The Dybbuk Box - Ep. 5

The Dybbuk Box may be the perfect cursed object for the internet age: part ghost story, part folklore confusion, part viral marketing miracle, and part “sir, please stop gifting this to relatives.” In this episode of Cursed...ish, we trace the story of the haunted eBay cabinet said to unleash nightmares, misfortune, illness, and general psychic bad vibes on anyone unlucky enough to own it. From Holocaust-linked origin claims to ghost-hunter fame and the possibility that the whole thing began as an elaborate piece of interactive horror fiction, we ask whether the Dybbuk Box is actually cursed, or just unbelievably good at making people want it to be.

Episode Sources:

Moss, Charles. “Finally, the Truth Behind the ‘Haunted’ Dybbuk Box Can Be Revealed.” Inverse, July 8, 2021 https://www.inverse.com/input/features/dybbuk-box-dibbuk-kevin-mannis-zak-bagans-haunted-hoax-revealed 

Biddle, Kenny. “A Closer Look: The Dibbuk Box.” Skeptical Inquirer, January 14, 2019 https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-dibbuk-box/ 

Collis, Clark. “Little Box of Horrors.” Entertainment Weekly, July 27, 2012 https://ew.com/article/2012/07/27/little-box-horrors-2/ 

Questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share? Send us a hex at uhoh@cursedish.com.

The hosts of Cursed...ish are not responsible for any misfortunes that may befall you while listening to this podcast. By listening to Cursed...ish, you assume all risk of bad luck, ill omens, and unexplained catastrophes.

*Terms and conditions may be upheld by unknown forces.

Transcript

Angela 0:00

And I thought you were gonna say that the guy, like within an hour, like got hit by a car or something. So, well, this is not a great outcome.

Daniel 0:08

Angela, he hadn't even opened the box yet. He's about to open the box. So then he opens the box.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

No. Oh my god, what an idiot.

Daniel 0:29

Welcome, accursed ones, to Cursedish, where folklore, history, and media hysteria collide. And we try to separate the story from the smoke machine by asking, where does ordinary misfortune end and the idea of a curse begin? I'm Daniel Stevens.

Angela 0:44

And I'm Angela Mattis.

Daniel 0:45

Uh so Angela, before we get started today, uh, did anything cursed-ish happen to you this week?

Angela 0:49

Uh, do you want to know what happened to me this week?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Bank fraud.

Daniel 0:53

Wait, wait. I of all the things you were about to say, bank fraud was not where I was going. What? You were the fraudie or the fraudster?

Angela 1:02

Oh, I have stolen so much money this week.

Daniel 1:06

I'm rich.

Angela 1:07

Um, no, I was the f I was the fraudulated. I was the fraud, defrauded. So I get a call from the bank, and it's like an automated thing, and I'm immediately like, nope, that wasn't me. So I say no, that was fraud, whatever. They call me back, and it's a real person, which he goes, like he introduced himself and I was like, Oh hi, how are you? And he goes, I'm doing well. People don't ever ask me that.

Daniel 1:32

And I was the poor individual.

Angela 1:34

I was like, I'm insta-depressed, but thank you for calling me at this next exchange. Yeah. It was like a very like normal human exchange, but anyway. So then he's like, you know, going through all of the like questions and things that he has that he has to ask. And um, I like get this weird, like spidey sense though, where I'm like, all of the information he's given me about myself, like maybe he's just stolen my data or something. Yeah, so he's like, but then he was like sending me like push texts where I had to one of them was like giving me my cause they had opened an Apple account, like whoever tried to, whoever got my credit card number. So I kind of am starting to get like this weird tingle because he's like, Oh, they tried to open an Apple account. I'm gonna send you like a push notification, and it was one of those, like, this is your six-digit number, don't tell anyone. And I was like, I'm not supposed to tell you. And so it was like this very awkward thing, and I sort of like very even more awkwardly was like, What's my address? And I sort of like started asking. You started grilling him? Yeah, because I was like, Are you are has someone like fraudulently now? Am I talking to the person who is trying to take money from my credit card? So I cleared him. He'd he was somebody from the bank, and I looked at he had called from like an 800 number, and I like googled the number, and it was my bank. So honestly, at this point, if that was the fraud, the person committing fraud that did not you, you've done a great job. Have a little cash babe.

Daniel 3:08

Your bank account.

Angela 3:10

Yeah. Um, no, so I do this whole thing, we get off the phone, and here's where things get even weirder. A couple minutes later, I go into my email address, and 118 emails come through. And I'm like, what the fuck?

Daniel 3:23

Literally 118.

Angela 3:24

No, yeah, like literally, no one's like I'm not for once in my life I'm not exaggerating and being hyperbolic. Like 118.

Daniel 3:31

I have hundreds of unread emails at all times. I'm one of those.

Angela 3:33

I have 33,000 unread emails. I'm that person. But I mean like, I mean like it loaded and all of a sudden a deluge of emails came down. And they were all these like um Substack subscriptions and Slack. Like all of these, like, this is your code to go into Slack. And I was like, what in God's green earth is this? So I looked on Reddit and it was like, yeah, there the person who has like defrauded you is now trying to like confuse you. It's like a super fishing thing. There's like, you know, whatever the fishing term is for that. And I'm like, oh fuck no. So I go and I look in my account for this credit card, and they have made like five thousand dollar like draws at a casino in it was like the Lone Star casino in somewhere. So I call the bank back and I'm like, uh and I even told them I was like, Yeah, I was like, and somebody is keep keeping on. They are now trying to get all this happening. They're just you know, they're having they're at the casino, they're at the craps table. Um, but I'm pretty sure they let them like the lady said something confusing to me, but it's like it was at this point where I knew I was actually talking to the real bank because I had called them, but it was even still weird. She was like, Oh, you have to like watch those and wait until they go from pending and then call back and we'll do the reverse. And I'm like, oh, so we're just gonna give these assholes all this money and be like, and then this is what perpetuates the fraudulent behavior. But anyway, I was a victim of the curse of greed of humanity.

