The granddaughter supposedly claimed that her grandmother was adamant about keeping the box locked, insisting that it contained a “ Dybbuk“. Apparently, the box had belonged to a Holocaust survivor who acquired it after escaping to Spain, and later brought it with her when she immigrated to the United States. He owned a small furniture refinishing shop at the time and wanted to find something he could work on to later give to his mother as a gift. However, it wasn’t the old-fashioned wine box and the trinkets within that interested potential buyers, as Mannis included a convincing story along with the item description, chronicling a series of horrific events that supposedly began during the Holocaust.Īccording to Mannis, he purchased the box from the granddaughter of its original owner at an estate sale back in 2001.

The item in question was a simple wooden wine box, containing an odd assortment of small objects ranging from a couple of pennies to spooky candlestick holders and even a granite statue inscribed with the word “Shalom” (a form of Jewish greeting meaning “peace”). The story of the Dybbuk box begins in 2003, when a seemingly innocent item popped up on eBay, posted by a certain Kevin Mannis.

That’s why I think today’s chilling story wouldn’t be as shocking if it hadn’t been originally posted on an e-commerce platform. The sheer surprise of seeing these terrifying yarns pop up so unceremoniously on the internet, not to mention the down-to-earth nature of the characters relating these events, are a huge part of what makes them scary. Consider initially funny YouTube channels that take a dark turn (like the Marble-Hornets-inspired EverymanHybrid) or personal blogs that suddenly devolve into paranoid records of supernatural activity (like segments of the previously-covered Dionaea House). So today, I’d like to talk about the now-infamous Dybbok Box as an introduction to the hidden horrors of eBay, and see if we can come to appreciate these online scares and what they mean to us.Ī common thread between successful instances of Viral Horror is how these stories tend to come from where we least expect them. From Creepypastas to killer memes, these sordid tales are as much a part of our culture as classic campfire stories, only on a much larger scale. That’s why I believe it’s time to discuss the Viral Horrors that surround us every day. Nowadays, however, many people don’t seem to realize that we spend most of our waking hours online, be it at home or work, on computers or phones, and our stories have adjusted accordingly.

Since the dawn of civilization, human beings have been scaring the crap out of each other with horror stories inspired by their immediate environments.

Zak bagans dybbuk box