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Show up for CAMH and rise up for mental health. Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so, the mysterious and unsolved.
Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people. My name is Hallie, and this is the morbid curiosity podcast. Before we begin, a disclaimer, I am not Jewish, nor am I a scholar of Judaism.
I did read many articles written by Jewish scholars and reached out to several Jewish communities to discuss this topic, but as an outsider, I may not get all the concepts quite right, my apologies. I also apologize for mispronouncing any Hebrew or Yiddish words in this episode. There's a newish trend in the paranormal community where creators open strange boxes coded in wax that supposedly contain the spirits of powerful malevolent beings. These boxes can be bought from numerous sources for a premium.
Each is filled with seemingly random, but quite creepy items, such as locks of hair, ashes, and old photographs. The boxes are called Dibic boxes, and many people believe they are quite dangerous to own, let alone open. The first of these boxes appeared in 2003, and since then, Dibic boxes began turning up all over the place online. Huge Youtubers have opened Dibic boxes for their viewers, supposedly opening themselves and their homes up to the evil spirits inside.
While the Dibic box is new, Dibic are centuries old. Dibic are mythical creatures that originate in Jewish folklore. However, the more recent concept of Dibic doesn't take much from the original myth other than its name. The word Dibic has Hebrew roots in the word davok, which means to cleave, adhere, stick, or cling.
In Jewish folklore, a Dibic is the soul of a Jewish deceased, sinful human, which enters a living person and clings to their soul, speaks through their mouth, causes mental illness, and represents a separate and alien personality. The term Dibic only came into use in the 17th century. Technically, it's an abbreviation of Dibic Meru Ra Ra, a cleavage of an evil spirit. The act of attachment of the spirit to the body became the name of the spirit itself.
Possession stories are found in Jewish writings, such as the Talmud as early as the first century CE. The Talmud is the central text of rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and theology. It's a collection of ancient rabbinic writings that interpret the Hebrew Bible or Torah. The Torah dates to between the 5th to 3rd century BCE and makes up the first five books of the Christian Bible.
The possessing beings in these ancient texts were usually demons, but sometimes angelic creatures also possessed humans, and since possession existed, so did exorcism and other mystical means to deal with supernatural beings. Mysticism and mystical experiences have been part of Judaism since its earliest days. The Torah contains many accounts of mystical experiences, from visitations by angels to prophetic visions. The Talmud discusses the existence of the soul, and when it becomes attached to the body.
There are also many stories of mythical places similar to Christian heaven and purgatory of wandering souls and reincarnation. In the Middle Ages, mystical teachings were written down in books like the Zohar. The Zohar is a group of books discussing the mystical aspects of the Torah, mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology. For example, discussions of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, redemption, the relationship of the self to darkness, and the light of God.
It was claimed that the Zohar was a record of secret ancient writings that were mentioned briefly in the Talmud. The Zohar was first published by Moses Deliong in the late 13th century CE. He claimed it was a record of the teachings of Simeon Ben-Yochai dating to around 100 CE. This claim is universally rejected by modern scholars, most of whom believe that Deliong, who was an infamous forger, wrote the book himself between 1280 and 1286.
However, some scholars argue that the Zohar is the work of multiple medieval authors and contains a small amount of genuinely ancient Jewish writings. Like most areas of Jewish belief and any religious belief for that matter, the subject of mysticism is wide open to personal interpretation. Some traditional Jewish communities take mysticism very seriously. For example, mysticism is considered an integral part of Hasidic Judaism, and passages from mystical literature are commonly included in prayer books.
Other traditional communities take mysticism with a grain of salt. The mystical side of Judaism became known as Kabbalah, or Kabbalah, which is usually translated as tradition. In Hebrew, the word Kabbalah doesn't have any sinister connotations. However, in English, the word Kabbal, a secret group of conspirators, is derived from the Hebrew word Kabbalah.
But neither the Hebrew word nor the mystical doctrines have any evil implications. In fact, Kabbalah is one of the most misunderstood parts of Judaism, being referred to as both dark magic and trendy celebrity nonsense. The misunderstandings arise from the fact that the teachings of Kabbalah have been distorted by mystics and cultists. Kabbalah was popular among Christian intellectuals during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, who reinterpreted its doctrines to fit their Christian dogma.
