You are now listening to cryptid cocktail party
Welcome back to another episode of Cryptic Cocktail
Party, a show where we have a few drinks, share
a few laughs, take a dive into the unknown. I'm
your host, Dave, joined as always, usually by
Sarge, but today it's not. Today it's not Sarge.
Today I am joined by a friend of the show, Nick
Eisman. How's it going, buddy? Dave, you know,
it's going pretty well. I got to say that new,
it's not new at this point. I'm still used to,
you know, the old one, but I do love... the intro
okay i can't get enough of it i appreciate that
people people seem to enjoy it's either they
enjoy it or if i look at my analytics they skip
immediately over it you just see like a huge
dip right where it is which i mean whatever you
want you want to get to the content i get it
yeah i get it yeah yeah um how's it going bud
how you doing you know it's it's going pretty
well i'm uh in peak holiday season so i'm trying
to get as much done if I can for works that way,
like on the weekends, I don't have to do anything.
Uh, yeah. So it's been like, you know, good.
Um, yeah, just been chilling, not trying to freeze
or trying not to freeze to death and good old
Philadelphia. It's so fucking cold. It's disgusting
out. Yeah. I feel cursed. I mean, you invited
these cryptids for a cocktail party. Cocktail.
Cocktail party. And they are just, you know,
they're bringing in the cold. It's got to be,
you know, if you're cold, they're cold. Let them
in, I think is the saying, right? Yeah, I mean,
depending on which one it is, but yeah. Yeah.
Squonk can come in. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're
doing good. Thank you for... For coming in to
fill in for Sarge. He got like last minute tickets
or he forgot that he had tickets to some hockey
game tonight. So he's doing that. And now we're
doing this. Nick, you know how this goes. You've
been on the show. You know the deal. Yeah, I've
been around the block here a few times. So I'm
not going to ask you if you're a cryptids guy.
I'm not going to bore you with any preamble.
I think we're just going to dive right in. I'm
here for it. So we're going to be covering something
that I'm pretty sure you are fairly familiar
with. How much do you know about the Dybbuk box?
It sounds familiar. I'm sure once we get into
it, I'll be like, oh yeah, but right now I'm...
You're not familiar with the Dybbuk box? I feel
like that's... For some reason, I feel like everyone
knows what it is. It was like a huge thing for
a while. Well, all right, so... Before we even
dive into the box itself, I think it's important
to understand what a dibbick is. So a dibbick
in Jewish folklore is pretty much the spear or
soul of a dead person that attaches itself to
a living human being. The word dibbick itself
basically means like to cling or to attach. So
it's like right there in the name. Now, in traditional
stories, once a dibbick has latched onto someone,
it's not great. The person might start acting
strange, speaking in voices that aren't their
own, being obvious emotional or physical distress,
pretty much just like no longer in control of
them. It's a possession straight up. Yeah. And
according to folklore, the only way to rid said
person of a dybbuk is through what is essentially
an exorcism just performed by a rabbi instead
of like a priest. So it's, yeah, it's a Jewish
exorcism. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny, as
soon as you said what it was, it's like, oh yeah,
I have heard of this. I haven't done too much
research into it, but I do know the gist. Yeah.
I'm pretty sure there's a movie about it. Oh,
we're going to get to it. Don't worry about it.
Oh, fantastic. So what makes the story of the
Dybbuk box so interesting is that it takes the
concept of the Dybbuk, which is a spirit that
clings to a living person, and applies it to
something that is decidedly not a living person.
person uh turning the box into a cursed item
instead of like a possessed person okay so we
good on what a dybbuk is now you've kind of got
the concept of it yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna hold
my my thoughts back for a minute but yeah i got
it what what are you gonna say so i just finished
reading christine by stephen king yeah i think
the whole premise of that book is like the previous
owner of the car christine essentially like haunts
the car and then takes over arnie's life yeah
it's kind of the same concept i think in a sense
maybe yeah yeah yeah all right so let's let's
get into the story of the divic box itself so
the legend of the divic box that we know like
in our like modern day folklore it all started
in 2001 when a man named kevin manis an antique
shop owner in portland oregon purchased a wooden
cabinet at an estate sale from the granddaughter
of a 103 year old jewish woman named havella
havella according to the story was a holocaust
survivor who had escaped nazi poland ended up
living in spain for a bit after the war and eventually
made her way to the states and this cabinet he
was told had been with her the entire time so
Kevin finds his cabinet at the estate sale and
pays for it. And as he's about to leave, the
granddaughter stops him and says, ah, I see you
bought the Dybbuk box, which is a crazy thing
to say to someone if they don't know. Yeah, like
way to bomb your own sale. Right. Oh, I see you
bought my grandmother's chest. Yeah. She then
warned him that her grandmother had always kept
the box sealed because something evil was trapped
inside of it and that under no circumstances
should he open it. Kevin lives life on his own
terms and he took the box back to a shop and
what did he do? Immediately opened it. I mean,
it must have been like a really nice box. That's
not, that's not really. Okay. That's unfortunate.
