Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

The Dybbuk Box

The dybbuk box, or dibbuk box(Hebrew: קופסת דיבוק‎,romanized: Kufsat Dibbuk) is a wine box which is said to be hauntedby a dybbuk. A dybbuk is a restless, usually malicious, spiritbelieved to be able to haunt and even possess the living. The boxgained notoriety when it was auctioned on eBay with an accompanyinghorror story written by Kevin Mannis, and is the original inspirationfor the 2012 film The Possession.

Legend and history

The term "dybbuk box"was first created and used by Kevin Mannis to describe a wine cabinetin the item information for an eBay auction and as the subject of hisoriginal story describing paranormal events which he attributed tothe box. Mannis, a writer and creative professional by trade, owned asmall antiques and furniture refinishing business in Portland, Oregonat the time.

According to Mannis' story, he boughtthe box at an estate sale in 2001. It had belonged to a survivor ofthe Holocaust in Poland named Havaleh, who had escaped to Spain andpurchased it there before her immigration to the United States. Havaleh's granddaughter told Mannis that the box had been bought inSpain after the Holocaust. Upon hearing that the box was a familyheirloom, Mannis offered to give the box back to the family, but thegranddaughter insisted that he take it, saying that the family didnot want the box. She told him the box had been kept in hergrandmother's sewing room and was never opened because a dybbuk wassaid to live inside it.

Upon opening the box, Mannis wrote thathe found that it contained two 1920s pennies, a lock of blond hairbound with cord, a lock of black/brown hair bound with cord, a smallstatue engraved with the Hebrew word "shalom", asmall golden wine goblet, one dried rose bud, and a single candleholder with four octopus-shaped legs.

Numerous owners of the box havereported that strange phenomena accompany it. Mannis wrote that heexperienced a series of horrific nightmares shared with other peoplewhile they were in possession of the box or when they stayed at hishome while he had it. His mother suffered a stroke on the same day hegave her the box as a birthday present, October 31. Every owner ofthe box has reported that smells of cat urine or jasmine flowers andnightmares involving an old hag accompany the box.

Iosif Neitzke, a student at TrumanState University in Kirksville, Missouri and the last person toauction the box on eBay, claimed that the box caused lights to burnout in his house and his hair to fall out. Jason Haxton, Director ofthe Museum of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Missouri, had beenfollowing Neitzke's blogs regarding the box and when he was ready tobe rid of the box. Neitzke sold it to Haxton. Haxton wrote The DibbukBox, and claimed that he subsequently developed strange healthproblems, including hives, coughing up blood, and "head-to-toewelts". Haxton consulted with rabbis (Jewish religiousleaders) to try to figure out a way to seal the dybbuk in the boxagain. Apparently successful, he took the freshly resealed box andhid it at a secret location, which he would not reveal. He laterdonated the box to Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures to display in hismuseum.

Skeptic Chris French, head of theAnomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths' College, told aninterviewer he believed that the box's owners were "alreadyprimed to be looking out for bad stuff. If you believe you have beencursed, then inevitably you explain the bad stuff that happens interms of what you perceive to be the cause. Put it like this: I wouldbe happy to own this object." The term is now used to referto any box supposedly holding a dybbuk.

Design

The cabinet has the Shema carved intothe back of it. Its dimensions are 12.5″ × 7.5″ × 16.25″.