Daniel 5:08

Yeah, well, I was very glad to hear that you used your digital, you know, common sense and said, I need to confirm that I'm talking to the right person.

Angela 5:16

No, I didn't use common sense. What I did was I take fishing training for work, and then I'm the idiot that clicks the email, and then I get really I'm like, I actually this happened to me like a month or two ago where I was just like running through my emails real fast and I was like, what? I'm supposed to do some training somewhere?

Daniel 5:34

And I click it and it's like, ma'am, you have you've clicked the phishing and now you have to do the training.

Angela 5:41

Yes, it was like it was like you're an idiot and you're an idiot on top of being an idiot. Yeah. So I have been very sufficiently trained in fishing. So I learned from my fishing training um to start asking questions back that they wouldn't know. And luckily, I mean, usually when my spidey senses go off, I I mean, I'm I generally that's when like something fucky is going on. And so I still am a little put off about it, but I checked my bases. Like that really and like when I called the bank the second time, I was like, hey, did somebody call me? And she was like, Yep, blah blah blah.

Daniel 6:14

Yeah.

Angela 6:14

So again, if this was all some scam and I have never once actually talked to anybody at my bank, like good on you. Good on you.

Daniel 6:22

This this sort of ties perfectly into what I was gonna talk with you about today because I was thinking I I was sitting here thinking, like, ooh, look at Angela. She was on the internet back in the early days, she knows to be skeptical and like has her has her wits about her on the internet as an as a I use this term lovingly for myself, as a as an aging millennial. We are definitely some of like the internet, we're some of like the old timers of the internet at this point. Oh I know we were around back. I remember we remember the e-bombs world and the true weird wildness of the old age. Oh my god, yeah.

Angela 6:57

Like, oh my god. I remember when my neighbor across the street got internet and we didn't have it, and I would beg my dad, and my dad was like, I just don't see the need.

Daniel 7:07

That one really didn't age well. When when you were a young rap scallion on the internet in your younger years, did you ever go on eBay back in the day?

Angela 7:16

No, not really. I mean, obviously I knew it existed, but no.

Daniel 7:20

You were never oh, I was I was I leave. You were on eBay? Oh my god, I loved it.

Angela 7:25

Were you at the bottle of um Absinthe when we were in high school? Maybe please told me that bottle of absinthe was okay, just like minor. I know I'm not gonna take too long in this because I I want to get to your story, but like Daniel and I met in high school, and I think one of the first experiences I had after meeting you was you and like our then to become friend group. Well, I mean, I kind of infiltrated your friend your friend group. You guys had purchased a bottle of absinthe over the internet, and we were painters. So the Statue of Limitations has run out, and then you guys did an Absinthe ritual when it came. And like, like, what were you? You guys were honestly, I'm so glad I met you later in high school because I would still be grounded. I would still be grounded if I would still be grounded. We were maniacs.

Daniel 8:16

Well, I don't think we got that on eBay. I don't remember exactly where we got that, but some of the alcohol on the internet, yes, exactly. We're also alive.

Angela 8:23

Many people in our friend group have m have gone on to have very successful lives and careers, which I tell my parents all the time like you were so worried about us being maniacs, but half of us are doctors and the other half of us are corporate drones.

Daniel 8:35

Okay, so let's imagine you're on eBay back in this is uh the year 2003.

Angela 8:40

So take yourself back. We are still in high school, exactly.

Daniel 8:44

We are in high school.

Angela 8:45

Yeah, whereas we haven't even met yet.

Daniel 8:47

I mean yeah, maybe we were friends, I don't know. But George Bush was president. This was like height of Iraq war. I mean, this this is so this is.

Angela 8:55

Oh, the darkest time in my life politically to date. Wow.

Daniel 8:58

Almost like that would repeat itself 23 years later. We'll see. Um, but there was a post posted on eBay. And I'm I'll I'll let me just read the beginning of the post. We'll we'll we'll dissect the post, but it started by saying all of the events I'm about to set forth in this listing are accurate and may be verified by the winning bidder with the copies of hospital records and the sworn affidavits that I am including as part of the sale of this c of this cabinet. During September of 2001, I attended an estate sale in Portland, Oregon. The items liquidated at this sale were from the estate of a woman who had passed away at the age of 103. A granddaughter of the woman told me that her grandmother had been born in Poland, where she grew up, married, raised a family, and lived until she was sent to the Nazi concentration camp during World War II. She was the only member of her family who survived the camp. Her parents, brothers, a sister, husband, and two sons, and a daughter were all killed. She survived the camp and escaped to Spain, where she lived until the end of the war. I was told that she acquired this small wine cabinet listed here in Spain, and it was one of only three items that she brought with her when she immigrated to the United States. I purchased the wine cabinet. After the sale, I was approached by a woman by the woman's granddaughter who said, Oh, I see you got the Dibbook box. She was referring to the wine cabinet. I asked her what a Dibbuck box was, and she told me that when she was growing up, her grandmother always kept the wine cabinet in her sewing room. It was always shut and set in a place that was out of reach. The grandmother always called it the Dibbook box. When the girl asked her grandmother what was inside, her grandmother spit three times through her fingers and said a Dibbook and Kelsum. The grandmother went on to tell the girl that the wine cabinet was never, ever, ever to be opened.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Oh my god.

Daniel 10:45

Would you are you uh would you keep reading? Are you interested in the purchase or what would what are your thoughts so far?

Angela 10:52

I mean, I try not to bring uh sketchy cursed cabinets into my life often. Enough shit happens as it is. I would I mean stuff like that like freaks me out. I would have been like, okay, cool, and like push that box right back in her hands and scampered off.