Yeah. So inside he found what amounted to nothing
more than just some weird personal items. There
were two old wheat pennies from the 1920s. A
small lock of blonde hair, a small lock of darker
hair, a dried rosebud, a four -legged candlestick,
a golden wine goblet, and a small granite slab
engraved with the Hebrew word shalom. The back
of the cabinet itself was carved with the Shema,
which I guess is one of the most important prayers
in Judaism. So all in all, it's a creepy and
weird assortment of items, but it's like nothing
crazy. The hair's weird, I think. I mean, those
wheat pennies have to be worth some money, right?
You would think so. I don't know. I don't know
shit about coin collecting. So, you know, like,
I don't know. People collect hair. What? It's
like a pretty big thing. And like, I don't know
if it's just Italians, but I know like my mother
has a lock on my hair. I'm pretty sure my grandmother
had a lock on her hair. I think it, when it's
your kids, it's different. So yeah, maybe that
could have been what it is. I don't know. It
could have been her grandmother's, or technically
this mother's daughter's hair. Maybe. It's still
weird to me. I don't know. Yeah, the hair's weird.
But yeah, so not long after opening it, shit
started going sideways real quick. So Kevin's
plan all along with the box was to fix it up
and give the cabinet to his mother as like a
birthday present, which he ended up doing. He
claims that when she opened the doors, She felt
a sudden rush of cold air, followed by an overwhelming
sense of dread and pure evil, and not too long
after this, his mom suffered a stroke and was
sent to the hospital. He then claimed that his
siblings, along with other people who were around
the box, all started having the same recurring
nightmare of a spooky old woman with sunken eyes.
He also said that strange smells began emitting
from the cabinet with no clear source. Sometimes
it was the smell of cat piss. Other times it
would smell like jasmine. And the doors on the
cabinet would open up by themselves. And he started
getting like glimpses of like shadow people in
his peripheral vision as well. Just a bunch of
weird shit. Uh, why he made a face like just
two completely upper opposite smells. It's cat
piss or Jasmine, like pick one and stick with
it, you know? Yeah. I will say though, like to
me, an old wooden cabinet smelling, Like, that's
not, like, shit absorbs into wood. It's not too
far out of the ordinary. Yeah, like, if you have
a cat that pissed on it or, like, an unspayed
cat that sprayed its shit, you know what I mean?
Like, it could sink in there. And Jasmine, I
don't know, maybe it's the shampoo from the fucking
locks of hair. I don't know. Yeah, but it only
gets worse from here. So, in one story, he claimed
that an employee at his antique shop knocked
the cabinet off of a shelf. And then not long
after that, the employee's brother committed
suicide. And then not long after that, the employee
also committed suicide. And then by 20, so, so
by Jesus Christ, it's not, it's not good. So
by 2003, Kevin was like, fuck this cabinet. He
was terrified of the thing. He just wanted it
gone. But instead of just like throwing it away
or burning it and burying the ashes and praying
it haunts him no further, he put it up on eBay.
And the listing was pretty wild. He put everything
in that item description, like the Holocaust
survivor backstory, the granddaughter's creepy
-ass warning, the strange contents, his mother's
strokes, the smells, the suicides, everything.
By the end of the listing, he's pretty much just
begging someone to take this thing from him.
Yeah, just like, get this out of my house. I'll
pay shipping. And someone did for the low, low
price of $140 US. And that person was a... college
student missouri named losif nietsky and he bought
it for the same reason like you or i would it
was just like a weird antique with a wild backstory
like i doubt he actually thought the thing was
haunted at the time but not long after getting
it in his home nietsky started having experiences
of his own the uh the cat pee smell the fucked
up nightmares the whole thing so After about
eight months or so of having this thing, he put
that shit right back up on eBay. And in his listing,
he retold the original lore as told by Kevin
and then added in his own experiences to it.
So now the legend of this thing is like growing.
