German translation
| First buyer | Second
buyer | Current owner
Here is the story of the haunted wine box, exactly as it appeared
on eBay. You form your own opinion.
The first
buyer an antique buyer-refinisher
All
of the events that I am about to set forth in this listing
are accurate and may be verified by the winning bidder with
the copies of hospital records and sworn affidavits that I
am including as part of the sale of the 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 grand-daughter
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 a 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
by escaping with some other prisoners and somehow making her
way to Spain where she lived until the end of the war. I was
told that she acquired the 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. The other
two items were a steamer trunk, and a sewing box.
I purchased
the wine cabinet, along with the sewing box and some other
furniture at the estate sale. After the sale, I was approached
by the woman's granddaughter who said, I see you got the dibbuk
box. She was referring to the wine cabinet. I asked her what
a dibbuk 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 dibbuk box.
When the girl asked her grandmother what was inside, her grandmother
spit three times through her fingers said, a dibbuk, and keselim.
The grandmother went on to tell the girl that the wine cabinet
was never, ever, to be opened.
The
granddaughter told me that her grandmother had asked that
the box be buried with her. However, as such a request was
contrary to the rules of an orthodox Jewish burial, the grandmothers
request had not been honored. I asked the granddaughter what
a dibbuk, and keselim were, but she did not know. I asked
if she would like to open it with me. She did not want to
open it, as her grandmother had been very emphatic and serious
when she instructed her not to do so, and, regardless of the
reason, she wanted to honor her grandmother’s request.
I finally
ended up offering to let her keep what seemed to me to be
a sentimental keepsake. At that point, she was very insistent
and said, No, no you bought it!
I explained
that I didn’t want my money back, and that it would make me
feel better to do what I thought was an act of kindness. She
then became somewhat upset. Looking back now, the way she
became upset was just plain odd. She raised her voice to me
and said, you bought it! You made a deal!
When
I tried to speak, she yelled, we don't want it! She began
to cry, asked me to leave, and quickly walked away. I wrote
the whole episode off to the stress and grief she must have
been experiencing. I took my purchases and politely left.
At
the time when I bought the cabinet, I owned a small furniture
refinishing business. I took the cabinet to my store, and
put it in my basement workshop where I intended to refinish
it and give it as a gift to my Mother. I didn't think anything
more about it. I opened my shop for the day and went to run
some errands leaving the young woman who did sales for
me in charge.
After
about a half-hour, I got a call on my cell phone. The call
was from my salesperson. She was absolutely hysterical and
screaming that someone was in my workshop breaking glass and
swearing. Furthermore, the intruder had locked the iron security
gates and the emergency exit and she couldn't get out. As
I told her to call the police, my cell phone battery went
dead. \ I hit speeds of 100 mph getting back to the shop.
When I arrived, I found the gates locked. I went inside and
found my employee on the floor in a corner of my office sobbing
hysterically. I ran to the basement and went downstairs. At
the bottom of the stairs, I was hit by an overpowering unmistakable
odor of cat urine (there had never been any animals kept or
found in my shop). The lights didn't work. As I investigated,
I found that the reason the lights didn't work also explained
the sounds of glass breaking. All of the light bulbs in the
basement were broken. All nine incandescent bulbs had been
broken in their sockets, and 10 four-foot fluorescent tubes
were lying shattered on the floor. I did not find an intruder,
however. I should also add that there was only one entrance
to the basement. It would have been impossible for anyone
to leave without meeting me head-on. I went back up to speak
with my salesperson, but she had left.
She
never returned to work (after having been with me for two
years). She refuses to discuss the incident to this day. I
never thought of relating the events of that day to anything
having to do with the cabinet.
Then,
things got worse.
As
I already indicated, I had decided to give the cabinet to
my Mother as a birthday gift. About two weeks after I made
the purchase, I decided to get started refinishing it. I was
surprised to find that the cabinet has a unique little mechanism.
When you open one of the doors, the mechanism causes the opposite
door, and the little drawer below, to open at the same time.
It is very well made. Inside the cabinet, I found the following
items: 1 1928 U.S. Wheat Penny; 1 1925 US 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.
