Ghostbusting the Creepiest Antiques

Sometimes old objects come with an extensive history. Could they be haunted? Maybe only if you believe so. And, of course, different paranormal investigators have different ways to explain that chill up your spine when you're in a certain place, or around a certain object. Some antiques have a  profound effect on whoever may own them, whether they know the story behind them or not. Such was the case with the Dibbuk Box, a wine cabinet containing some personal items and a Jewish prayer carved on the back. It had belonged to a Holocaust survivor, now deceased, and everyone who came into contact with the box experienced strange dreams, bad luck, and illness. Local museum director Jason Haxton heard about the mysterious events and started researching the box.

Thankfully, Haxton heard from experts of all sorts—from rabbis and Kabbalah students to scientists, Wiccans, and demonologists—offering to help him solve the mystery of the box. In fact, so many people were calling and emailing him to ask him about the Dibbuk Box, Haxton posted a web site to address questions about it. He also had Hollywood calling, because horror director Sam Raimi had caught wind of the Dibbuk Box, and wanted to make a film about it. The eventual film, the box-office hit “The Possession,” released in August of last year, took pieces of every owner’s experience of the cabinet and created a new story about a little girl who gets obsessed with the box and possessed by the dibbuk.

The items in the box, the pennies, the hair, the candle, the wine cup, etc., are all items that are traditionally used to open a connection to God. Haxton believes the Dibbuk Box was actually used by its original owner as a box to pray to and get an answer to her life’s question: What caused the Holocaust that killed her parents, her siblings, her first husband, and their children?

After establishing a new life in the United States postwar, the woman had instructed her own children and grandchildren to never open the box, and requested that the box be buried with her. Haxton doesn’t believe the energy attached to the box is evil, but because its owner’s wish was not honored, the box made trouble for anyone who got in the way of its goal to answer this question.

Haxton eventually found what he thinks is the reason for the odd occurrences surrounding the Dibbuk Box, and for the cabinet's roundabout journey to Kirksville, Missouri. Read the entire story at Collector's Weekly -but be warned, it is a strange story. Link


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