Daniel 11:10

He goes on to say that the granddaughter did not want to open it. Her grandmother had been very emphatic and serious when she instructed her not to do so. And regardless of the reason why someone has opened the box, doesn't they? Spoiler alert, it's gonna open. I'll we're getting there. So he offered to let her keep the box because she he thought it was sentimental. And at that point, she was very insistent and said, No, you bought it. And so he explained that he didn't want his money back, that he would just it would be feel he'd feel better if she got to keep it. And she raised her voice and said, You bought it, you made a deal.

Angela 11:46

Oh my god, why did she even tell him in the first place? This is not how you do a crafty, shitty little deal, miss. Like you say, Oh my god, isn't that great? I think it's um I think it's left and I can't find the key, so please don't try to open it. It's it's not gonna happen. And then you just say, Have a nice day, and you send them along.

Daniel 12:05

So the seller, he actually he owned a small furniture uh refurnishing business, and that's why he bought the cabinet. He thought to himself, I'm gonna give this, I'm gonna refin refinish this and give it to my mom. Her birthday was coming up. So he brought it to his shop, and within an hour of having the box in his shop, he left right after leaving. He dropped it off and left. Within an hour of leaving, his employee called him hysterical, saying that there was a problem at the workshop, saying that an intruder had broken in, was breaking things, screaming, trashing stuff. So he raced back to the sh to the workshop and found his his employee huddled in a corner, hysterical in the in like the back office. And um he went and looked, he went down into the basement and s and smelled an extreme smell of cat urine. And there have never been animals that he isn't aware of in the in that building since he had been, you know, occupying the lease. Um the lights did not work because every single light bulb and fluorescent tube had been smashed in their sockets, and he never found an intruder, and his employee refused still to the day of the writing to talk about the events of that happening. And the employee quit.

Angela 13:13

It's like the ring. It's like the girl who witnessed Samara sucking the light buttons um Amber Tamplin. Yeah.

Daniel 13:20

Yeah.

Angela 13:21

And I thought you were gonna say that the guy, like within an hour, like got hit by a car or something. So, well, this is not a great outcome.

Daniel 13:29

Angela, he hadn't even opened the box yet.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

He's about to open the box.

Daniel 13:32

So then he opens the box.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

No. Oh my god, what an idiot.

Daniel 13:38

Inside the box he found, and I'll quote this: one 1928 US wheat penny, one 1925 US wheat penny, one small lock of blonde hair bound with string, one small lock of black brown hair bound with string. Both of those creep me out.

Angela 13:52

Well, okay, but like, isn't that common in witchcraft? Like hair. Yes, yes.

Daniel 13:58

Yeah, I mean, again, like hair, yeah, hair of your victim, a hair of your whatever.

Angela 14:03

None of these things have any value whatsoever. Like, if I could open an accursed box.

Daniel 14:08

I think we pennies sell for a little, a little change nowadays.

Angela 14:11

No, I want like bricks of gold, babies.

Daniel 14:13

Yeah, okay. In addition to the hair and the pennies, there was also a small granite statue engraved and gilded with Hebrew letters. He has been told that the letters spell out the word shalom.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Okay.

Daniel 14:24

But yeah, shalom, great words, greeting. Peace, right? Yeah, yeah. Uh, one dried rosebud, one golden wine cup, and one very strange black cast iron candlestick holder with octopus legs. So kind of just a strange like an assortment of random little bits, yeah, and hair. So he saved all the items, and then he decided not to refinish the cabinet because it wasn't actually in that bad a shape. It hadn't been opened for a long time.

Angela 14:52

It was I love how fearless this man is. Like, all of these things are happening around him. This is probably like the events of one day of his life where he's like, I have been told this is cursed. This woman was really weird at this sale. I get back to my shop, my uh shop worker is literally having a nervous breakdown, and yeah, well, full steam ahead. Let me pop this sucker open.

Daniel 15:13

Okay, well, it's about to get real serious, real worse. Um he decided to give it to his mom. He just rubbed some uh finishing oil on it, he didn't do a full restoration. He did also notice some uh Hebrew inscription carved on the back as well. He does not know uh in this posting, does not know what that inscription means. He brought his mom to the workshop. I'm just gonna read this part from the posting verbatim. On October 31st, 2001, my mother came to my shop. We were going to have lunch together, but before we were going to leave, I gave her the wine cabinet. She seemed to like it. While she examined it, I went to make a phone call. I hadn't been out of sight more than five minutes when one of my employees came running into my office saying something was wrong with my mom. When I went back to see what the matter was, I found my mom sitting in a chair beside the cabinet. Her face had no expression, but tears were streaming down her cheeks. No matter how hard I tried to get her to respond, she would not. She could not. It turns out that my mother had suffered a stroke. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance, she ended up suffering partial paralysis and losing her ability to speak and form words. She has since regained the ability to speak. She could not she could understand things being said to her and could respond by pointing to letters on the alphabet to spell out words. When I asked her the following day how she was doing, she teared up and spelled out the words N-O-G-I-F-T. I assured her that I had given her a gift for her birthday, thinking she didn't remember, but she became even more upset and spelled out the words H A T E G I F T. Yeah. So that is very, very good. And I will tell you, his mom appears, his mom appears in a televised show where she recounts this as well.

Angela 16:56

So she's like, Oh, like she so that was like a temporary.

Daniel 17:01

Yeah, she I watched her discuss. There was like a reenactment, she's not in the reactant, but there's a whole reenactment of this. In a years later, they'd end up doing a TV episode on. We'll talk, and she's in it. She talks about her experience here. He said still after the mom stroke, he had still not associated with the box. I'll he goes through a couple other issues. He gave it to his sister. His sister set had to give it back saying, Hey, the doors on this box, like I can't get them to stay closed. They keep opening on their own, and there was no mechanism to open the box. It was just hinges.

Angela 17:31

Listen.

Daniel 17:32

Yeah.