I saved
all of the items in a box intending to return them to the
estate. The family has refused the items, so they will be
included in this sale of the cabinet.
After
opening the cabinet, I decided not to refinish it. I cleaned
it, and rubbed in some lemon oil. It was at this time that
I noticed that there was an inscription in Hebrew carved into
the back of the cabinet. I have no idea what it says or if
it is significant. I have included a picture of that inscription
below. On my mother’s birthday, October 28, 2001, my mother
called to tell me that she was going out of town with my sister
for three days, and we postponed celebrating her birthday
together until she returned. On October 31, 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 5 minutes
when one of my employees came running into my office saying
that 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 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
understand things being said to her, and could respond by
pointing to letters of the alphabet to spell out words she
wanted to say. 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 that she didn’t remember, but she became even more
upset and spelled out the words: H-A-T-E G-I-F-T. I laughed
and told her not to worry. I told her I was sorry she didn’t
like the cabinet, and that I would get her anything she wanted
if she would promise to get well soon.
Still,
I didn't associate anything that had happened with the cabinet
itself or anything paranormal. Frankly, I don’t think I ever
even used the term paranormal until this last month.
I'll
try to make this short now. I gave the cabinet to my sister.
She kept it for a week, then gave it back. She complained
that she couldn't get the doors to stay closed and that they
kept coming open. There are no springs in the door mechanism
and I have never found that the doors come open. I gave it
to my brother and his wife who kept it for three days and
then gave it back. My brother said it smelled like Jasmine
flowers, while his wife insisted that it put out an odor of
cat urine. I gave it to my girlfriend who asked me to sell
it for her after only two days. I sold it the same day to
a nice middle aged couple. Three days later, when I came to
open the shop for the day, I found the cabinet sitting at
the front doors with a note that read, This has a bad darkness.
I had no idea what that meant. Anyway, I ended up taking it
home.
Then,
things got even worse.
Since
the day I brought it home, I began having a strange recurring
nightmare. Every time I have the horrible dream it goes something
like this: I find myself walking with a friend, usually someone
I know well and trust at some point in the dream, I find myself
looking into the eyes of the person that I am with. It is
then that I realize that there is something different, something
evil looking back at me. At that point in my dream, the person
I am with changes into what can only be described as the most
gruesome, demonic looking Hag that I have ever seen. This
Hag proceeds then, to beat the living tar out of me. I have
awakened numerous times to find bruises and marks on myself
where I had been hit by the old woman during the previous
night. Still, I never related the nightmares to the cabinet,
nor do I think that I ever would have.
About
a month ago, however, my sister, and my brother and his wife
came over to my house and spent the night. The following morning,
during breakfast, my sister complained that she had had a
horrible nightmare. She said that she recalled having had
it a couple of times before, and went on to describe my nightmare
exactly to the last detail. My brother and his wife froze
as they listened, and then chimed in that they had both had
had the exact same dreams during the night as well. The hair
was standing up on the back of my neck and still is. As we
talked, it became clear that the common denominator was that
each of us had had the nightmare during the times that the
cabinet was in our respective homes. I called my girlfriend
and asked if she could recall having any nightmares recently.
She described the same nightmare, same Hag, everything. When
I asked her if she remembered the date when she had the nightmare,
she said she did not. Then I
asked if it happened to be the night before she gave me the
cabinet back to sell for her. She said, Yeah! Hey, how did
you know that?!!!
Now
then, since my family discussion, it seems like all hell is
breaking loose. For a week afterward I started seeing what
I can only describe as shadow things in my peripheral vision.
In fact, numerous visitors to my house have claimed that they
have seen these shadow things. I put the cabinet in an outside
storage unit and was awakened when the smoke alarm in the
unit went off in the middle of the night. When I went to see
what was burning, I opened the door and didn’t see any smoke.
However, I did get hit with the smell of cat urine. When I
went back inside, the smell was there in my house. I DO NOT
OWN A CAT AND I NEVER HAVE. I went back outside and grabbed
the cabinet. I brought it back inside and tried to research
it on the Internet. While I was surfing the net, I fell asleep
and once again had the same freakin nightmare. I woke up at
around 4:30am (when it felt and smelled like someone was breathing
on my neck) to find that my house now smelled like Jasmine
flowers, and just in time to see a HUGE shadow thing go loping
down the hall away from me.
