I talked a little bit about the Sam Raimi produced upcoming horror film The Possession a couple of weeks ago and the film follows a young girl who buys an antique box at a yard sale who is totally unaware that inside lives a malicious ancient spirit called a dibbuk – an evil spirit from Jewish lore. Her Father teams up with his ex-wife to find a way to rid the curse that has taken over their child.
If you didn’t know already, the film is “based on a true story” which is only something that horror films use these days as a way to grab the attention of people. Most horror films that claim they are based on a real life event are totally false and they only use this form of marketing in order to sell more tickets. Let’s face it, studios will do anything in order to get more people in front of the silver screen and if that means bending the truth a bit (or a lot) they’ll do it in a heart beat.
The true story behind The Possession is actually quite interesting and the entire idea behind the film is very intriguing. When you go to something like a garage sale and you buy an item, you never know the exact history of it and why someone is trying to get rid of it. Because of that, I decided to take a look into the truth behind The Possession and its dibbuk box.
In the mid 2000′s is when the story of this famous dibbuk box surfaced. It started with an odd listing on eBay for an old wine box that had a starting bid of $1.00. In the box there were locks of hair, a couple of pennies, a wine cup, a slab of granite that had been engraved, and a dried flower. 50 bids later, the wine box ended up selling for almost $300. The seller bought it from another seller, who was the first modern-day buyer of the box.
The original buyer, Kevin Mannis, says that this box was purchased at the estate sale of a 103-year-old Holocaust survivor. The old woman was the only person in her entire family to survive. When she came to the United States, she only brought three things with her; a steamer trunk, a sewing box, and this wine cabinet. The granddaughter, who managed the estate, remember that her grandmother was terrified of the box and would insist that her family never, ever open the box. When the buyer had offered the box to her she immediately refused it.
Before the buyer could even get home with the box, Mannis received a nervous and frantic call from one of his employees at the furniture shop that he owned. The employee claimed someone was in the shop, destroying the place. When Mannis finally arrived, he found his store covered in broken glass and lightbulbs were everywhere, but he never found the mysterious stranger. That same day, his employee quit and never returned.
Mannis soon cleaned up the box and gave it to his mother for her birthday and within minutes of receiving the box, she had a stroke and lost the ability to speak forever. Much later she was able to point to letters spelling out HATE GIFT. Of course, Mannis doesn’t put two and two together and attempts to gift the box to many of his friends and family members. All who did take the box returned it to him within days of taking it. Some of them said that the doors wouldn’t stay closed and would open on themselves; others smelled a strange mixture of jasmine and cat urine while owning the box. When Mannis sold it to a couple they eventually left it on his doorstep two days later with a note that said: “This has a bad darkness.” Now that Mannis just couldn’t get rid of the box he started to have terrifying recurring nightmares about his friends turning into a demon and beating him to a pulp. He claims to have waken from these nightmares with bruises all over his body. All of the family members who had taken possession of the box suffered from the exact same nightmare. If that wasn’t bad enough, on Friday the 13th Mannis found all 10 fish in his aquarium had died. Coincidence?
This obviously begs the question, “Why the hell not throw the damn thing away?” The reason is that Mannis was so afraid to destroy the box that he worried it would cause whatever evil spirit that he believed might be haunting the box would stay with him forever. Traditionally if something like this happens they say you are supposed to formally transfer ownership for the spirit to move on, except he could never find anyone who would keep it for more than a couple of days. So instead, he sold it on eBay for $140 to a college student, Losif Nietzke who also claims to have had similar bad luck.
Nietzke says that in the seven months that he had possession of the box, he and his roommates fell victim to many injuries like broken fingers, bronchitis, swollen red eyes, and insomnia. Also, their house became plagued with decaying dead mice and their electronics would die daily. The worst came over Nietzke when the healthy 20-year-old started losing his hair.
Currently the box is in the hands of a university museum curator by the name of Jason Haxton in the Still College of Osteopathic Medicine Museum in Kirksville, MO who has experienced some of the same illnesses and has also smelled the odd mixture of jasmine and cat urine like many of the other owners. The reason Haxton is interested in the box is because of it’s religious background. There are Hebrew etchings all over the box, and it is believed to contain a dibbuk, a malevolent, misplaced Jewish spirit. It is said that, “a soul that has been unable to fulfill its function during its lifetime is given another opportunity to do so in dybbuk form.”
LTK (Love to Know) has an interview with Jason Haxton in which they ask him about what it’s like owning the box and he gives some surprising answers to say the least. One of which is when he states that when he dies he “would like the Dibbuk Box to buried with me and for it to be finally gone from this world.” But probably the most interesting thing in the interview is Haxton’s own theory of the box which he says that it “is somewhat neutral – neither evil nor good. I believe it was designed and equipped to move a person toward their innermost desire or wish. Of course, sometimes what a person wants is not always a good thing for them or others.