Angela 17:32

This man like what what is his life like and what is going on? What is rattling around inside his brain?

unknown 17:43

Yeah.

Angela 17:43

For him to have all these things happen and be like, but I'm still going. Like giving it to like like cause and effect, babe, pattern recognition.

Daniel 17:52

Yep. So his sister gave it back to him. He then gave it to his brother. His brother said he liked the box.

Angela 17:59

This man's a family annihilator at this point.

Daniel 18:02

His brother liked the box. He was like, Oh, it smells like jasmine. I really like it. But his wife insisted that it made the whole house smell of cat urine, and she made them give it back. So there's this weird cat urine smell thing. Like the husband smelled jasmine, but she smelled cat urine. I know scents are kind of subjective, but that's a weird one.

Angela 18:21

Those are very, very separate scents. Yeah. And like cat urine is like ammonia. Like there's no no way, unless I don't know though, because this man's stupidity could run in the family.

Daniel 18:31

So I'm actually gonna just go with who knows, who's to say one final kind of chilling moment is he got the box back from his brother then. So it went to his sister and his brother and came back. He also had noticed that he had been having these weird dreams at this time, and it was always this recurring dream where he'd be like talking with someone he knew, someone like you know, one of his you know best friends, a sibling, someone very close with him, and then all of a sudden this person would like start to look a little off, and then they would transform into this like old hag, he said, and this person, this like old decrepit woman would like attack him and beat him. And he said he claimed he was waking up with bruises in the places where she was attacking him.

Angela 19:12

Yeah, I am not surprised. If I were some evil spirit aligned to this box and someone was flat out like, do not open this box, and then this man opens the box five minutes later, unleashes it upon his entire family. I also would be visiting him in his dreams and beating the shit out of him. Like, you had one thing you were not supposed to do. There was one very clearly made request.

Daniel 19:36

Yeah, yeah. He then mentions these dreams to his siblings, and both his sister, brother, and sister-in-law all said they had very similar dreams. And he then called his girlfriend, who had been living with him at the time earlier, they were no longer no longer together. She had the same dreams as well, and they realized it was all when the box was in their houses. So after all this, it seems like this is when he decides to sell the box. So he says that's what did it. I'm gonna I'll read the end of essentially the last portion of the post verbatim. He says, I would destroy this thing in a second, except I really don't have any understanding of what I may or may not be dealing with. I am afraid, and I do mean afraid, that if I destroy the cabinet, whatever it is that seems to have come with the cabinet may just stay here with me. I have been told that there are people who shop on eBay that understand these kinds of things and specifically look for these kinds of items. If you are one of these people, please, please buy this cabinet and do whatever you do with things like this. Help me. You can see that I have no reserve price or minimum bid. If I can make things any easier, let me know, and I will do everything within my abilities. One more note on the same day my mom had her stroke, the lease to my store was summarily terminated without cause. The measurements are 12.5 inches by 7.5 inches by 16.8 inches. I love that detail. And then all of my all the items are originally found inside the cabinet are included in the sale and will be delivered delivered with the cabinet. End of post. I have such a low opinion of this man.

unknown 21:09

No.

Daniel 21:10

Okay.

Angela 21:10

Well, I don't I'm not his I'm not his audience. I'm not his um he's not trying to sell it to me because I wouldn't know what the hell to do with it. I would get out like I would I would line some crystals around it and and light some Palo Santo or something.

Daniel 21:26

So there there are there are two two words in that posting that I would say are, you know, that give clues to what is going on here and that we'll look into. And that was when the granddaughter said the two words that the the grandmother used when she asked what was in the box, and that was Dybbock and Kesselim. Now I googled Kesselim, I could not find that as a word. The guy said maybe he maybe misheard a word. There is a similar word in Hebrew that means idiot, but it's not that close. But Dibbock is absolutely a thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

My bat's not an idiot.

Daniel 22:00

It could be idiot, but Dibbo, a Dibbic is absolutely a thing in Jewish mythology, Jewish folklore, Jewish culture. It comes from the Hebrew word davek, dabek, and a bunch of old, you know. If I ever talk to you about etymology, I will always couch it in we don't like there's all forms of different words and we don't know how I a side story I was or a side track I was going into here looking at Hebrew words, they just don't write with vowels past like elementary school. It's like they teach kids vowels by writing them for little kids, and then they're just like as adults, they all read without vowels, they just infer them from context. So that was just wild.

unknown 22:34

What?

Daniel 22:35

Okay.

Angela 22:36

I mean, like a million things about the English language don't make sense, but that one takes the cake.

Daniel 22:41

Yeah, it's just like only children need vowels, and it's like, oh, okay. Anyway, so a lot of these like the words I was seeing were just like dbq, and I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce that. There's no vowels. So it's like davek, dabak, that would, but it means to cling. And so then they turned that into a noun, they nominalized it into dibuk, and then that went into Yiddish and became Dibek. And so that's just now a word. It's just a word, and it is a malicious, disembodied spirit who doesn't or couldn't pass on to the afterlife because of some sort of former sins, unfinished business, or just like I guess general despair in life or some sort of issue. And they they possess living beings, causing them to act out with bad behavior, like lewd and offensive language, uh, often sexual things.

Angela 23:27

I was gonna say this is like it follows. I was about to be like, did anybody try fucking somebody to make this curse end?

Daniel 23:35

There's often there's often uh similar to stories of the incubus, uh uh is very similar. Like a lot of times it's a male spirit in uh possessing a female spirit via sex. So there's there's a lot, you know, there's very tons of versions, but but it's a it is a spirit that could not move on, that clings to a person, and it's so it is a possession type spirit. Um they must be exercised. There are tons of rituals and practitioners. This is this was super popular back in like the 16th, 17th centuries. This is when these these stories started to first be heard.

Angela 24:10

Um well, if we've learned anything about that time period, it was wild and out. So I bet there were a lot of souls that were like, I mean, Charles the Bold, who we talked about in the Sansy Diamond episode. Yeah, if I were that guy, I mean, I could see him doing some shitty shit like this.

