How to Use It
Witchcraft & Folk Magick
- Dress a green candle on a Thursday for money matters.
- Anoint a shed snakeskin and keep it in your wallet as a charm for renewal and gain.
Hoodoo & Rootwork
- Dress court petitions and the papers you bring to a hearing, in the old way of rubbing oil into legal documents.
- Anoint a money mojo bag holding a shed snakeskin and a silver coin.
- Add to a candle working for turning a bad financial situation around.
A Simple Working
- Take a green chime candle and a square of parchment.
- Write the sum of money or the legal outcome you need, clearly and briefly.
- Anoint the corners of the paper with Snake oil, and dress the candle from base to wick.
- Coil a length of green thread around the base of the candle like a snake.
- Light the candle and speak your petition.
- When it burns out, fold the paper toward you, wrap it in the thread and carry it to your appointment or keep it with your bills.
Pairs Well With
- Shed snakeskin, used in hoodoo and folk magick for renewal and cunning.
- Green candles, for money work.
- Galangal root, chewed or carried in court work in hoodoo.
- High John the Conqueror root, for strength in hard situations.
- Money Drawing oil, for a straightforward prosperity boost.
What You Receive
Snake oil, available in 2 dram, 1 oz and 16 oz bottles.
Origin & Lore
Snake oil as a phrase comes from the travelling medicine shows of 19th-century America, but the serpent itself is an old figure of wisdom, renewal and cunning in many traditions. This condition oil is used in money and court work, where a little serpentine cleverness is wanted.
Long before “snake oil” meant a con, Chinese labourers on the American railroads brought real oil of the Chinese water snake to rub on aching joints.
The serpent sits at the heart of several African diaspora traditions, notably the Vodou lwa Damballah, and snake imagery runs through New Orleans spiritual practice. The phrase “snake oil salesman” came later, from American medicine shows that sold cure-alls with little real snake in them.
Did You Know?
In 1917 federal inspectors tested Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment and found it was mostly mineral oil with a little beef fat, red pepper and turpentine. He was fined twenty dollars.