In more recent times, we see Kabbalistic symbolism used without its original context in tarot card readings, divination, and magical practices that have nothing to do with the original Jewish teachings. Today, many well-known celebrities have popularized a pop psychology distortion of Kabbalah, which borrows the language and folk superstitions, but has hardly anything in common with authentic Jewish sources. It's not that magic isn't part of Kabbalah. The Talmud and other sources describe the supernatural abilities of a great many rabbis.
Some rabbis are said to have ascended to heaven to consult with God and the angels on issues of great public concern. Some were reported to have created an artificial man, or golem, which we discussed in a previous episode. These feats were performed through the power of God, and not considered witchcraft or evil. However, God is incredibly powerful, so much so that the name of God is not often written or spoken in Jewish texts.
Therefore, this form of Kabbalah is not practiced by just any Jewish person. There are many stories discouraging the pursuit of such knowledge and power, as dangerous and irresponsible. As for Dibok, the term as a noun isn't in the Talmud or Kabbalistic literature before the 16th century. Possessing beings were always called evil or unclean spirits.
It was only in Svath or Safid, Israel, a center of Kabbalah study in the 16th century that stories of possession and exorcism mentioned a new type of entity called the Dibok. Why this term came to be is unknown, but the term and the first written accounts of Dibok possession appeared around the same time. It's possible specific circumstances within the Jewish experience, such as the trauma of exile from Spain in 1492, or from outside Jewish experience, such as the witch craze in Europe, caused a change in religious thought. It's also possible that the 16th century cases were just the first written down, and spread due to the general proliferation of Jewish literature at the time.
Either way, one of the main factors in the origin of the Dibok was the rise of laryonic Kabbalah. Isaac ben Solomon Luria was a late 16th century Jewish mystic who preached about transmigration of souls, termed Gilgal, where human souls could continue their task of self-perfection through a process of rebirth. He also described Ybuhr, the impregnation of a soul in the body of another person, basically possession. Before the 15th century, the concepts of Gilgal and Ybuhr were only abstract ideas in rabbinic and kabbalistic literature that were hotly debated between kabbalists and rationalist Jewish philosophers.
Spirits of the deceased were believed to transmigrate into a newborn human, as retribution for certain transgressions the person committed during their lifetime. Although considered a severe punishment, it signified divine mercy as well, since it was meant to rehabilitate and purify the sinners spirit by virtue of reformed behavior in this new lifetime. After Luria's death, his disciples, especially his apprentice Chaim Vittel, went one step further with the notion of possession by a sinful soul, the Dibok. A Dibok is the soul of a Jewish man who committed a sin and is punished by being trapped between this world and the next, wandering until he finds atonement for sins.
In this limbo, the soul is persecuted by both angelic and demonic beings. Dibok tend to seek shelter from the pain of this wandering, and that can only be found in a human host. Within a body, the soul can also attempt to be purified and therefore gain access to the world of the dead. The Dibok finds a vulnerable human host and takes over their physical body and their ability to speak.
The host then becomes a puppet, controlled by the Dibok, present but without agency. Most frequently, the unfortunate victim was a woman. However, there is no mention of female Dibok, as females weren't believed to participate in the process of Gilco. There's also no documentation of the existence of any non-Jewish Dibok.
There is, however, an opposing form of Ipur. A Makit is a celestial entity, usually an angel, who spoke to or through a chosen Kabbalist, sharing their spirit whilst they did so. This term later evolved to refer to a preacher who spoke to the masses, telling stories from the Torah and answering questions rather than preaching from a pulpit. A third form of possession also existed in the 16th century Kabbalist literature, the Yihud, which was the soul of an ancestor who possessed one of their descendants in order to aid them.
Supposedly, Yisak Luria was so possessed by Rabbi Simeon Bar Yohai, the author of the Zulhar. Neither the Makit nor the Yihud were harmful. These two forms of Ipur were far more important to the Kabbalists of Svath, but it was the Dibok that became the best known in the modern era. Stories of Dibok possession in Svath soon spread further abroad.