Daniel 24:29

Yeah. One thing I did I usually exorcisms to me are kind of a terrifying affair. I'm sure all of these Dibbuck exorcisms are terrifying, but one thing I did like when I was reading about them, it's the exorcism focused, of course, on expelling the Dibbook, but it also focuses on helping the Dibbook move on to the afterlife. So to me, I'm like, oh, what a nice exorcism. Yeah, like we yeah, just like win-win for everyone. Um yeah.

Angela 24:53

Does anybody throw up pea soup?

Daniel 24:55

Yeah, no, I I don't think I didn't read about that.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

No projectile vomiting.

Daniel 25:00

Um so these stories obviously were cycling through Jewish folklore for centuries. Um, but in like modern mainstream culture, the first real example of it is in a 1920 play called The Dibok or Between Two Worlds by author playwright S. Anski. That's a pen name. Um, and then eventually in 1937, they made a Yiddish film adaption. So it is in the popular culture this concept of a Dibok. The playwright had heard these stories, and he actually one f there's a a famous, uh, famous historical person he based his play partly on was um there was Samuel Kamikina Mirapal. He was an exorcist, a rabba, a rabbi. Again, uh these words seem to have lots of different forms. Right. He was famous for exercising Dybbux, but also there was the only woman to ever take on this role in Jewish folklore was an was a woman named Hannah Rachel Werbermacher. A lot of these like Jewish religious roles were sort of just gender roles, and she took on the male gender roles in a lot of religious practice, and there was no there wasn't really someone like saying who could and could not be like a a priest like with the Catholic Church.

Angela 26:08

It was like she just My neighbor growing up, she's a rabbi now.

Daniel 26:13

Yeah, sorry, this is sorry, this is a very specific like Hasidic group. Oh, okay. But because she went against those gender roles, they think maybe that's kind of like they people said she herself was possessed by a divok potentially because she was acting not as a woman should act, maybe. And so the main character of that play is sort of based on her in a like really kind of crappy way that it's like, oh yeah, exactly. So there's there's a lot of interesting history there, and a lot of like like gender rules play into this.

Angela 26:43

Yeah, like sexism and like really twisted sexism. Wow.

Daniel 26:47

But I mean, I don't think we would say religious traditions are often treat men and women, you know, treating men and women differently is often how religions go throughout history. So yeah, it's just that so there's there's a whole lot of history here, but I guess here's the most important thing is could Dibbox possess inanimate objects? Could you trap Dibbics in something? That is something I have not seen anywhere, and nobody seems to think is a thing at all.

Angela 27:16

I've seen it.

Daniel 27:17

What have you seen?

Angela 27:19

Harry Potter.

Daniel 27:21

Exactly. So the ide but that's the thing. The idea of trapping spirits, there there's very famous things. There are gin traps, like gin genies in in uh Middle Eastern folklore. The genie in a bottle, trapping them in a bottle. That's like trapping a gin, a spirit. And gin are very like the whole genie gin thing is we're gonna be.

Angela 27:41

Are you saying gin like DJ I N?

Daniel 27:44

Yes, yeah, yeah, and so like those, they're not necessarily like we Western culture is a big thing.

Angela 27:49

By the way, I am I'm obviously talking about Bogards, by the way. Yeah, exactly. In Harry Potter.

Daniel 27:53

In Harry Potter, yeah. So yeah, but like trapping gin genies in bottles or jars is a thing. Um, also there's these things called incantation bowls, which is a bowl that has like a uh charm or an incantation, starts on the rim and it spirals into the center. The idea is you put it upside down in the corner of your house and a demon or bad spirit starts to read and then reads inward and gets trapped in the bowl. There's actually Jewish incantation bowls. So like there are I've never heard of that. Yeah, yeah.

Angela 28:22

Now I want one. I'm like, where do you get an incantation bowl? I want one.

Daniel 28:25

Yeah, well, they they come from they come from uh late antiquity. They started, this was like this, which is like the year 250 to 750 rush, roughly, in what is now modern day Iran and Iraq. So they came from, you know, the middle of the year.

Angela 28:36

So I can probably find one at the British Museum or something.

Daniel 28:38

Exactly. Exactly. Um, but there are there are Jewish versions. There are Hebrew, there are from Jewish heritage, Jewish folklore. There are Jewish versions of incantation bowls. So like maybe they would have used the bowl to trap a Dybbock instead. So that it just doesn't seem like the story of the Dybbock actually makes sense for a Dibbock box. There's no like that's not a thing. So let's go back to the eBay post and see what happened. So someone did buy well, yeah, someone bought it. I know oh, we know where the box goes.

Angela 29:07

We there's a oh, okay. I like I thought we were getting to that, and now I'm better to correct my knuckles and get get settled in.

Daniel 29:16

There's actually more to the post. He added some more details before it even sold.

Angela 29:20

I was just gonna say, I love like I love when you go and like find something ominous, and then there's like you're reading it and you're like so caught up in it, and then it gets to the bottom, and it's like two years later, the person has come in and updated, and then it's like exactly it's like an epilogue. Yeah.

Daniel 29:35

Here's what he added. He said, There's no way I can respond to all the emails I've received since I put this thing online. I'll try now to update and answer the most common questions I've been receiving. No, I am not religious. No, I do not wish to have a participate in any sort of exorcism or case study or photo sessions at my home. No, I will not sell the individual pieces. No, I do not speak Hebrew, nor do I know what the word Kesselim means. I do not know what the word is or even or if it is even a Hebrew word. At the end of the auction, I've decided to take an opportunity to speak with the winning bidder for two reasons. A, to make sure the winning bidder is a serious adult who has uh employed some valid reasoning skills in making the decision to accept whatever this is. I will not be judgmental, and B to offer full details of the events that have transpired. So he essentially adds this, and then he further added a little uh a final thing saying that I will not like people had clearly been generating a lot of interest, so he's saying, like, no, I won't go outside eBay, we're doing this through eBay. Um, and he says, also, for those of you wanting to know if I am still experiencing anything out of the ordinary, I thought everything was going okay until I got home on Friday, the 13th of June, and found that the fish in my freshwater aquarium, all 10, were dead. I'm still hoping that all of this is coincidental crap.