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 a thing 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" x 7.5" x 16.25"
ALL
OF THE ITEMS THAT I ORIGINALLY FOUND INSIDE THE CABINET ARE
INCLUDED IN THE SALE AND WILL BE DELIVERED WITH THE CABINET.
On
Jun-12-03 at 02:15:30
PDT, seller added the following information:
There is no way that I can respond to all of the e-mails I've received since
I put this thing on-line. I'll try now to update and answer
the most common questions I've been receiving.
1. No, I am not religious.
2. No, I do not wish to have or participate in any sort of exorcism, or case
study, or photo sessions at my home.
3. No, I will not sell any of the individual pieces which were originally found
separate from the other pieces and the cabinet.
4. No, I do not speak Hebrew nor do I know what the word "keselim"
means. I don't know that the word is even
or or a Hebrew word.
5. At the end of the auction, I have decided to take an opportunity to speak
with the winning bidder for two reasons: a.)To make sure that
the winning bidder is a serious adult who has employed some
valid reasoning skills in making the decision to accept whatever
this is. I will not be judgmental. Do whatever you want or need
after the sale. b.)To offer full details of the events that
have transpired. After I have carried out those responsibilities,
and upon payment, I will have the cabinet and its contents delivered
by U.S.MAIL, FED-EX, or UPS to the winning bidder. At that point,
I will have no further involvement with the matter in any way,
shape, or form. Period.
6.) To all of you who have offered to pray, I may not be religious, but I am
certainly open to the possibilities --no matter what your religion
might be. THANK YOU!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Jun-14-03 at 05:216 PDT, seller added the following information:
Here is another update for everyone following this listing.
NO! No, I will not circumvent, or make any deals outside of
EBAY - EVEN FOR MORE MONEY THAN THE FINAL AUCTION PRICE!!! If
you want to win the auction and have the kind of money some
of you are offering, there shouldn't be any reason why you cannot
simply place your bid in an open honest fashion. I'm sure you
can understand why I might be suspicious.
ALSO....
For those of you wanting to know if I am still experiencing anything out of
the ordinary, I thought everything was going OK until I got
home on Friday - the 13th of June - and found that the fish
in my fresh water aquarium - all 10 - were dead.
I'm still hoping that all of this is coincidental crap.
-------------
Here
is information from the second buyer a college student in Missouri
I bought
the box from the first seller above in the Ebay auction around
June of 2003, out of curiosity about the 'haunted' box. After
receiving a deluge of e-mail about the box, I set up a web site
to answer some questions, which I stopped updating in September
and haven't updated to this day because I didn't want to talk
about it with anyone.
For the
sake of information, I found that a dibbuk/dybbuk in Jewish
folklore/mythology/teaching/whatever is a misplaced spirit that
can neither rise to Heaven nor descend into Hell, essentially
stuck in Limbo or purgatory. Here's another definition I found:
1. (Jewish folklore) a demon that enters the body of a living
person and controls that body's behavior. Synonyms: dybbuk.
2. Evil Spirits, that cause mental illness, rage and changes
of personality. The spirit or soul of a dead person that inhabits
the body of a living one, with sometimes evil, sometimes positive
results.
If you
believe in paranormal phenomena, the box contains or is possessed
by at least one dibbuk, possibly two, as the grandmother stated:
a dibbuk, and a keslim. Keselim is a term similar to a turkish
word that means "priest." This would probably correspond
to the pair of wrapped strands of blonde and brown/black hair.
The Hebrew
carving on the back, to my knowledge, is a relatively common
Jewish prayer: Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord
is one. Blessed is the name of his honored kingdom forever.
Said frequently at times of fear, death, etc...
I was
doubtful of the 'haunted' box, and I still don't believe in
the paranormal. What happened in August and September is likely
coincidental, so I will relate it as I originally wrote it down
in a log.
Sunday,
31 August 2003 Over the last week some interesting, though possibly
coincidental, items of note have come up. Firstly, I share a
house with six other people; we have been taking turns sleeping
with the box in each of our rooms.
Two people are now complaining of burning eyes, one is listless
and depleted of energy, and another became spontaneously sick.