The rise of the printing press assisted in codifying certain Jewish ideas and practices and spreading them through books. It also gave them a certain authority if they were printed. Several detailed reports in Hebrew and Yiddish of Dibokim, a term used for the person possessed, and witnessed testimonies about exorcisms were preserved and published. The most important source for Dibok's stories is Cheyenne Vittel's book of visions, which was only recently published in its entirety.
Vittle was a disciple of Yisak Luria and recorded most of his teachings. Rabbi Elijah Falcon, described in exorcism in detail in a 1571 letter written in Svath. He circulated copies of this letter to a number of Jewish communities in the area. The letter was officially published in 1602 and was the first published account of a Dibok.
Another source comes from Rabbi Yosef Schlomo Del Medigo, who published a collection of treatises in 1629, included in the collection were three letters from Rabbi Schlomo Dresnitz, concerning the possession and exorcism of a Dibok. Dresnitz was a Kabbalist from Arabia, who went to Svath in the 1590s to learn more about new Kabbalistic developments there. These two accounts, Falcon and Dresnitz, are the basis for many future Dibok stories and traditions. The motifs, concepts, and procedures in the letters became the stereotypical aspects of almost all later stories of possession and exorcism.
Many small booklets and pamphlets on famous exorcisms have also been published. These come from various locations in Eastern Europe, from the end of the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The last of these was published in Jerusalem in 1904. A 1920 Yiddish play called Der Dibok, or Between Two Worlds, by Schlomo Zanville Rappaport, also known as S.
Ansky, brought the Dibok into the modern sphere. It popularized the Dibok folklore motif, but was not a scholarly work. It was translated into several languages, and spread the concept beyond the Jewish community, but not much more was heard about Dibok until 2003, when the supposed Dibok box was listed on eBay. Before we get into the details of Dibok possession and exorcism, and the possibility of a Dibok possessing an inanimate object such as a box, an ad must play.
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These sources have been generally inaccessible to the general public, making analysis of this unique variant of spirit possession quite restricted. Yoram Belu, Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose many articles I read for this episode, reviewed 63 documents spanning over 400 years of Dibok possession cases. Reports were usually written by eyewitnesses, some of whom participated in the exorcism. Some victims and exorcists were identified by name, and some reports were signed by witnesses.
Some reports are vague, while others are intensely embellished, and all were written from a definite ideological stance which gives them strong moral overtones. The behavior patterns of the people possessed, the Dibokim, stayed mostly the same from the 16th century to the 19th century as well. I'll get into those behaviors in a moment. In his study, Belu noted that cases of Dibok possession spread geographically over time.
The first 16th century reports come from Sephardic communities in Savat, Palestine, and Italy. In the 17th century, there were cases reported in Savat, Damascus, and Cairo, then Turkey and Italy. European cases began to appear in the 17th century, but during the 18th and 19th century, the reports come mostly from Europe, in mystically oriented, Hasidic communities in Poland, Russia, Germany, Hungary, and Lithuania, all the while still occurring in the Middle East as well. Most 20th century cases come from Lithuania, Palestine in Jaffa and Jerusalem, and Baghdad.
After that, cases of Dibok possession seemed to disappear. Possibly as part of the gradual disintegration of traditional Jewish centers in Europe due to modernization and emigration, but also the physical extermination of the Jewish people during the Holocaust, much more than Dibok stories were lost then. The earliest documented Dibok possessions describe a malevolent being that sowed discord by revealing the sins and misbehaviors of those around it. There are seven Dibok possession stories in the thought literature of the 16th century.
Four of the Dibokim were men, and three were women. Rabbi Josef Karo, who was said to be possessed by Amigid, was the first recorded exorcist of a Dibok. No details were given of what occurred during the exorcisms. The possessions were mentioned, and the fact that an exorcism was attempted.
In half the cases, the exorcism failed, and the person died. Generally, in religious writing, the writer attempts to represent the power of the exorcist to show that their God is the true God. But in this case, there was also a record of failure. What then was the purpose?
