Leaf

Conspiracy theories... We have all heard of them. Most of us don't believe them. Some of us do (like me). But I want to hear some conspiracy theories that you guys have heard and BELIEVE!.. So I will start off with this one:

FBI is monitoring your Iphones! (sooo glad I have an android =P)

The hacker group AntiSec claims the FBI has compiled a database of 12 million Apple UDIDs—the unique numbers that identify every Apple device, including iPhones and iPads—many of them complete with the device owner's personal information. To prove it, the Anonymous-affiliated group on Monday published one million of the IDs, along with the type (e.g. iPhone) and name (e.g. Jane Doe's iPhone) of each device. In a post accompanying the data dump, the group says it withheld other personally identifying information, including names, mobile phone numbers, and addresses. There's no indication that bank account numbers or passwords were included.

How did the group obtain the information? In its own words (and its own lackadaisical grammar):

During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of "NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv" turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc. the personal details fields referring to people appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted on many parts. no other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose.

The group suspects the FBI was using, or planned to use, the information to track Apple users. The FBI has yet to comment on the apparent breach, and it's unclear how it obtained the Apple IDs.

In a twist, the agent whose laptop AntiSec claims to have hacked appeared in a 2009 FBI recruiting video, urging hackers to join the bureau as cybersecurity experts. To AntiSec, which views cybersecurity experts as, essentially, tools of The Man, that makes him an ideal target.

Meanwhile, some security researchers are pouncing on Apple for hard-coding unique identifiers onto every device in the first place. In a post titled, "The UDID leak is a privacy catastrophe," security consultant Aldo Cortesi catalogs several of his own past blog posts warning about the potential for the device numbers to be misused.
Wondering whether your device was among those compromised? The Next Web has built a quick tool that lets you check whether your UDID matches any of the one million that AntiSec included in its data dump. The Next Web assures users that it isn’t storing the numbers they enter. You can find your UDID by following the easy steps outlined here. (Note: Even if yours isn't a match, it could still theoretically be among the other 11 million that AntiSec says it has but didn't publish.)


Reference: http://www.slate.com...fbi_laptop.html

Or just google: FBI UDID

This is the true story of the Dybbuk or "Dibbuk" box.

Here is the story of the haunted wine box, exactly as it appeared on eBay. You form your own opinion.

The first buyer an antique buyer-refinisher
All of the events that I am about to set forth in this listing are accurate and may be verified by the winning bidder with the copies of hospital records and sworn affidavits that I am including as part of the sale of the cabinet.

During September of 2001, I attended an estate sale in Portland Oregon. The items liquidated at this sale were from the estate of a woman who had passed away at the age of 103. A grand-daughter of the woman told me that her grandmother had been born in Poland where she grew up, married, raised a family, and lived until she was sent to a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. She was the only member of her family who survived the camp. Her parents, brothers, a sister, husband, and two sons and a daughter were all killed. She survived the camp by escaping with some other prisoners and somehow making her way to Spain where she lived until the end of the war. I was told that she acquired the small wine cabinet listed here in Spain and it was one of only three items that she brought with her when she immigrated to the United States. The other two items were a steamer trunk, and a sewing box.

I purchased the wine cabinet, along with the sewing box and some other furniture at the estate sale. After the sale, I was approached by the woman's granddaughter who said, I see you got the dibbuk box. She was referring to the wine cabinet. I asked her what a dibbuk box was, and she told me that when she was growing up, her grandmother always kept the wine cabinet in her sewing room. It was always shut, and set in a place that was out of reach. The grandmother always called it the dibbuk box. When the girl asked her grandmother what was inside, her grandmother spit three times through her fingers said, a dibbuk, and keselim. The grandmother went on to tell the girl that the wine cabinet was never, ever, to be opened.