[In retrospect I would say it was allergies.]
A few days after these ongoing annoyances started, the air outside
our house was filled with small bugs for several hours (a Friday).
[Weird summer stuff?]
Last night (Saturday) we discovered that the box, now located
in the back corner of the house, had come mostly open, though
it had been shut and it seems unlikely that anyone could or
would have touched it.
Wednesday,
10 September 2003 Though it seems impossible to prove that the
box is a direct cause of misfortune, we have definitely seen
a tidal wave of "bad luck."
Strange odors now permeate the house, the dumpster out back
overflows with trash and decay, one roommate suddenly got bronchitis,
and I broke a finger.
Several mice have died in the engine of one car, and more electronic
devices seem to be dying everyday: xbox, toaster, t.v., and
watches.
------
I don't
really want to talk about anything between September and January,
so I'll just say that I'm selling the box now for a couple reasons:
- Around October 6th, I started feeling bad, with trouble sleeping.
This problem has persisted through today.
- I live alone now, and as of late I have noticed replacing a lot of
burnt out lightbulbs, and getting many unusual car repairs
(transmission fluid was burned out of the reservoir.)
- I've started seeing things, sort of like large vertical dark blurs
in my peripheral vision.
- I smell something like juniper bushes or stingy ammonia in my garage
often, and I have no idea what from.
- Most disturbingly, last Tuesday (1-27-2004),
my hair began to fall out. Today (Friday) it's about half
gone. I'm in my early twenties, and I just got a clean blood
test back from the doctor's. Maybe it's stress related, I
don't know.
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.]
Information from the current owner
 |
Up
until June 26th, 2004 when I traveled to Portland, Oregon
to research on site the Dibbuk Box history, I have never
met, never talked to, nor had I ever seen the previous two
owners of the Dibbuk Box. We three owners have had no connection
at all in our lives to one another, other than each buying
this wooden box through various auctions. Our connection
has only been the box. After five months of research, I
located the first owner Kevin. When we met over coffee at
a Starbucks, it was obvious that Kevin's curse had remained
in tact. I was intrigued to see |
that Kevin had never followed up on the box after his eBay
sale in June 2003. Kevin was completely unaware of the interest
that his family's events with the box had generated worldwide
and he was completely taken aback by it all. Since that meeting,
Kevin has been brought up to date. Together he and I are trying
to find out as much about this box and the circumstances on
it being created. Hopefully we will be able to lift the curse
and remove the entity that continues to plague his family.
I
sought the purchase of this unique artifact with its strange
history and spiritual reputation after hearing that it was
once more available on eBay in early February 2004. I won
the bid miraculously it would seem and once I had the box
in my possession, I set out almost immediately to locate the
original buyer and learn more about this item's history and
to attempt to locate the family of the woman who created the
Dibbuk box. I searched for clues to discover the nature of
this artifact. Was it an item of family folklore?
a
hoax?
or was it an artifact of great spiritual energy
- a connection to the spiritual world, an item more important
than most might imagine? It took me over five months of searching
and false leads to finally locate that first buyer, Kevin,
who made the purchase of the box at the old woman's auction.
I sought out genealogical sources, census records, and even
public records to zero in on Kevin. His phone number unlisted
and his e-mail changed, locating him was very difficult. I
got lucky with my leads and a family member connected me to
his current phone number.
At our face-to-face meeting the evidence that Kevin presented
to me about the store where the box was first opened, his
mother's injuries caused by the box, and the location of the
estate auction where the box was purchased was over
whelming to me. I visited the physical sites and was stunned.
It could all be confirmed that Kevin's information was true
from start to finish as written in the original eBay listing.
The events of the Dibbuk Box are indeed true, tight with no
gapping
holes in the facts. The next pressing issue was to find the
family that created the Dibbuk Box and learn its purpose.
To
do this would require Kevin to trace his steps so he could
locate the auctioneers to find the family and have them shed
light on this mystery.
But
let me go back to the beginning of my involvement with the box.
I learned about the Dibbuk Box like most readers - word of mouth.