At the time, Svat was reviving and revolutionizing the study of Kabbalah and the practice of Judaism. Possibly, the writers wanted to highlight the concept of Gugel and Iber as centered to Svat's evolving version of Kabbalah. The entry of a Dibok into a person was taken as a sign that that person had committed a secret sin. This opened a door for the Dibok to take control.
In a majority of cases, the spirit of a deceased male entered into a woman's living body. In these early writings, Dibokim were often taken to a rabbi to be exercised when they began suffering from what we would assume today was a mental or nervous disorder. The symptoms described have many similarities with epilepsy, borderline personality disorder, and schizophrenia. This includes hallucinations, emotional, sexual and physical disturbances, and changes to the person's demeanor that were often outside societal norms.
The kabbalistic literature of Luria's disciples contains many stories and protocols about exorcism, including detailed instructions on how to exercise Dibok. The power of exorcism was given to the Baal Shem, which is a practical Kabbalah practitioner, or an accomplished Hasidim, a term that at the time meant spiritual leader of Kabbalah, or a Hasidic Zadik, a mystical leader who can channel the divine. Hayem Vittel recorded these instructions from Luria in detail. A dramatic ritual was conducted in the synagogue to force the Dibok out of the body.
Ten men, dressed in white death shrouds, prayer shawls, and sacred parchments, must be present as witnesses and assistants. The exorcist addressed the Dibok directly, listing the offenses it had committed during its human life. The exorcist then attempted to cajole and threaten the Dibok. The ark containing the scrolls of the Torah was opened.
Seven scrolls were removed, seven shofars or ram's horns were played, seven black candles were lit, and seven different combinations of the 42 letter name of God were pronounced. The spirit was then directed to leave the body between the big toe and its nail, as any other exit route might injure the possessed. The spirit was also warned against entering anybody else in the room. Blood from under the toenail or fingernail was the final sign that the Dibok had been expelled.
This ritual simultaneously expelled the Dibok and redeemed the soul of the victim. The victim was then advised to affix a masseuse, a piece of parchment inscribed with specific Torah verses to the doorpost of their home. While a masseuse primarily serves as a reminder of faith and adherence to God's commandments, it also served as a protective amulet against harmful spirits. In the Zohar, it's suggested that a properly affixed masseuse can prevent such entities from entering a home.
A neglected or improperly maintained mazuzah might make those living in the home susceptible to Dibok possession. Jorim Belu, who studied Dibok in terms of anthropology and sociology, interprets Dibok possession in several ways. One way to look at it is that it served as a socially acceptable way of expressing unacceptable urges. Dibok appeared in close-knit, traditional, rigid Jewish communities, unconsciously attributing socially unacceptable emotions, frustrations, sexual urges, and non-sexual antisocial and aberrant impulses to a Dibok was a socially acceptable way of expressing such emotions and also a way for individuals to be forgiven by their community for those behaviors through exorcism.
The concept of a Dibok, a male unclean spirit possessing the body of a woman, is both sexual and illustrates duality. In the Dibokim, there is male and female, living and dead, pure and impure, all fused together in one human body. Exercising a Dibok then becomes more than saving a possessed person. It is a battle between a myriad of opposing forces.
Those who believed themselves to be possessed and were believed by their community to be possessed were severely mentally ill, borderline or otherwise emotionally disturbed people. Their actions were not understood, unable to be controlled, and would have frightened their community. Unaware of mental illness and psychosis, malevolent spirits were blamed. This resulted in a caring and protective response from the community, rather than expulsion or extermination.
At the time, as now, community is a very important human social structure, and preserving it is a priority, even unconsciously. The transition from the medieval era into the early modern period in Europe was chaotic. Life expectancy was short. Most of the population were young adults, prone to more chaotic behavior.
There were epidemics, economic downturn, social and political upheaval. This uncertainty and constant danger generated anxiety and insecurity, which led to aggression, violence and delusions. Jewish Europeans were not immune to these changes, though they did their best to adhere to their traditional ways. The human mind is defended from such anxiety and fear by unconscious mechanisms, like repression, denial or projection.