The granddaughter told me that her grandmother had asked that the box be buried with her. However, as such a request was contrary to the rules of an orthodox Jewish burial, the grandmothers request had not been honored. I asked the granddaughter what a dibbuk, and keselim were, but she did not know. I asked if she would like to open it with me. She did not want to open it, as her grandmother had been very emphatic and serious when she instructed her not to do so, and, regardless of the reason, she wanted to honor her grandmother’s request.

I finally ended up offering to let her keep what seemed to me to be a sentimental keepsake. At that point, she was very insistent and said, No, no you bought it!

I explained that I didn’t want my money back, and that it would make me feel better to do what I thought was an act of kindness. She then became somewhat upset. Looking back now, the way she became upset was just plain odd. She raised her voice to me and said, you bought it! You made a deal!

When I tried to speak, she yelled, we don't want it! She began to cry, asked me to leave, and quickly walked away. I wrote the whole episode off to the stress and grief she must have been experiencing. I took my purchases and politely left.

At the time when I bought the cabinet, I owned a small furniture refinishing business. I took the cabinet to my store, and
put it in my basement workshop where I intended to refinish it and give it as a gift to my Mother. I didn't think anything
more about it. I opened my shop for the day and went to run some errands leaving the young woman who did sales for
me in charge.

After about a half-hour, I got a call on my cell phone. The call was from my salesperson. She was absolutely hysterical and screaming that someone was in my workshop breaking glass and swearing. Furthermore, the intruder had locked the iron security gates and the emergency exit and she couldn't get out. As I told her to call the police, my cell phone battery went dead. \ I hit speeds of 100 mph getting back to the shop. When I arrived, I found the gates locked. I went inside and found my employee on the floor in a corner of my office sobbing hysterically. I ran to the basement and went downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I was hit by an overpowering unmistakable odor of cat urine (there had never been any animals kept or found in my shop). The lights didn't work. As I investigated, I found that the reason the lights didn't work also explained the sounds of glass breaking. All of the light bulbs in the basement were broken. All nine incandescent bulbs had been broken in their sockets, and 10 four-foot fluorescent tubes were lying shattered on the floor. I did not find an intruder, however. I should also add that there was only one entrance to the basement. It would have been impossible for anyone to leave without meeting me head-on. I went back up to speak with my salesperson, but she had left.

She never returned to work (after having been with me for two years). She refuses to discuss the incident to this day. I never thought of relating the events of that day to anything having to do with the cabinet.

Then, things got worse.

As I already indicated, I had decided to give the cabinet to my Mother as a birthday gift. About two weeks after I made the purchase, I decided to get started refinishing it. I was surprised to find that the cabinet has a unique little mechanism. When you open one of the doors, the mechanism causes the opposite door, and the little drawer below, to open at the same time. It is very well made. Inside the cabinet, I found the following items: 1 1928 U.S. Wheat Penny; 1 1925 US Wheat Penny; One small lock of blonde hair (bound with string); One small lock of black/brown hair (bound with string); One small granite statue engraved and gilded with Hebrew letters (I have been told that the letters spell out the word SHALOM); One dried rosebud; One golden wine cup; One very strange black cast iron candlestick holder with octopus legs.

I saved all of the items in a box intending to return them to the estate. The family has refused the items, so they will be included in this sale of the cabinet.

After opening the cabinet, I decided not to refinish it. I cleaned it, and rubbed in some lemon oil. It was at this time that I noticed that there was an inscription in Hebrew carved into the back of the cabinet. I have no idea what it says or if it is significant. I have included a picture of that inscription below. On my mother’s birthday, October 28, 2001, my mother called to tell me that she was going out of town with my sister for three days, and we postponed celebrating her birthday together until she returned. On October 31, 2001, my mother came to my shop. We were going to have lunch together, but before we were going to leave, I gave her the wine cabinet. She seemed to like it. While she examined it, I went to make a phone call. I hadn't been out of sight more than 5 minutes when one of my employees came running into my office saying that something was wrong with my mom.