I became aware of the Dibbuk Box through a college student that
has worked with me for several years. It seems the second buyer
of the box spent a lot of time at this college student's apartment
as a guest, which is shared by six college men. The college
student who works with me mentioned one morning, well over a
year ago now (mid-June 2003) that I might want to go on-line
to see what a guest in his apartment had just bought through
eBay. The college student pulled up the eBay listing for the
Dibbuk Box on the computer for several others and me. Like many,
the story written by the first buyer of the box struck a nerve
in me to read - and it was fascinating - like nothing I had
ever heard told before and yes a bit creepy too! I remember
right away I started teasing about the Dibbuk and how I would
like to borrow the box if it arrived - I wanted to see if this
item appeared to have been faked. This teasing went on for several
days to those who knew of the box's reputation. Any problems
we had were quickly blamed on the Dibbuk being sent to our town.
When the wooden box did arrive, a 100-year-old tree fell into
my home and I spent the rest of the summer removing the tree
and repairing the damage that it caused to my home. Could the
Dibbuk in this box have done this kind of damage? The tree falling
due to a mini storm whipped up just around my home was odd and
it was very unexpected. I don't know if it was a Dibbuk that
caused the damage, but the phrase "Don't mock the box!"
was coined at work, and this box was mentioned only in respectful
terms after that incident.
I
had fleeting thoughts about the Dibbuk Box off and on all summer
and into late fall. I finally mentioned to the college student
that I would like to see this artifact first hand. The student
who first told me about the box said that the owner was only
a guest at his apartment. He went on to tell me that he was
sorry but that the guest had left some time ago to live with
other people, and that he had taken the Dibbuk Box with him.
So I decided that's the end of that mystery - I guess I will
never know. It was odd to feel such a loss inside, why this
item affected me in such a manner is still unexplainable.
Then,
in February 2004 out of the blue, I was told by the college
student that first alerted me to the box that he had heard that
the Dibbuk Box had been put back up for auction on eBay. Upon
my questioning this student about his past experiences, I learned
of several additional odd events he had remembered when near
the box before the box was removed from his apartment. I decided
to bid on the box knowing the original winning bid was $140
and I was feeling I had pretty good information from a reliable
source that I trusted
that something was really unique
about this artifact. From my auction experience, I figured that
I would set my highest bid a few dollars over double the original
winning bid, and to put this bid in during the last 15 seconds
of the auction. I would either win the box or not. As the auction
hours came closer to completion and the number of hits to the
auction site grew to 5,000 - it had double in just the last
hours, I was no longer sure if I was going to win the bid for
the box. In the end, I actually won the box by only $6. If the
auction had run just 10 more seconds I am confident I would
have lost the box to another buyer. My top price was $286 -
the box realized $280 when time ran out. I continue to wonder
if it was destiny for me to end up with the Dibbuk Box. I received
the box and checked out the box's construction and its contents.
I was pleased that the artifact, indeed, appeared genuine with
reasonable wear for its age, the various objects inside had
the feeling of a planned set that took some time to collect.
Then, I put the artifact in storage. The morning after I received
the box and handled it, I woke with my eyes blood shot and my
right eye looked like it had been severely poked. It was odd,
but no big deal. However, after two weeks of no improvement
to my eyes, I went to see two separate eye specialists.
Both
doctors said there was no virus or injury to cause the damage.
I had a spontaneous drying of my eye whites. Medication was
used and has helped, but I have noticed a distinct loss of vision
for small items like map numbers. I am not sure that this had
anything to do with the box, but a similar problem occurred
with the college students that lived in the apartment with it
fall 2003. I decided to have the box checked to see if there
was any type of residue on the box that could cause this type
of irritation (like ammonia), but no residue was found on the
box.
That
first week with the box, those near the box reported several
incidents of harm had come to their family members. So the box
was moved from human proximity. I personally witnessed the Jasmine
and cat urine smells in dealing with the box. Also, while reading
a blog that said, "I should burn the box - my computer
hard drive erased leaving the monitor still on , but all functions
to the Internet were gone. Several other odd things have happened.
I don't care to share them, these issues could be caused because
I am more aware of my surroundings and I may be relating coincidence
to the supernatural. I have not tried to do any research on
the box pertaining to the supposed spirits - keeping this artifact
boxed and stored away. Instead my current interest has been
in finding the connection of this artifact with its unique Jewish
history. I am investigating and doing research to understand
how and why such an artifact with its contents was put together.
