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The Dybbuk box, or Dibbuk box (), is an antique wine-cabinet claimed to be haunted by a dybbuk, a concept from Jewish mythology. The box drew attention when it was auctioned off on eBay by owner Kevin Mannis, who created a story featuring Jewish Holocaust survivors and paranormal claims as part of his eBay item description. Mannis' story was the inspiration for the 2012 horror film The Possession.
In 2021, Mannis told Input magazine that the Dybbuk Box story was entirely fictional.
One owner, Jason Haxton, Director of the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Missouri, launched a website that consolidated claims about the cabinet called dibbukbox.com that reportedly received hundreds of thousands of hits and created what has been described as an "Urban legend". In 2004, Haxton sold the rights to the story to a Hollywood production company. The subsequent film The Possession, produced by Sam Raimi, was released in 2012. Haxton later gave the cabinet to Ghost Adventures star Zak Bagans to display in his museum. In 2018, fans of rapper Post Malone claimed his spate of bad luck was caused by his contact with the cabinet.
Chris 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. 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. Put it like this: I would be happy to own this object."
In 2014, skeptical author Brian Dunning investigated the dybbuk box legend and determined that
In January 2019, investigator Kenny Biddle, in his "Closer Look" column in Skeptical Inquirer online, reviewed the Dibbuk Box he found on display in Zak Bagans's haunted museum in Las Vegas. His conclusion, following careful investigation of the cabinet's construction and history, was "Despite what various owners would have us think, the infamous Dibbuk Box is not a Jewish wine cabinet from Spain but instead a minibar from New York." Biddle also wrote that he believed Mannis created the dybbuk box story "from whole cloth", and that "This elaborate story that started the entire legend was not an account of real supernatural events, but instead a fictional backstory he came up with to sell an ordinary and incomplete minibar." Biddle's claim of the box and its legend being fraudulent is backed up by a screen capture of a post made by the originator of the legend, Kevin Mannis, to the Haunt ME Facebook page. The post, dated October 24, 2015, states:
In 2021, Mannis admitted to writer Charles Moss that the box was his own creation: "I am a creative writer. The Dybbuk Box is a story that I created. And the Dybbuk 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". He "added new elements to the Dybbuk Box story over the years to help evolve it, keep it relevant and interesting".
Response
According to author Allan S. Mott, "we embrace such stories because they tap into our own fears and prejudices". 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. 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. California State University anthropology professor and folklore specialist Elliott Oring criticized claims about the cabinet, saying, "Go through the you will see areas that seem to require suspending critical functions". Arizona minister and author Rev. 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.
In film
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