Right. And like even with all these added details,
the thing sold again, this time to a man named
Jason Haxton, the director of the Museum of Osteopathic
Medicine in Kirksville, Missouri. Apparently,
Jason was like a collector of weird medical artifacts
and weird historical items. And he had heard
about the box from a student. It was somehow
connected to Netsky, so he snatched that shit
up real quick. Did he pay $140? I didn't look
up how much he paid for it. I can't imagine.
I mean, I don't know. I'll get back to you on
that. Once he was in possession of the box, he
immediately started documenting everything about
it. And in 2004, he launched the website dibbickbox
.com, which laid out the full history of the
box as well as his own paranormal activity. And
the site blew up pretty fast. It got a lot of
traffic right away and pretty much turned what
was just like a weird eBay listing into now like
a full -on internet legend. And over the years...
Jason claimed that the box was taking a serious
toll on his health. He would suddenly come down
with weird, unexplained illnesses like welts
and hives appearing all over his body. He would
start choking for no apparent reason. He also
started having the same reoccurring nightmare
of the old lady, and to top things off, his eyes
would just start bleeding. I think Jason's got
some underlying health issues. That's his name,
right? It's Jason? Yeah. He's got some underlying
health issues that I think he needs to go, There's
definitely something more. Because no one else
had eye bleeding. No. He was the first to have
the eye bleeding thing. He must have pissed that
old lady off. But one thing that he did get out
of it that wasn't nightmare fuel was he sold
the film rights for the Dybbuk box story. So
that's kind of cool. He also published a book
in 2011 called simply. the Dybbuk box, which
covered the entire story from the original lore
all the way up to his experience with the box.
So now it's moved on from like internet legend
to now like an actual published paranormal literature.
It's got like, it's got some, you know, some
weight to it if you will. And then the following
year in 2012, those film rights were put to use
and the Sam, Sam Raimi produced the possession
was released. And of course they had to market
it as being quote unquote based on a true story,
even though. the story is completely different,
but like the bones of the story was there. Yeah.
It's based. Doesn't mean it follows. It's true.
You know, based on a true story. Um, and the,
and the production of this movie. And the production.
I'm based. Coming quarter to quarter. But, uh,
In the production of this movie, both during
and after the filming, it also ended up becoming
part of the legend as well. Apparently, the director
later claimed that a strange accident caused
a massive light fixture to explode on set, and
not long after the movie wrapped, a warehouse
fire apparently destroyed all the film's props.
So, of course, now these stories very quickly
got folded into the Dybbuk box legend as more
examples of this thing's reach and curse. But
the box's story doesn't end there. It gets so
much better. So by this point, at the time of
the movie's release or close to it, the Dybbuk
box is in the possession of none other than Zach
Baggins. Oh, I was wondering when that fucking
guy was going to show up. Zachy boy. It is proudly
on display at his haunted museum in Vegas. It's
sealed inside a plexiglass case and displayed
in a room filled with protective symbols, whatever
the fuck that means, and is being marketed as,
quote, the world's most haunted object, which
I thought that was... I thought that was Annabelle.
Yeah, but apparently it's also this too now.
Apparently there's multiple. And visitors are
warned repeatedly, like... while they're visiting
about the danger that it can cause. And it's
at this point, the story where we, where we bring
in post Malone, like, yeah. Post Malone. Post
Malone. Yeah. In 2018, he visited the museum
and went into the Dybbuk box room with Zach.
Now, the story goes that Post removed the glass
enclosure, touched the box, and at the same time
put his other hand on Zach's shoulder, which
he later described as indirect contact with the
box itself. Now, immediately... Baggins claimed
that he was overwhelmed with fear, that he saw
a black shadow figure, and felt an intense wave
of panic causing both him and Post to get the
fuck out of there. But that's not what's wild
about this story. Because Zach claims that shit
all the time. It's what happened after Post's
visit where shit gets kind of crazy. So this
is what happened in the months that followed.
Post Malone's private jet made an emergency landing
after his tires blew out during a takeoff. His
home was broken into by armed robbers and he
was involved in a pretty serious car accident.
And this is all like within a relatively short
time frame after he visited. After he touched
the box. So obviously these incidents were immediately
connected back to the Dybbuk box. Post did later
say publicly that, yeah, the timing of this was
like pretty wild, but he never outright said
that the box was responsible. But obviously.
Right. It's implied. Yeah. Then in 2020, during
Ghost Adventures semi -colon quarantine, Baggins
did an on -camera opening of the Dybbuk box.
And apparently the Ghost Adventures crew captured
a disembodied voice saying the words Kevin and
evil. They also claim that they caught like a
shadowy form appearing on camera inside the case.
