A cursed box gone viral
From Kirksville to Hollywood, what appears to be an antique wine cabinet has caused quite the stir. Purported to be haunted by a jewish spirit known as a "dybbuk," or "dibbuk," a dybbuk is a restless, usually malicious, spirit believed to be able to haunt and even possess the living. The Dybbuk Box, known nationwide for the 2012 film "The Possession," has its home in Kirksville. The box’s current owner is Jason Haxton, the director of the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine at A.T. Still University for the last 15 years and author of The Dibbuk Box. Haxton bought the box on eBay from a former Truman student and though he says he originally had no intention of keeping it, refuses to give it away. “My fear was to get rid of it wasn’t necessarily the answer,” he said, “because, then, I really wouldn’t have known what affected me.”
The Dybbuk Box's first known appearance was in 2003 as an item for sale on eBay [the eBay listing by Iosef "spasmolytic" Nietzke, also includes Mannis's original description.] by a man named Kevin Mannis, who owned a used furniture shop in Portland, Oregon. Mannis listed it as a haunted object, already playing into the idea of its supernatural origins. His eBay description includes an extremely long tale of where he received the box, the troubles it had brought him, and his reasons for getting rid of it. Mannis reported to have bought it at a yard sale a few years previously, and the seller told him that her Grandma had brought it back from Poland while escaping the Holocaust and that she told her never to open it. He bought it and took it back to his furniture shop with the intention of fixing it up as a gift for his mother. He opened it and found that it contained the following items:
1 1928 U.S. Wheat Penny; 1 1925 U.S. Wheat Penny; One small lock of blonde hair (bound with string); One small lock of black/brown hair (bound with string); One small granite statue engraved and gilded with Hebrew letters (I have been told that the letters spell out the word SHALOM); One dried rosebud; One golden wine cup; One very strange black cast iron candlestick holder with octopus legs.
Upon cleaning it up and giving it to his mother, she immediately suffered a stroke, and was able to write him a note saying "Hate gift." The implication was that his mother attributed the stroke to the box. The box then worked its way through Mannis's family as the members pawned the disturbing antique off on each other. Rather than try to dispose of the box, Mannis decided to sell it on eBay. The item sold for $140 in June, 2003 to a buyer whose eBay name was "spasmolytic".
The buyer, spasmolytic, turned out to be a Truman student named Iosif Nietzke. Nietzke would go on to re-listed the box on eBay only eight months later. In his eBay listing he stated that he believed the box had caused his roommates and he to suffer insomnia and other illnesses, though he add they were "likely coincidental." There were also occasional strong odors and strange occurrences just as Mannis described in his listing. He concluded his listing not too differently from Mannis:
Anyhow, for personal reasons I very strongly do not want this box anymore. I hope there's someone on Ebay that will take this thing off of my hands. [I would just throw it away in the woods or something, but I know there has been some interest in it in the past.]
Jason Haxton's ownership of the box has been the most prolific one, ever since he bought it in 2004. He's probably the best known owner, as he wrote the 2011 book The Dibbuk Box, and hosts the web site, www.dibbukbox.com. He's since appeared on several television shows like Ghost Adventures and was and credited as a consultant on the movie "The Possession."
Shortly after Haxton first received the box, he started getting hives, horrible migraines, and suffered hair loss. He initially thought that the box had poisoned him as some antiques can be coated with harmful chemicals. However, that was not the cause of his symptoms. “We ran all the tests,” he wrote, “There is nothing on this box but a little sugar water.”
More strange occurrences took place as time went on. Haxton and his wife both experienced coughing fits, and had horrible nightmares while in the box’s presence. “It was as if an old woman’s face was just literally decomposing,” he said of the nightmares. They both continued to suffer increasingly worse symptoms and illnesses, but as Haxton wrote in his book, after going to two doctors they still couldn't find the cause. Haxton would go on to recruit the help of a jewish rabbi to help him calm the dybbuk, and eventually buried it somewhere on his property. He claims in his book that he won't tell anyone its true location until he dies and keeps a replica for media purposes.
