In his Closer Look column in Skeptical Inquirer online, in January 2019 investigator Kenny Biddle reviewed the Dibbuk Box he found on display in Zak Bagans Haunted Museum in Las Vegas. Ī duplicate box Biddle ordered online following his investigation, complete with actual spirits. An important 1914 Yiddish play The Dybbuk was about the spirit of a dead man who possessed the living body of the woman he had loved, and had to be exorcised.Nowhere in the folkloric literature is there precedent for a dybbuk inhabiting a box or other inanimate object. The Encyclopedia Mythica describes it as "a disembodied spirit possessing a living body that belongs to another soul" and usually talks from that person's mouth. The whole idea of the box being inhabited by a dybbuk (דיבבוק) is nonsensical, according to what a dybbuk is supposed to be. In 2014, skeptical author Brian Dunning investigated the dybuuk box legend and determined that,
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Put it like this: I would be happy to own this object."
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If you believe you have been cursed, then inevitably you explain the bad stuff that happens in terms of what you perceive to be the cause. Ĭhris French, head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths' College, said the box's owners were "already primed to be looking out for bad stuff. Jim Willis opined that the story was most likely "a very elaborate hoax,” but that his opinion "takes all the fun away” from the popular urban legend. Cal State anthropology professor and folklore specialist Elliott Oring criticized claims about the cabinet, saying, “Go through you will see areas that seem to require suspending critical functions". They allow people to make some sense of a chaotic world.” Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand noted that the story features "a supernatural angle" and "first-person narrative" a variation on typical urban legends. Mott said the story "taps into our belief that out in the world there is a supernatural evil that will attack anyone regardless of how good they are. Mott, “we embrace such stories because they tap into our own fears and prejudices". In 2018, fans of rapper Post Malone claim his spate of bad luck was caused by his contact with the cabinet. Haxton later gave the cabinet to Ghost Adventures star Zak Bagans to display in his museum. The subsequent film The Possession, produced by Sam Raimi, was released in 2012. In 2004, Haxton sold the rights to the story to a Hollywood production company. One owner, Jason Haxton, Director of the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Missouri, launched a website that consolidated claims about the cabinet called "" that reportedly received hundreds of thousands of hits and created what has been described as an "internet legend". Subsequent owners retold Mannis' story when reselling the item and amplified it with their own claims of "strange phenomena".
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Make no mistake, I conceived of the Dybbuk Box – the name, the term, the idea – and wrote this creative story around it to post on eBay." Mannis' auction description included a story claiming the cabinet was previously owned by a survivor of the Holocaust in Poland who said it contained the malicious spirit of a dybbuk, and that the box had paranormal powers and was responsible for his bad luck and nightmares.
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The stone that was in the box is something that is a signature creation of mine also. According to Mannis, "The carving in the back of it is my carving. In 2003, Portland, Oregon writer and furniture refinishing business owner Kevin Mannis purchased the cabinet from the yard sale of a local attorney and began developing a backstory.