When I went back to see what the matter was, I found my mom sitting in a chair beside the cabinet. Her face had no expression, but tears were streaming down her cheeks. No matter how I tried to get her to respond, she would not. She could not. It turns out that my mother had suffered a stroke. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance. She ended up suffering partial paralysis, and losing her ability to speak and form words (she has since regained the ability to speak). She could understand things being said to her, and could respond by pointing to letters of the alphabet to spell out words she wanted to say. When I asked her the following day how she was doing, she teared up and spelled out the words: N-O G-I- F-T. I assured her that I had given her a gift for her birthday, thinking that she didn’t remember, but she became even more upset and spelled out the words: H-A-T-E G-I-F-T. I laughed and told her not to worry. I told her I was sorry she didn’t like the cabinet, and that I would get her anything she wanted if she would promise to get well soon.

Still, I didn't associate anything that had happened with the cabinet itself or anything paranormal. Frankly, I don’t think I ever even used the term paranormal until this last month.

I'll try to make this short now. I gave the cabinet to my sister. She kept it for a week, then gave it back. She complained that she couldn't get the doors to stay closed and that they kept coming open. There are no springs in the door mechanism and I have never found that the doors come open. I gave it to my brother and his wife who kept it for three days and then gave it back. My brother said it smelled like Jasmine flowers, while his wife insisted that it put out an odor of cat urine. I gave it to my girlfriend who asked me to sell it for her after only two days. I sold it the same day to a nice middle aged couple. Three days later, when I came to open the shop for the day, I found the cabinet sitting at the front doors with a note that read, This has a bad darkness. I had no idea what that meant. Anyway, I ended up taking it home.

Then, things got even worse.

Since the day I brought it home, I began having a strange recurring nightmare. Every time I have the horrible dream it goes something like this: I find myself walking with a friend, usually someone I know well and trust at some point in the dream, I find myself looking into the eyes of the person that I am with. It is then that I realize that there is something different, something evil looking back at me. At that point in my dream, the person I am with changes into what can only be described as the most gruesome, demonic looking Hag that I have ever seen. This Hag proceeds then, to beat the living tar out of me. I have awakened numerous times to find bruises and marks on myself where I had been hit by the old woman during the previous night. Still, I never related the nightmares to the cabinet, nor do I think that I ever would have.

About a month ago, however, my sister, and my brother and his wife came over to my house and spent the night. The following morning, during breakfast, my sister complained that she had had a horrible nightmare. She said that she recalled having had it a couple of times before, and went on to describe my nightmare exactly to the last detail. My brother and his wife froze as they listened, and then chimed in that they had both had had the exact same dreams during the night as well. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck and still is. As we talked, it became clear that the common denominator was that each of us had had the nightmare during the times that the cabinet was in our respective homes. I called my girlfriend and asked if she could recall having any nightmares recently. She described the same nightmare, same Hag, everything. When I asked her if she remembered the date when she had the nightmare, she said she did not. Then I
asked if it happened to be the night before she gave me the cabinet back to sell for her. She said, Yeah! Hey, how did
you know that?!!!

Now then, since my family discussion, it seems like all hell is breaking loose. For a week afterward I started seeing what I can only describe as shadow things in my peripheral vision. In fact, numerous visitors to my house have claimed that they have seen these shadow things. I put the cabinet in an outside storage unit and was awakened when the smoke alarm in the unit went off in the middle of the night. When I went to see what was burning, I opened the door and didn’t see any smoke. However, I did get hit with the smell of cat urine. When I went back inside, the smell was there in my house. I DO NOT OWN A CAT AND I NEVER HAVE. I went back outside and grabbed the cabinet. I brought it back inside and tried to research it on the Internet. While I was surfing the net, I fell asleep and once again had the same freakin nightmare. I woke up at around 4:30am (when it felt and smelled like someone was breathing on my neck) to find that my house now smelled like Jasmine flowers, and just in time to see a HUGE shadow thing go loping down the hall away from me.

