WHY SNAKE OIL* CURES ALL!

In the classic film The Rainmaker, Burt Lancaster plays con man Bill Starbuck, who promises desperate drought-stricken communities that he can produce rain—for a fee, of course.  And of course he can do no such thing.  But Starbuck is not a man without merit; he understands the power of faith.  And in encouraging a young woman to believe in herself, he not only helps to make her dream come true, he ends up “making” rain, after all.

We are all susceptible to what I will call “the expert opinion”; that is, when we have determined someone else has greater authority on a subject than we do, we will defer to their position.  This seems like common sense.  But as anyone who is aware of “the placebo effect” knows, in many cases our beliefs about a subject can be far more powerful than any facts; in other words, if you believe snake oil is a cure, it may very well be.  It is our faith in the expert or the cure that encourages positive results.

In the recent challenges I have been facing, I have realized what a transient thing faith can be for us humans.  When things are going well we feel blessed, but when things are going not-so-well?  Our minds tend to run amok, twisting our perception of our lives into an endless loop of “worst case scenarios”.  It is our desperation in this virtual drought that sometimes causes us to turn to the snake oil salesman for an answer.

And what I have learned is that this need not be a bad thing, actually.  There is power both in the surrender and in the notion that we ourselves don’t have all the answers.  There is power in asking for help.

I remember when I was in high school, a girl I knew was told by an “expert” of some kind that all she needed to do to lose weight was simply to stop drinking diet soda.  He told her just this one thing would help her shed pounds.  Now, she didn’t actually share this with me, a mutual friend did.  Of course I scoffed at the ridiculous advice and began to logically point out all the reasons why it was a ludicrous prescription.

To my surprise, my friend shushed me and told me not to share my opinion with the girl in question.  When I asked him why not, his answer was simple:  because it’s working.  Naturally I harrumphed, but in retrospect I see how wise he was; it was her faith in the “expert opinion” that did the trick.

My father was a bit of a “rainmaker”, when I think about it, because most children think Dad is an expert.  Until we don’t.  But still, there remains that parental mystique; the idea that the people who took care of us and “made everything better" when we were kids retain the magical power to heal a boo-boo by kissing it.

My Dad’s brand of “snake oil” was a faith in goodness.  He had this sweeping tendency to name everything good, or if not good, at least fine.  As in “everything is going to be fine”.   When he said it, I believed him.  And he was usually right, by breathtaking margins; his ability to accentuate the positive in any situation was often a game-changer.

Going through tough times has forced me to confront my own “faith deficit”.  My obstacles have at times felt as insurmountable as the odds Moses faced in crossing the Red Sea…but we all know how that turned out for him, right?  In this space we see logic is not always our best ally.

I inherited, by way of the universe’s awesome sense of humor, both my Dad’s absurd level of optimism and my Mom’s hard-core practicality.  My parents, who rarely fought in reality, have full-on knock-down, drag-out fights in my head; the part of me that says “Don’t worry, be happy” (Dad) gets cold-cocked by the part of me that says “tie up that damn camel” (Mom).  Faith and logic can be strange bedfellows, to put it mildly.

To complicate matters further, I am a gal who likes to make decisions (a “J”, in Myers-Briggs speak)…logic demands it!  All the while faith whispers, “don’t force things, let them unfold under grace”.  This push-pull creates a lot of frustration because, to be perfectly honest, once I make a decision my patience level for waiting to meet my goal is, um, subterranean.

And here we return to the snake oil—just like often it is our belief in a thing that makes it efficacious, it is almost always our belief in our decision that makes it “the right one”.  “Snake oil” is just a stepping stone to faith, once you realize how powerful your beliefs about anything can be.  Once you learn to overlook that which interferes with your goal and concentrate on everything you think will help you meet it, you become pretty unstoppable.

But still, faith requires patience.  And (grrr, I hate this) patience is actually the epitome of both faith AND logic.  Because even if you make a firm decision to go to San Francisco, you are still going to have to gas up the car and drive 3,000 miles.  It will take time to reach your goal, and if you cannot accept that?  Well, maybe your new goal should be to invent a teleporting machine.

In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz writes “Every human is a magician, and we can either put a spell on someone with our word or we can release someone from a spell. We cast spells all the time with our opinions.”  Like the “expert” who cast a spell on my friend to lose weight, or my Dad, who “cast a spell” to create positive outcomes, what we think and say about ourselves, our goals, other people and things can pack a far more potent punch than we comprehend. 

So use your “expertise” wisely.  Or, as my practical mom would put it, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”.  That goes for your self-talk above all.

You are a “rainmaker”, whether you are doing it deliberately or not, so be mindful that your opinions are either a blessing or a curse to those who will listen.  Your faith is the “snake oil” that heals all wounds and conquers all obstacles.  And even if you won’t believe you have the power to part the Red Sea, don’t you dare tell Moses he can’t.

Anthony Trollope wrote:   “Above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.” 

Believe in yourself, even if that feels like “snake oil” at first; believe in other people, and help them escape the trap of self-doubt as well.  With each new day, new person and new situation, remember you have the power to cast whatever kind of spell you want. Choose wisely.

*metaphorically speaking, don’t sue me.  also, Mom is right:  tie up the damn camel.