year later, Popoff, once the most popular preacher in America, was bankrupt.

James Randi makes his living by being skeptical. I don’t suggest you do the same. But I do suggest you make it a point to be highly skeptical of any claims that seem too good to be true. Investments that have constant positive returns, and never go down are always Ponzi schemes. Books that offer the secret to beating Wall Street are never worth the $19.99. Online training programs in day trading are far more likely to lead you to bankruptcy than riches. Courses and groups offering to teach you the secrets of real estate investing have no secrets to share.

If it sounds too good to be true, it almost always is. And the better the offer sounds, the more financial catastrophic it will be if you make the mistake of falling for it.