I would destroy this thing in a second, except I really don’t have any understanding of what I may or may not be dealing with. I am afraid (and I do mean afraid) that if I destroy the cabinet, whatever it is that seems to have come with the cabinet may just stay here with me. I have been told that there are people who shop on EBAY that understand these kinds of things and specifically look for these kinds of items. If you are one of these people, please, please buy this cabinet and do whatever you do with a thing like this.

Help me.

You can see that I have no reserve price or minimum bid. If I can make things any easier let me know and I will do everything within my abilities.

One more note. On the same day my Mom had her stroke, the lease to my store was summarily terminated without cause.

The measurements are 12.5" x 7.5" x 16.25"

ALL OF THE ITEMS THAT I ORIGINALLY FOUND INSIDE THE CABINET ARE INCLUDED IN THE SALE AND WILL BE DELIVERED WITH THE CABINET.

On Jun-12-03 at 02:15:30 PDT, seller added the following information:

There is no way that I can respond to all of the e-mails I've received since I put this thing on-line. I'll try now to update and answer the most common questions I've been receiving.

1. No, I am not religious.

2. No, I do not wish to have or participate in any sort of exorcism, or case study, or photo sessions at my home.

3. No, I will not sell any of the individual pieces which were originally found separate from the other pieces and the cabinet.

4. No, I do not speak Hebrew nor do I know what the word "keselim" means. I don't know that the word is even
or or a Hebrew word.

5. At the end of the auction, I have decided to take an opportunity to speak with the winning bidder for two reasons: a.)To make sure that the winning bidder is a serious adult who has employed some valid reasoning skills in making the decision to accept whatever this is. I will not be judgmental. Do whatever you want or need after the sale. b.)To offer full details of the events that have transpired. After I have carried out those responsibilities, and upon payment, I will have the cabinet and its contents delivered by U.S.MAIL, FED-EX, or UPS to the winning bidder. At that point, I will have no further involvement with the matter in any way, shape, or form. Period.

6.) To all of you who have offered to pray, I may not be religious, but I am certainly open to the possibilities --no matter what your religion might be. THANK YOU!
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On Jun-14-03 at 05:216 PDT, seller added the following information:

Here is another update for everyone following this listing.
NO! No, I will not circumvent, or make any deals outside of EBAY - EVEN FOR MORE MONEY THAN THE FINAL AUCTION PRICE!!! If you want to win the auction and have the kind of money some of you are offering, there shouldn't be any reason why you cannot simply place your bid in an open honest fashion. I'm sure you can understand why I might be suspicious.

ALSO....

For those of you wanting to know if I am still experiencing anything out of the ordinary, I thought everything was going OK until I got home on Friday - the 13th of June - and found that the fish in my fresh water aquarium - all 10 - were dead.

I'm still hoping that all of this is coincidental crap.
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Here is information from the second buyer a college student in Missouri

I bought the box from the first seller above in the Ebay auction around June of 2003, out of curiosity about the 'haunted' box. After receiving a deluge of e-mail about the box, I set up a web site to answer some questions, which I stopped updating in September and haven't updated to this day because I didn't want to talk about it with anyone.

For the sake of information, I found that a dibbuk/dybbuk in Jewish folklore/mythology/teaching/whatever is a misplaced spirit that can neither rise to Heaven nor descend into Hell, essentially stuck in Limbo or purgatory. Here's another definition I found: 1. (Jewish folklore) a demon that enters the body of a living person and controls that body's behavior. Synonyms: dybbuk. 2. Evil Spirits, that cause mental illness, rage and changes of personality. The spirit or soul of a dead person that inhabits the body of a living one, with sometimes evil, sometimes positive results.

If you believe in paranormal phenomena, the box contains or is possessed by at least one dibbuk, possibly two, as the grandmother stated: a dibbuk, and a keslim. Keselim is a term similar to a turkish word that means "priest." This would probably correspond to the pair of wrapped strands of blonde and brown/black hair.