Angela 30:54

That is the I appreciate that this man is starting to take this seriously, but he like sacrificed 99% of his family to the Divik before he even started to think something might be connected.

Daniel 31:06

Um so a college student in Missouri bought it.

Angela 31:12

What? I thought he was supposed to be vetting these purchases for$140.

Daniel 31:17

And he then reloaded-charged for this? What a twat!

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Like, I hate this man. Send it back and destroy him.

Daniel 31:26

Like, geez. It was bought and then relisted quite shortly after, and in the relisting, he the the new the seller complains of horrible things happening to him, such as hair loss, car troubles, and strange smells.

Angela 31:40

Um I actually would enjoy a little bit of hair loss if I could just direct it at specific locations. Do we know where the box is now?

Daniel 31:47

Yeah, well uh we do. I'll get to it. I'm sorry. Uh so then that guy resold it. It was then bought by a man named Jason Haxton, who is actually the professor of the original seller's roommate who heard of the box and went online to buy it because he wanted to buy it. He bought it for$280, not too bad about it.

Angela 32:05

Why are people making money off of this? Has nobody like thought anything about karma or like do you uh Yeah.

Daniel 32:14

So this Jason Haxton guy, this Jason Haxton guy really seems to like take it. He really takes it into like a media frenzy. He starts doing more like he writes a book about it called the Dibbook Box, and he tells us as his true account of his acquisition of the box, the unfortunate events that unfolded afterwards. Um, he allegedly sealed the box in a custom gold-lined military-grade container and then buried that for good measure. So he seems to have had bad encounters with it, but he wrote a whole book about it. That book was turned into the movie in 2012, eventually was released into a movie called The Possession, which I actually had like a recovered memory that I've seen this movie. I was looking at it, I was like, huh. And it was a very strange movie. It's about a you know, people who essentially get a Dibbic box and then the little daughter gets possessed by the Dibbick inside. Um it was produced by Sam Raimi. Uh on the set of that movie, they the director of that movie, Ole Born It All in, told Entertainment Weekie Weekly that really strange things happened on set. There was um during production, uh he was standing under a light fixture that wasn't even turned on and it just exploded right over his head and rained glass down. And then also, right after they stopped filming, a strange fire destroyed all of the props from the movie. So just some creepy things.

Angela 33:34

What if it was like fire destroying cursed sets?

Daniel 33:38

Mm-hmm. Um, so this guy, he got it, he supposedly had issues, he turned it into a whole thing. And then also, do you know who Zach Baggins is?

Angela 33:47

Um, any relation to Bilbo?

Daniel 33:50

No, no. He's Zach Baggins was is a like a ghost hunter. He's from the show um Ghost Adventures.

Angela 33:57

By the way, I love that you like were so serious. Just like, no. I appreciate what you're not calling me on my stupid shit today.

Daniel 34:09

I mean, I mean, the dude's name is Baggins. Uh side note, I I used to have a crush on him back in the day. He as I you know you knew who this person was. Oh my yeah, he was yeah, he was like the internet ghost hunter. Yeah, so he's this like ghost hunter. He's got a million shows, all these spin-offs. His show is where I saw the original, the original poster, the original eBay poster, Kevin Manis. He and his mom both appear and discuss what happened. They they appear on camera. Jason Haxton eventually gave Zach Baggins the box. It now resides at Zack Baggins. He has a museum in Las Vegas where it resides. It is one of his quote, big four haunted items. The other three being the Annabelle doll, Busby's stoop chair, and an unlucky mummy. I'm not sure what all those are. Future things will have to make this surely. And maybe a trip we'll have to make someday.

Angela 34:59

The Annabelle doll has been on a tear lately, so it I can think of a few addresses where I where I could direct the Dybbuck box to.

Daniel 35:08

Um, there's a little bit of lore before I have a really important interview that Kevin Manis did uh in 2021, just a few years ago. So Zach Baggins took the box from uh from Jason Hexton after Jason Hexton had a bunch of issues, wrote a book, a movie was made about it. Zach Baggins has it, there's they've done many episodes about it. There is in July twuly 2nd, 2020, they aired an episode during Ghost Adventures Quarantine, one of his many spin-offs during when they were locked inside for the pandemic. They opened the box on their show. In the episode, not that much happens. There's both basically negative feelings. They like they say, Oh, I felt a rush, I felt a warm wave hit me. Zach Baggins claims because he's the owner of the box, the box knows it's him and doesn't affect him as much. But there was famously in 2018, a video went viral from the museum when Zach Baggins was touching the box and post Malone was there touching Zach Baggins. That went viral as post Malone becoming a victim of the Dybbuck box because right after that, his private plane had an emergency landing where it nearly crashed, and he um his house was broken into and he had a bad car accident all within a short while after being encountered with the box. So there was in so in Twitter exactly, right? So in so there's you know the the Dybbuck box has taken on this internet lore. It's become a thing people talk about. There's movies about it, there's books about it, there's you know, there's you can just find posts about people talk about it, there's supposed folklore behind it, and it seems really scary.

Angela 36:43

Well, okay, so one thing, who dug the box up? Like Zach Baggins, because you said how like the professor buried the box.

Daniel 36:52

Yeah, yeah, he brought yeah, he brought it back up and gave it to and and dug it back up and gave it.

Angela 36:56

And like Zach Baggins, is that wait, what was his name? Zach Baggins, yeah. Zach Baggins.