The Dibbuk Box moves toward understanding and exposing the truth at the smallest level. Its original acting out against its early owners and others was a way of continuing to move toward the ultimate goal of its creator. Those not willing to move it forward received stronger assaults from it until they let loose of the box so it could find someone who would fulfill its destiny and accomplish the goal or task it was given. Now the journey and its work is finished. As long as the Dibbuk Box remains contained with no one requesting anything more from it, it will stay in a neutral state.”
Be sure to head over to LTK and read the full interview.
So is this dibbuk box real, or is it just some elaborate hoax that the film is using as an excuse to add to its horror?
Source: Fearnet, DibbukBox.com, LTK
Want to read more from Rhino’s Horror? Click the link to find out about everything that matters in the world of horror. Also, be sure to like the blog on , and click that little “follow” button on the right to stay up to date on all things horror.
Great story and it is enough to get me to go see this movie.
That’s an intriguing story but isn’t it just as likely that such a box is carrying a disease that (conveniently) no one seems to have bothered to try to culture/identify? That could explain the insomnia, red eyes, hair loss, bruising marks, etc. It might not account for a stroke, however. But seriously no one else here thinks that a box that smells like cat urine and jasmine might have unhealthy attributes? As for electronics, those fail all the time. It could be bad wiring in the building for all they know.
I had read some stuff on the story, but you got pretty in depth with it. AWESOME! I’m digging this post!
Watching it on paranormal witness this made me feel uneasy
The problem I have with this article is the facts aren’t the same as on the show. Kevins mother is talking on the show which is a big miss unless she has improved since this was written in May. Also the show states the museum no longer has it and the box has been hidden for 7 years after he sought the help of Rabbis.
Love the responses an story of this box, thank you for writing the article and sparking another adventure of interest in mystery.
If you read the interview that I included Haxton himself says,”when Kevin’s mother received the box, she suffered a stroke leaving her partially blind, unable to speak and paralyzed.” This is directly from the man who currently owns the box. I haven’t seen the show so I can’t comment on that, very interesting though.
Heh,…you all ever here the story of when the sons of Sceva, a Jaw, tried casting out demons after Paul the apostle had done it? They tried to cast them out in the name the Jesus whom Paul preached about. The demons in the person asnwered that they knew Paul & Jesus, and said ” but who are you”, then the demon-possesed person tore into them & sent them running from the house injured & afraid.
lol we should get the Haunted Collector on this one
I think this is going to selll very well in theaters. For 1 reason, its practicaly a thriller. I mean comon, blood, screaming, and demons? Classic horror movie. But i have to say, the artcle above realy pulled me in! i couldn’t stop reading until i was done with the whole thing. But is the story realy true? I’m not saying it’s false, but there have been hundreds of movies saying true story just to pull veiwers in. But still, I s would be very pleased to see this in theaters.
Oww! Real story is scarier than movie
The only truth to the movie is that the wife got everything in the divorce and treated the ex-husband like a criminal.
My mom is dating this guy who has an older stepson from a previous marriage this stepson and his dad were plundering around in an area they shouldn’t have been and retrieved a cup and some jewelry. No biggie, pawned the jewelry but the shop didn’t want the cup. So, the son took the cup home and soon gave it to my mom. My mom had this cup in her possession a week and in that week: her water pipes burst (after they replaced them from when they burst that winter, and it was freaking 70 something degrees outside), her and her boyfriend received eviction notices, my moms car needed repairs (SUDDENLY), their hours at work were cut, and one of my moms dog died. Not only that but my kids went to her house over the weekend and apparently touched the cup and that was one of the worst weeks of my life. My kids were just uncontrollable, I had to have an ultrasound done because my midwife couldn’t find a heartbeat on my unborn child (turned up fine), my youngest was unusually whiny, and I was just amazingly irritable. There were a lot of other odds and ends things I can’t remember but I remember complaining to my mom on Friday about it and she told me what happened to her and we managed to put two and two together and discovered it was that cup. She ended up talking to the stepson and asked him did anything weird happen when you got the cup. He said that actually he lost his good paying job, his roommate went berserk and kicked him out, he couldn’t find another job, and his truck broke down. Needless to say we made him take it back where he found it and bury it.
Thank you a bunch for sharing this with all folks you really realize what
you’re speaking approximately! Bookmarked. Kindly also visit my website =). We will have a link alternate arrangement among us
It was on ‘My Ghost Story’ too!
I know of a item that is on my family’s old Australian farm that the aboriginals left it was in the middle of a circle of rocks that have carvings on them I won’t say what it is and I will never tell anyone where it is but it attributed to the most crazy experiences I’ve ever had .. It felt wierd going near it for a start when my dad and I found it …. my dad picked it up recognizing the object for what it was and explained to me what he knew 2 hours later he was bitten by a snake causing heart faliure which had the doctors scratching there heads because once they stabilised him there were no traces of venom anywhere in his systom ,Nightmares , seeing persons night and day in the shadows , for about a week for my father and I and to top it all off and for no reason at all after that day my farther and I both have a leaking left tear duct we have never gone near it again . Do you think it is the same kinda thing ?
Good to kno it’s not true.