The Hebrew carving on the back, to my knowledge, is a relatively common Jewish prayer: Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Blessed is the name of his honored kingdom forever. Said frequently at times of fear, death, etc...

I was doubtful of the 'haunted' box, and I still don't believe in the paranormal. What happened in August and September is likely coincidental, so I will relate it as I originally wrote it down in a log.

Sunday, 31 August 2003 Over the last week some interesting, though possibly coincidental, items of note have come up. Firstly, I share a house with six other people; we have been taking turns sleeping with the box in each of our rooms.
Two people are now complaining of burning eyes, one is listless and depleted of energy, and another became spontaneously sick. [In retrospect I would say it was allergies.]
A few days after these ongoing annoyances started, the air outside our house was filled with small bugs for several hours (a Friday). [Weird summer stuff?]
Last night (Saturday) we discovered that the box, now located in the back corner of the house, had come mostly open, though it had been shut and it seems unlikely that anyone could or would have touched it.

Wednesday, 10 September 2003 Though it seems impossible to prove that the box is a direct cause of misfortune, we have definitely seen a tidal wave of "bad luck."
Strange odors now permeate the house, the dumpster out back overflows with trash and decay, one roommate suddenly got bronchitis, and I broke a finger.
Several mice have died in the engine of one car, and more electronic devices seem to be dying everyday: xbox, toaster, t.v., and watches.
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I don't really want to talk about anything between September and January, so I'll just say that I'm selling the box now for a couple reasons:

Around October 6th, I started feeling bad, with trouble sleeping. This problem has persisted through today.
I live alone now, and as of late I have noticed replacing a lot of burnt out lightbulbs, and getting many unusual car repairs (transmission fluid was burned out of the reservoir.)
I've started seeing things, sort of like large vertical dark blurs in my peripheral vision.
I smell something like juniper bushes or stingy ammonia in my garage often, and I have no idea what from.
Most disturbingly, last Tuesday (1-27-2004), my hair began to fall out. Today (Friday) it's about half gone. I'm in my early twenties, and I just got a clean blood test back from the doctor's. Maybe it's stress related, I don't know.
Anyhow, for personal reasons I very strongly do not want this box anymore. I hope there's someone on eBay that will take this thing off of my hands. [I would just throw it away in the woods or something, but I know there has been some interest in it in the past.]

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Information from the current owner
Up until June 26th, 2004 when I traveled to Portland, Oregon to research on site the Dibbuk Box history, I have never met, never talked to, nor had I ever seen the previous two owners of the Dibbuk Box. We three owners have had no connection at all in our lives to one another, other than each buying this wooden box through various auctions. Our connection has only been the box. After five months of research, I located the first owner Kevin. When we met over coffee at a Starbucks, it was obvious that Kevin's curse had remained in tact. I was intrigued to see
that Kevin had never followed up on the box after his eBay sale in June 2003. Kevin was completely unaware of the interest that his family's events with the box had generated worldwide and he was completely taken aback by it all. Since that meeting, Kevin has been brought up to date. Together he and I are trying to find out as much about this box and the circumstances on it being created. Hopefully we will be able to lift the curse and remove the entity that continues to plague his family.

I sought the purchase of this unique artifact with its strange history and spiritual reputation after hearing that it was once more available on eBay in early February 2004. I won the bid miraculously it would seem and once I had the box in my possession, I set out almost immediately to locate the original buyer and learn more about this item's history and to attempt to locate the family of the woman who created the Dibbuk box. I searched for clues to discover the nature of this artifact. Was it an item of family folklore? … a hoax? … or was it an artifact of great spiritual energy - a connection to the spiritual world, an item more important than most might imagine? It took me over five months of searching and false leads to finally locate that first buyer, Kevin, who made the purchase of the box at the old woman's auction. I sought out genealogical sources, census records, and even public records to zero in on Kevin. His phone number unlisted and his e-mail changed, locating him was very difficult. I got lucky with my leads and a family member connected me to his current phone number.