Daniel 37:02

Not my current crush, but but my 2000 whatever crush. Whatever.

Angela 37:06

Sure. What was attractive about him is he hot or something? Because this man sounds to me just like an absolute like walk into a wall and see how it's gonna be a big thing.

Daniel 37:13

Honestly, honestly, honestly, he has like big biceps. That's what did it for me back when I Okay, wow. I know, it's oh god. Anyway, Zach.

Angela 37:25

Can I interest you in a viewing of the mummy by chance? Can I get you on the right track for where you should be directing your sexual awakenings? Um, okay, here's what I like it gives me the ick how much they like have turned it into a spectacle and do like it it just like rubs me the wrong way that there are all these TV shows where they're literally like, let me a raging biseptical dumbass, like raging biseptical. I made amazing. Nobody wanna come in at me. I made that one happen. Um like it drives me nuts that like they show no respect. Like, if there is one thing to be said for these things, like the whole story that you told, this is not something that a man named Zach Baggins should be picking around.

Daniel 38:20

Like well, let me give you. Let me give you one last spectacle they made, and then I will get to the this important turn. So uh they the last like lore they expanded, they even started talking about that this was one of ten other Dybbuk boxes, each of which, like, that some Jewish women back in World War II summoned a Dybbuk to help them fight the Nazis, but they're not gonna be.

Angela 38:47

Yeah, exactly why Zach Baggins means to step back.

Daniel 38:50

But they couldn't control, and so then it's like, oh, they separated the Dybbuk they lost control of into ten pieces, and if all ten boxes come together, then like everything.

Angela 38:59

Is there a single original idea in the Harry Potter books, by the way?

Daniel 39:02

Yeah, maybe not. So that so they clearly are getting ahead of themselves. But in 2021, Kevin Manis, the original poster, the original guy who bought the box from this Holocaust uh survivor, yeah, he gave an interview to Input Magazine's Charles Moss, and he full stop admitted it was all a hoax. He says, yes, he quote I will as a quote, he says, I am a creative writer. The Dibbock Box is a story that I created, and the Dibbak Box story has done exactly what I intended it to do when I posted it 20 years ago, which is to become an interactive horror story in real time, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Oh my god! Holy crap! Okay, do I do I love that or hate that?

Daniel 39:55

Oh yeah. I've I've let me keep going. So the wine cabinet was bought at a yard sale, but from an attorney, not a Holocaust survivor. He Kevin inscribed, did the carving on the back of the Okay.

Angela 40:08

Kevin needs to not stick around in uh something as painful as the Holocaust, but everything else I'm kind of impressed by.

Daniel 40:16

I agreed, yeah. Um uh yeah, there's actually there's another article I read while looking for this, Kenny Biddle uh of Skeptical Inquirer. He had a great article. All these uh the articles I mentioned will be in the show notes, by the way. But he, uh Kenny Biddle, actually tracked down the exact model like that was produced that is the wine rack that and it came and it it did not come from Spain, it was from it was manufactured in.

Angela 40:41

Oh my god.

Daniel 40:44

Yeah.

Angela 40:44

Okay, well, this brings about a whole new like brain melt of questions. Yeah, I create a curse.

Daniel 40:56

That's where I'm getting there. Well, and here's the thing in 2015, it seems he may be admitted to it already. So six years before, even. So, like, even like right when Zach Baggins was getting the box, apparently there's a post that now is from a a screen name that's just Kevin Manis's name and like now seems super real, and it says this was October 2015. He says, I am the original creator of the story of the Dibbook box, which appeared as one of many eBay posts back in 2020. The idea that Dibbook boxes have some kind of history prior to my story, and the idea that a Dibbook box could contain anything other than a Dibbook, along with any deviation of the types of contents I created to be found inside of a Dibbook box, is laughable at best. How about this? If you or anyone else can find any reference to a Dybbook box anywhere in history prior to my eBay post, I'll pay you$100,000 and tattoo your name on my forehead. So, like the guy was clearly just messing with people and loving it. But but here's the wildest story. I told you his mom was in that show, right? Yeah, in the article, the uh uh the the interviewer is like, your mom participated in this, and he's like, Yeah, she was cool. She gave an Oscar-worthy performance and agreed to play along with it. She did suffer a stroke, they did not make that up, but like his mom was just along with it. I mean, and then he apparently reached out to Jason Haxton as well to be like, Okay, buddy, like you know we're both doing the same thing, right? And apparently, in a phone call or a moment with Jason Haxton, Jason Haxton was like, you don't need to lie between us. And like, like Jason Haxton essentially saw what Kevin Manis was doing. He's like, I mean, he wrote a book out of it, he made a bunch of money. Yeah, and so like yeah, it's it's I like what you're saying. This is when I was reading this, I was super interested, and then I was like, Oh, it's full, like it's not even like probably fake, it is just fake. And it's like, but that's interesting because A, has he created a curse? Like, he did say in that interview, and this could just be his showmanship still, but he says that the blowback after admitting it has felt like the curse. He says, I feel like I'm being hit with the curse all over again.

Angela 43:06

So it's like his like it's just what like have we uh have we considered in much detail like I feel like there could be an entire other podcast about like karma, and or I think like well, I don't know, because I feel like karma can be a little bit less um like of a tangible thing. But like, is it a curse or is it karma? Because that is so fucked up. Like, but it's like sort of funny too.

Daniel 43:37

Um and and people still there's still people who say, I've had the Dybbuk box of my possession, I had bad things happen. Zach Baggins says, you know, I like the countless number of people who have felt these things or experienced these things cannot be denied.

Angela 43:49

So yeah, but Zach Baggins has something to gain or lose, or I guess. So of course, whatever. But like all those people who have to then go. Watch a video back of themselves being like, uh, there was a wave of hot air coming out of it. It's like, you know where the hot air was coming from.