With Kevin's help I am hoping to learn this artifact's ultimate
purpose
and, to know the life story of its creator.
All
information to date leads me to believe that this item has come
from a family with a very, strong Jewish background, but not
necessarily Cabbalist influences. The wooden box itself with
its grape appliqué seems to be circa 1960's. The work
looks similar to the Swiss cabinetmaker's style (mistakenly
called "Black Forest"). It has been suggested that
the box could not function as a wine cabinet (wine bottles are
too tall and wine glasses don't fit in the small racks on the
doors). It has been mentioned by several Jewish people that
the box has a very odd resemblance to the Aaron HaKodesh shrines
found in synagogues that hold Jewish scrolls - or Torahs. The
choice of a box with a magical opening design as this one may
have been purposely selected to mimic the religious arks that
hold spiritual materials. Such portable arks do exist in synagogues
and typically are for use with Shiva (seven days of mourning).
If someone wanted to create a very powerful spiritual piece
a sacred box in this style would make sense. I have found another
box from a later time period and it was originally created as
a liquor cabinet with small square liquor decanters, shot glasses
and tumblers for making drinks. In all ways it matches the Dibbuk
Box. I believe that was the original use of the wooden cabinet
that is the Dibbuk box.
The
wine cup is a Leonard Company silver-plate double jigger -
an item I have found only in Oregon. The cup shows great amounts
of wear and damage from use with wine (the lip of the cup
is stressed with cracks from acid in the wine). I have worked
with a Rabbi and a monument company and the marble piece could
possible be made from broken headstones. Put together in this
fashion it becomes a Matzevah or religious pillar - an item
that those in the Jewish faith are told not use for worship.
The candleholder is Victorian circa 1890 -1910 made by the
Peking Glass company I have seen several of these at antique
shops. These candleholders can be bought on eBay or found
in antique malls. The candleholder has the natural wear in
the black paint of being handled often using a thumb and pointing
finger - and appears to have survived a very hot fire. The
octopus legs seem to be bent backwards from extreme heat.
Using a black light, melted wax was found dribbled on the
outside door of the box. The naked eye does not see this.
No biological material was found using the black light in
or
on the box.
A Rabbi from the UK told me that the prayer on the back has
the name God written with a hyphen so as to remove sacredness
to a degree that the box could be destroyed without committing
a sacrilegious act - something known to the Jewish sect. Jewish
Museums and other Rabbis have contacted me, none seem to doubt
that this is a piece of Jewish origin; however, its purpose
is not known and use of something like this is not typical
with the Jewish faith. I have been told this was not for Shabbat.
Working with the first buyer of the Dibbuk Box, Kevin, I have
recently been able to learn more about the family that created
the box. The story of the Dibbuk Box goes back to the 1930's.
The Dibbuk Box owner's nick name was Havela (she was the 103
year old woman that wanted to be buried with the box). Havela
and other family members in Poland resorted to holding séances
hoping to talk to the dead
nobody in particular, it
was a carryover from the Victorian parlor fads but very popular
in Poland at this time. It was a game of sorts to do for fun
in the evening hours. Havela, friends and family members thought
they had reached a true spirit and as time went on ...it was
easier and easier to talk with this spirit through their séance
group. Soon they were having regular meetings with this spirit.
However, if they were not punctual in calling upon the spirit
- at the next séance, the spirit would do psychological
harm to them by revealing personal secrets held by the members
or some such thing.
At
this point in their dealings with the other world, it was the
séance group's belief that more than one spirit was communicating
with them. It seemed the spirits were more and more involved
with the decision making of the séance group's daily
lives. Then, the spirit then wanted to bargain with them to
perform a ritual that would bring it (and others) to this world/side
permanently. The group decided the best way to end this spirit's
influence was to bring it to this world and trap it. On November
10, 1938 they tried to capture the spirit(s) and they said it
went very wrong. They believe that what they tried to do - actually
had an affect on Kristallnacht - when Jews were first attacked
by Germans destroying their shops and many being pushed into
Poland from Germany. The family of the Dibbuk Box indicated
that the method of madness and breaking glass was consistent
with their spirit.