One of the most interesting chapters of the book is the one that addresses Haxton’s beliefs on whose spirit the Dybbuk Box might hold. “A dibbuk is a spirit that has not finished its business…” he wrote. “If you did something horrible, and you died, you come back as a dibbuk to try and undo what you did because your spirit cannot rest because of what you did in your physical form.”
Whether the Dybbuk Box is real or actually a hoax might never be known.
The Dybbuk Box's first known appearance was in 2003 as an item for sale on eBay [the eBay listing by Iosef "spasmolytic" Nietzke, also includes Mannis's original description.] by a man named Kevin Mannis, who owned a used furniture shop in Portland, Oregon. Mannis listed it as a haunted object, already playing into the idea of its supernatural origins. His eBay description includes an extremely long tale of where he received the box, the troubles it had brought him, and his reasons for getting rid of it. Mannis reported to have bought it at a yard sale a few years previously, and the seller told him that her Grandma had brought it back from Poland while escaping the Holocaust and that she told her never to open it. He bought it and took it back to his furniture shop with the intention of fixing it up as a gift for his mother. He opened it and found that it contained the following items:
1 1928 U.S. Wheat Penny; 1 1925 U.S. Wheat Penny; One small lock of blonde hair (bound with string); One small lock of black/brown hair (bound with string); One small granite statue engraved and gilded with Hebrew letters (I have been told that the letters spell out the word SHALOM); One dried rosebud; One golden wine cup; One very strange black cast iron candlestick holder with octopus legs.
Upon cleaning it up and giving it to his mother, she immediately suffered a stroke, and was able to write him a note saying "Hate gift." The implication was that his mother attributed the stroke to the box. The box then worked its way through Mannis's family as the members pawned the disturbing antique off on each other. Rather than try to dispose of the box, Mannis decided to sell it on eBay. The item sold for $140 in June, 2003 to a buyer whose eBay name was "spasmolytic".
The buyer, spasmolytic, turned out to be a Truman student named Iosif Nietzke. Nietzke would go on to re-listed the box on eBay only eight months later. In his eBay listing he stated that he believed the box had caused his roommates and he to suffer insomnia and other illnesses, though he add they were "likely coincidental." There were also occasional strong odors and strange occurrences just as Mannis described in his listing. He concluded his listing not too differently from Mannis:
Anyhow, for personal reasons I very strongly do not want this box anymore. I hope there's someone on Ebay that will take this thing off of my hands. [I would just throw it away in the woods or something, but I know there has been some interest in it in the past.]
Jason Haxton's ownership of the box has been the most prolific one, ever since he bought it in 2004. He's probably the best known owner, as he wrote the 2011 book The Dibbuk Box, and hosts the web site, www.dibbukbox.com. He's since appeared on several television shows like Ghost Adventures and was and credited as a consultant on the movie "The Possession."
Shortly after Haxton first received the box, he started getting hives, horrible migraines, and suffered hair loss. He initially thought that the box had poisoned him as some antiques can be coated with harmful chemicals. However, that was not the cause of his symptoms. “We ran all the tests,” he wrote, “There is nothing on this box but a little sugar water.”
More strange occurrences took place as time went on. Haxton and his wife both experienced coughing fits, and had horrible nightmares while in the box’s presence. “It was as if an old woman’s face was just literally decomposing,” he said of the nightmares. They both continued to suffer increasingly worse symptoms and illnesses, but as Haxton wrote in his book, after going to two doctors they still couldn't find the cause. Haxton would go on to recruit the help of a jewish rabbi to help him calm the dybbuk, and eventually buried it somewhere on his property. He claims in his book that he won't tell anyone its true location until he dies and keeps a replica for media purposes.
One of the most interesting chapters of the book is the one that addresses Haxton’s beliefs on whose spirit the Dybbuk Box might hold. “A dibbuk is a spirit that has not finished its business…” he wrote. “If you did something horrible, and you died, you come back as a dibbuk to try and undo what you did because your spirit cannot rest because of what you did in your physical form.”
Whether the Dybbuk Box is real or actually a hoax might never be known.
Last edited 4/18/16
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