Like the Dibok became the explanation for abnormal behavior, the inner conflicts of non-Jewish society were unconsciously externalized, resulting in strife. The Jewish people, being different and insular, became the targets of such externalizations. They became scapegoats, targets of fear-induced violence. The diagnosis of a person as possessed by a Dibok, or another malevolent supernatural being in any other culture, provides a label and meaning for human distress, using familiar cultural idioms and traditional religious concepts.
It also offers a way for healing and reintegration into society, for the individual, through religious ritual, performed by the community in their sanctified space. It plays out as a sort of traumatic performance, complete with moral lessons. Blue also suggests that within the Jewish communities, the Dibok was a manifestation of private female distress. In their traditional patriarchal Jewish culture, marriages arranged by the male head of the family were the norm.
Very young girls were forced to marry and provide children. This is likely why Dibok possession usually affected women, and usually women around the age of marriage. The Dibok also likely served as a vehicle for expressing sexual desires and fantasies that couldn't be realized in a traditional society with a rigid moral code that was particularly repressive toward women, like witchcraft accusations, usually those believed to be possessed were women on the margins of society. The community was disturbed by the disruption of the patriarchal social order.
The solution was an exorcism, which then banished the Dibok and preserved the existing social order. The exorcism ritual, taking place in a religious space and conducted by males, was designed to reinforce the community's traditional patriarchal values. So, how does this Jewish concept end up part of the wider paranormal content circuit? In 2003, a man named Kevin Manus listed a wine cabinet for sale on eBay.
He claimed he bought it from the granddaughter of a recently deceased Holocaust survivor named Havela, who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland. The rest of Havela's family had been killed by the Nazis. When she immigrated to the US, the wine cabinet was one of only three items she brought with her. Manus claimed that when he paid for the cabinet, Havela's granddaughter said, I see you bought the Dibok box.
She said her grandmother always kept it shut and out of reach, because there was a Dibok in it. Manus stated that he took the box back to his shop, planning to restore it and give it to his mother for her birthday. He opened it and inside were two 1920s pennies, a lock of blonde hair and a lock of brown hair, both bound with cords, a small statue engraved with a Hebrew word Shalom, a small golden wine goblet, a dried rosebud, and a single candle holder with four octopus-shaped legs. The Shema, a prayer considered to be one of the most important in Judaism, was carved on the back of the cabinet.
Manus reported that after he gave it to his mother, she felt a cold breeze from the box and immediately had a stroke. Manus described the many mysterious events surrounding the cabinet. The doors kept opening on their own. Odd smells like cat urine and jasmine emanated from it.
Manus and his siblings had recurring nightmares of an old woman with sunken eyes after buying it, and Manus saw shadow things in his peripheral vision when he was around it. Manus included all of this in the description of the item on eBay. The box gained notoriety and mass attention. Manus posted more stories about the misfortune of people who came into contact with the box, such as homes burning to the ground, hair loss, and sudden bankruptcy.
The box went on to be sold to popular paranormal investigators Zach Bagan's of Coast Adventures. It still sits in his Museum of Haunted Objects as a headline exhibit. Manus claimed that Dibic Box was real until July of 2021. In an interview for Input Magazine, Manus confessed to making the whole thing up.
He stated, I am a creative writer. The Dibic Box is a story that I created, and the Dibic Box story has done exactly what I intended it to do when I posted it 20 years ago. When asked what he intended it to do, he stated, become an interactive horror story in real time. Despite his confession, belief in Dibic Box's is rampant.
Jewish scholars have responded to the exploitation of their folklore, but unsurprisingly their commentary is hidden amongst a miasma of articles written by paranormal researchers, ghost hunters, and content creators. It took almost no research into actual Jewish mythology and folklore for me to learn that there's no historical basis for their existence. Dibic cling to people. Shelter from the torment of limbo can only be found in a human host.
If not possessing a human, the Dibic is forced to wander. There is no reason for it to reside in an inanimate cabinet. There's no folklore about binding a Dibic to an object. Human fascination with ghosts and hauntings has blossomed into its own modern folklore.
Haunted objects are part of that, and this concept has now absorbed an aspect of ancient Jewish folklore. Many other aspects of many other religions have also been absorbed. The uncertainty of death and the possibility of an afterlife draws us in. The combination of evolution and reanimation of older lore is what keeps us morbidly curious.
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