Oddly that is the exact kind of damage that this spirit did
to Kevin's shop when released. Breaking all his light fixtures
- causing terror to the worker and creating a mini Kristallnacht
on basement floor of Kevin's shop. The ending of Kevin's lease
mysteriously so Kevin (of Jewish descent) was without a business.
The
Dibbuk Box that I now have was not originally used by the group
to capture the spirit, but was created many years later to hold
the spirit as they tried to pull them back together - and undo
the evil they felt that they had released. All this information
comes from a cousin of Havela who was the youngest in the group
and now she regrets being involved in the whole thing. I didn't
believe this story could be any stranger. I was wrong. The spirit
came from séances held in 1938 just before WWII .
Who
would have thought that the Dibbuk Box story would have led
to the years prior to WWII and that those involved would feel
that they somehow created/or at least played a role in a horror
against people greater than most of us could imagine. The
violence and destruction of Kristallnacht (when the evil spirits
were released) that night
true horror was not really
expected even by Hitler, but unstoppable evil seemed to be
unleashed like a current through the German people that would
not normally be so inhumane. It makes one wonder did something
in the air so to speak make the attack on the Jews that night
more intense. And once that barrier was passed the following
acts and atrocities upon the Jewish people did not
seem so bad. Were the evil spirits that are said to have been
guiding Hitler - one and the same as those reached by
Havela's group?
Do
a goggle search and you can find many sites on the nature
of Hitler his supposed demonic possession, séances
and the occult.
Thule
member Dietrich Eckart prophesied that the day had come; he
began introducing him in Munich occult circles as "the
long-awaited savior". To Alfred Rosenberg he said: "I
believe in Hitler; above him there hovers a star." Eckart
was following his own mission revealed to him in a séance:
that when "Lord Maitreya" would soon make his appearance
as a German messiah to "lead the Aryan race to final
victory over the Jews", he, Eckart, was charged with
the responsibility of
"nurturing" him.
The
Thule Society considered the Jew ("Juda") their cosmic
enemy. As early as 1920, Sebottendorf advocated a "Final
Goal" of "cleaning out the Jews once and for all",
using "the most ruthless measures, including Sammellager
[concentration camps] and sweeping out the Jewish vermin with
an iron broom."
It
is amazing that this little group of pretty typical Polish people
messing around with séances should tap into something
that they recognized as so evil and that on the eve of their
trying to trap it, Adolf Hitler was on the eve of releasing
it upon humanity. No wonder they were devastated to witness
what followed ... the turning of their world to destruction
in just hours after dealing with the spiritswho wanted to enter
this world.
Here is a piece of history that I have never thought of and quite frankly would have laughed at just a few months ago. This Dibbuk Box has led back to opening a 75-year-old event that most people do not know about. It makes me wonder what forces were really in play at the beginning of WWII and did this little group truly stumbled into it. I do know that they have felt responsible ever since and tried to make amends to capture and hold the spirits because it is the right thing to do against all odds. Hence, this box was created later and possibly others like it. The biggest part of the Dibbuk Box story is out - the beginning and the end - more bizarre than anything you could try to make up. Now I hope the cousin of Havela will be able to fill in the details of what happened in-between. I could be wrong, but this may explain why this box seems to have
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a mystical power that draws people to it. And many that write to me become almost addicted to what is happening with the box in ways they cannot understand, but they cannot seem to just let it go. It is a strange and amazing story. Putting all the pieces together and looking at it now feels right. The box had to come from someone, to account for some event, and then to fulfill some ultimate purpose. One must remember that with the Holocaust, much history and many of the Cabbalist rituals once performed have vanished with the many that died. Authors, screenwriters, religious leaders, and a host involved with the spiritual world, have contacted me and I have tried to answer questions as truthfully and objectively as possible. I have not made plans for the Dibbuk Box except to document its history, and the Dibbuk Box is not for sale. I will continue to keep this site posted with what I learn of its history and purpose, which is my main interest. Until more is known about this artifact, as a precaution, the box continues to be stored with its contents shut inside. Indeed, the box is being kept away from people as much as possible.
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