Daniel 44:07

The hot air was definitely from Kevin Manis and Jason Hackson. So I guess that is like, you know, but it I there's still the thing, like, it's would you accept the Divbuck box? If someone said put it in your house. Exactly. So you you've been told it's fake, but it still creeps you out, right?

Angela 44:24

Yeah. No, I mean I I think um uh I think I yeah. Common sense, rationality, all those things, these none of these men seem to have, I'm not messing with it.

Daniel 44:38

Yeah. I do love the little like showiness competition between like Kevin and Jason guy and Zach Maggins. They're all kind of like trying to like, they're all like, it's like old-timey showmanship, like almost like carnival callers or something.

Angela 44:52

But like I guess. I'm gonna be honest. If I if I was like a spirit, if I had died and I found out that there was this whole like realm of possibility where you know, say, I mean, I personally think that ghosts and the supernatural is like energy transfers and like latent energy. Um, but so I don't think it's anything that's actually happening, like connected to someone who like it's not the afterlife. Anyway, long story short. Um, but if I died and like found out that things like that, there was like a certain department of the afterlife that was like, alright, like when people fuck around, you're the ones who make them find out. Like my I would have had a field day with this. I would have cackled like a little maniacal crone and gotten to work. If I was listening to like if I was like a like a supernatural spirit looking over Kevin Manis' shoulder as he's like typing out his little story, I would be like, uh-huh. Like I would literally be like, yeah, cool, like this is gonna be a fun one.

Daniel 45:50

Yeah, so yeah, I mean, I I was like, I mean, the the post was well written. It was it's an like he did a good job. Like, and I did I didn't read tons of uh Jason Haxton's book because it was like, well, how much am I gonna put into just things people are?

Angela 46:04

I hope you didn't give that man any money.

Daniel 46:06

No, I was no, I did not. I was much more interested in reading about you know the history of it and everything, but like, yeah, it once it became clear that it was a full-on made-up thing, it it took on a different angle for me. It's like it's interesting to see the creation. We've essentially since 2003 seen the creation of an entirely new urban legend.

Angela 46:27

Right, and that is so I didn't even think about it that way. Oh my god.

Daniel 46:31

Yeah, it's like in our lifetimes we've witnessed that happen, and it and people are told, hey, this can't be true. Just like people were told, you know, like, oh, the guy with the hook on his hand was never true. Like, oh no, but my so-and-so knows that it happened to my brother's sister-in-law, and now everyone's like, oh my no, I went to the vague the museum in Vegas and I felt it in the room. I mean, it makes sense.

Angela 46:52

Oh my god.

Daniel 46:53

Yeah.

Angela 46:54

I have not been, I have been to Vegas, but I've not been to that museum, so I'm a little bit sad that I do not have another one of our curses. We'll have to make a pilgrimage.

Daniel 47:04

Maybe once we cover all four of the maybe once we cover all four of those big items, we can we can go and really test fake.

Angela 47:10

Oh fine, fine, okay, we'll do that. That's you've heard it here first. We're going to Vegas. Um we have to do that. We've got plenty of time to cover those four. God, yeah. The other three. Um Annabelle, Dybbock Box, who are who are our other two that we have to Busby's stoop chair and the unlucky mummy.

Daniel 47:31

So we'll have to look into those. Yeah.

Angela 47:33

I know some of those are on our list already. This is gonna be like Slaps Giving, where like every once in a while we'll pop one of these. No, literally, we're gonna do this. We're gonna put one of these in these episodes in here and there, and then once we hit all four, we're going to Vegas and we'll do an episode in Vegas. Yeah.

Daniel 47:52

Yep.

Angela 47:52

And I'm gonna be spending I'm gonna be spending the entire time being a little rat about it because I don't enjoy Vegas, but and so would you would will you touch the Dybbuk box when we go? Game time decis. But me having to go to Vegas to uh see a cursed box feels a bit like our Russian doll effect happening because to me, Vegas is a curse. No, I'm just kidding. I don't hate Vegas that much. I just like wouldn't choose to go there.

Daniel 48:19

Well, I I've got one other question for you then. There are, if you go on eBay right now and search for Dybbuk box, you'll find countless, countless, countless listings. Would you buy one?

Angela 48:29

No. Would you?

Daniel 48:32

Uh no. I've like I said, Do you have one coming in the mail now? No, no, God, no. Like, I don't I don't believe this is true. Like, you look at a Dibbo, a Dibic can't there's no there's no reason a Dibbic should be in a box, but I still wouldn't mess with it. That's creepy. No.

Angela 48:44

I have a follow-up question. When you die and they were like, what if you died and whatever happens was like, okay, you can go on and you know go on your merry way and do whatever, or you can spend a hundred years as a Dibbic fucking with people left and right. Would you do it?

Daniel 49:02

It doesn't sound like the worst existence, to be honest.

Angela 49:04

It sounds like fun. I don't think I've had a few more than a different thing.

Daniel 49:09

Honestly, it sounds like a mixed like like you know, there's some bad parts, but I mean you could have some fun as a Dybbock.

Angela 49:14

I don't think that I have enough like fury in my soul to really do it justice. Um, but I would love it if that were an option. I don't think I would do it because I think I would honestly be kind of bad at it. Um, but if it were an option, I would cackle.

Daniel 49:31

Yeah, yeah. Uh I think that's, you know, definitely a good idea. And uh, well, that's cursed-ish.

Angela 49:38

Yeah, maybe cursed, maybe not, or maybe it's a typic box, and who the fuck knows?

unknown 49:43

Exactly.

Angela 49:44

Alright, we'll see you guys next week.

Daniel 49:55

Cursedish is an ish media production. It explores stories of alleged curses, historical mysteries, and supernatural claims. While we do investigate the history and the evidence behind these stories, ultimately you should decide for yourself what to believe. If you have questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share, send us a hex at uh oh at cursedish.com. That's uh oh u h o h all one word at cursed all one word.com.