And that clip is probably one of the most widely
circulated. Dybbuk box pieces of content on the
internet today. So the Dybbuk box's popularity
just keeps growing. And as this thing becomes
more famous, it started getting the attention
of the people whose job it is to ask the question,
does any of this shit actually hold up real?
Right. So now we've got the skeptics coming in.
And this is where paranormal researcher Kenny
Biddle answers the story. He's a writer for Skeptical
Inquirer. Now, he did his own investigation into
the box, but instead of trying to catch shadow
figures or record EVPs or whatever the fuck,
he focused on the one thing that all the claims
had in common, the box itself. And he found some
pretty good shit. So he was able to trace the...
Dybbuk box to a 1957 us furniture patent for
a mass produced mid -century mini liquor cabinet.
Same, same dimensions, same construction, same
layout, all of it. So in other words, the Dybbuk
box isn't a rare Holocaust era. Containing the
spirit of some fucking crazy old lady. It's just,
it's a 1950s mini bar. That's all right. That's
all it is. Biddle actually found and ordered
one of the same cabinets for himself. Only his
version came with all the original accessories
and stuff that you put in it. And as he put it,
his minibar quote -unquote actually contained
spirits, which I thought was a pretty good dig.
Way to go. I like this guy already. He's clippy.
Yeah. But that wasn't even the biggest blow to
the validity of the Dybbuk box story. Kevin Maness,
the man who made the original eBay listing, just
straight up admitted it was all a hoax he made
he made a bunch of posts on social media as well
as in like later interviews where he openly admitted
that he invented the like the term dibbick box
which is true there's no reference to dibbick
boxes before 2003 because again a dibbick possesses
people not Not objects. He also admitted that
he added the Hebrew inscriptions he collected
and placed all the items inside the box himself.
And the hair actually came from some friends.
It wasn't anything weird. And the paranormal
events that were in the original story obviously
didn't actually happen. The only major detail
that Kevin said is partially true is that his
mother did suffer a real stroke. after so he
just kind of threw some family trauma like into
this yeah but it wasn't caused the lore it wasn't
caused by the box and his mom actually did agree
to go along with the story once like paranormal
like people started like interviewing them which
i thought it's pretty funny like what Out of
all of the people in this story, right? I think
the only likable, besides Post Malone, because
Post Malone's pretty chill from every interview
I've seen with him, he seems like a solid guy.
The only people that seem like they have a solid
sense of humor here are the original eBay listers.
Because you know, Dan, while they were sitting
around the house, they were pulling... the spirit
you know liquor stuff out of this box yeah you
know it'd be funny if it had ghosts in here and
then they like came up with this story and listed
it on ebay never thinking that someone would
buy it yeah well so he says the reason like that
he did it uh he said it was an experiment in
interactive horror storytelling he it was a way
to see if like a modern ghost story could be
built in real time through the internet which
is awesome and it fucking worked He also claimed
that when he sold the box to the first buyer,
he did tell them that the story was fictional,
that there wasn't anything actually really dangerous
about it. That person just yes -anded it and
just kept it going. Jesus Christ. And then by
the time the box reached Jason Haxton, the dude
whose eyes started bleeding, the legend had already
taken on a life of its own. Kevin has stated
that he told Haxton the curse wasn't real, but
he just continued to present the box publicly
as genuinely haunted, like on his website, in
his book, in interviews. And then he, like with
the eventual sale of the box to Zach Baggins.
And then once Zach was in possession of the box,
by that point, the question of whether or not
the Dybbuk box started as a hoax was almost irrelevant.
Like it was more like the story and the lore
that became the product, not so much like the
actual. thing does that make sense yeah like
yeah they're just buying it for the lore but
at the same time like let's look at zach baggins's
track record here it's not great it's not great
he lost annabelle lost annabelle right he had
a fucking matt rife yeah it's it's like this
man shouldn't be buying anything haunted no if
you're an ebay lister and you see someone you
know zach baggins just fucking cancel that order
No, fuck dude. He'll give you so much. He has
so much money. I will gladly sell him any fake
haunted thing if he's willing to give me money
for it. I have a tape dispenser and a hooked
snap -on 38 shaw for a carburetor. Okay. We can
make this haunted. Yeah, we'll figure it out.
Perfect. Zach Baggins, five grand right here.
We'll workshop how we can make it. Be creepy.
So yeah, so by the late 2010s, you have two very
different realities existing at the same time.
On one side, you got a box that was verified
as a mass -produced 1950s minibar, a creator
who openly admitted it was all fake, and no concrete
documented evidence of supernatural activity.
And then on the other hand, you have a museum
exhibit marketed as the most haunted object in
the world. a celebrity that was affected by the
quote -unquote curse, and a growing list of stories
built on your interpretation of them rather than
actual proof. Right. Yeah, so there you have
it, Nick. That is the legend of the Dybbuk box.
I mean, like, you know, I think the thing here
to kind of take into consideration is, like,
it could very easily have become a tulpa. Right.
Because there was so much energy like thrown
at this thing and so much, you know, what is
lore built up around it? Does that work for inanimate
objects? I don't know. I mean, I can't think
of another, you know, another term that would
work. Yeah. You know, it's essentially like an
imaginary friend that like, yeah, I guess, you
know, the, the act of people believing that it
is cursed. I see. I don't even see, I don't even
buy that. I think it's just like, If one person
says it's cursed, pretty much any accident that
you have after coming in contact with it, you
can just be like, oh, it was the Dybbuk box.
Yeah, I mean, he could have easily been walking
down the street and stepped in dog poop and was
like, damn Dybbuk box, and just blamed any misfortune
he had on it. I think that there's something
to be said about items like this, right? you
know, you can go into a thrift store and find
something that's like super old and get weird
vibe, like weird feelings from it without a doubt.
Yeah. But I mean, I don't know if I'm going to
be going on eBay to buy, you know, haunted stuff.
I can just go to, you know, some estate sale
or some guy died of like aspiration, you know,
he aspirated on his like Budweiser and I buy
like a tie cause it looks funny. And then now
I'm possessed by an eight year old Korean vet,
you know? All because I'm wearing a tie. That's
all we can ever hope for. Again, it just boils
back to Christine. Haunted objects. I like the
idea of this a lot. It's weird that I don't know
what the Vatican version of Judaism would be,
but arch rabbis are like, there's no such thing
as a Dybbuk box. It's just weird. At least with
when you look at like things like the Warren
museum or like the Warrens were alive. Yeah.
They had semi backing from the Roman Catholic
church of being like, yeah, they're, you know,
yeah. They help us out. We're like Baggins is
not shit. Yeah. Baggins is shit. Anyone that
tries to actively fight a demon like on camera
is just not, it's not, Yeah. You shouldn't be
owning these things. You're inciting violence,
and you almost killed Post Malone. Yeah. Yeah.
And I would never forgive him. America wouldn't
forgive him. Yeah. He's just gone. So fucking
fast. It's not even cancel culture. It's rightfully
so. It's righteous judgment. Rightfully so. Yeah.
Like I said, I like the idea of this. I think
it's cool when things like this take on a life
of its own. Yeah. It's almost like a creepypasta,
right? Yeah, it kind of is. But I mean, it's
also kind of like the same way, like how like
Slender Man kind of went from internet lore to
those two girls fucking murking that. Like trying
to murder one of their friends. She actually,
oh, update on her. She was like on like house
arrest at like some halfway house, something
like that. And she cut off her ankle bracelet
and fucking escaped. And then they found her.
In the woods, just chilling. So good. It was
wild. That's nuts. Yeah. Dave, thanks for having
me on the show, man. I mean, I wish I knew a
little bit more about that. I'm going to do some
research on this here Dybbuk box and see like,
well, what's up to now? Is it still at Zach Baggins?
Yeah, it's still there. That's some bullshit.
Yeah. Also, don't watch that movie. It's not
great. I don't plan on it. It sounds funny. I
like think I saw a trailer for it when it first
came out. I was like, yeah. It's Sam Raimi produced,
not Sam Raimi directed or written by. I'm good.
I'm good. The other thing, too, is these movies,
it's like, oh, well, there's accidents. It's
cursed. Or you just had a drunk grip that left
something on and then the light blew up. That's
pretty much it. I wonder if it didn't say. Oh,
no, because I was going to say maybe the... light
caused a fire, but that was two different times,
two different incidents. I mean, I would love
to know if this got back to Sam Raimi. He put
his name on a produced based on a true story
movie. Oh, I'm sure. It had to have. That Ty
Warren motherfucker probably hated that. Probably
hated that. I don't think he really cares. You
know, it's whatever. All right. Yeah, thanks.
Thank you for coming on. That's our story. Before
we go, is there anything you want to plug, you
want to talk about? Happy holidays. It's December.
It is December. It's December. It's December.
All right. Cool. Dave, thanks again for having
me on. It's always a pleasure being on here.
Sarge, can't wait to hear your voice next week.
Yeah. All right. So if you want to follow us,
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and I love you.