At our face-to-face meeting the evidence that Kevin presented to me about the store where the box was first opened, his mother's injuries caused by the box, and the location of the estate auction where the box was purchased was over
whelming to me. I visited the physical sites and was stunned. It could all be confirmed that Kevin's information was true from start to finish as written in the original eBay listing. The events of the Dibbuk Box are indeed true, tight with no gapping
holes in the facts. The next pressing issue was to find the family that created the Dibbuk Box and learn its purpose. To
do this would require Kevin to trace his steps so he could locate the auctioneers to find the family and have them shed light on this mystery.
But let me go back to the beginning of my involvement with the box. I learned about the Dibbuk Box like most readers - word of mouth. I became aware of the Dibbuk Box through a college student that has worked with me for several years. It seems the second buyer of the box spent a lot of time at this college student's apartment as a guest, which is shared by six college men. The college student who works with me mentioned one morning, well over a year ago now (mid-June 2003) that I might want to go on-line to see what a guest in his apartment had just bought through eBay. The college student pulled up the eBay listing for the Dibbuk Box on the computer for several others and me. Like many, the story written by the first buyer of the box struck a nerve in me to read - and it was fascinating - like nothing I had ever heard told before and yes a bit creepy too! I remember right away I started teasing about the Dibbuk and how I would like to borrow the box if it arrived - I wanted to see if this item appeared to have been faked. This teasing went on for several days to those who knew of the box's reputation. Any problems we had were quickly blamed on the Dibbuk being sent to our town. When the wooden box did arrive, a 100-year-old tree fell into my home and I spent the rest of the summer removing the tree and repairing the damage that it caused to my home. Could the Dibbuk in this box have done this kind of damage? The tree falling due to a mini storm whipped up just around my home was odd and it was very unexpected. I don't know if it was a Dibbuk that caused the damage, but the phrase "Don't mock the box!" was coined at work, and this box was mentioned only in respectful terms after that incident.

I had fleeting thoughts about the Dibbuk Box off and on all summer and into late fall. I finally mentioned to the college student that I would like to see this artifact first hand. The student who first told me about the box said that the owner was only a guest at his apartment. He went on to tell me that he was sorry but that the guest had left some time ago to live with other people, and that he had taken the Dibbuk Box with him. So I decided that's the end of that mystery - I guess I will never know. It was odd to feel such a loss inside, why this item affected me in such a manner is still unexplainable.

Then, in February 2004 out of the blue, I was told by the college student that first alerted me to the box that he had heard that the Dibbuk Box had been put back up for auction on eBay. Upon my questioning this student about his past experiences, I learned of several additional odd events he had remembered when near the box before the box was removed from his apartment. I decided to bid on the box knowing the original winning bid was $140 and I was feeling I had pretty good information from a reliable source that I trusted… that something was really unique about this artifact. From my auction experience, I figured that I would set my highest bid a few dollars over double the original winning bid, and to put this bid in during the last 15 seconds of the auction. I would either win the box or not. As the auction hours came closer to completion and the number of hits to the auction site grew to 5,000 - it had double in just the last hours, I was no longer sure if I was going to win the bid for the box. In the end, I actually won the box by only $6. If the auction had run just 10 more seconds I am confident I would have lost the box to another buyer. My top price was $286 - the box realized $280 when time ran out. I continue to wonder if it was destiny for me to end up with the Dibbuk Box. I received the box and checked out the box's construction and its contents. I was pleased that the artifact, indeed, appeared genuine with reasonable wear for its age, the various objects inside had the feeling of a planned set that took some time to collect. Then, I put the artifact in storage. The morning after I received the box and handled it, I woke with my eyes blood shot and my right eye looked like it had been severely poked. It was odd, but no big deal. However, after two weeks of no improvement to my eyes, I went to see two separate eye specialists.

Both doctors said there was no virus or injury to cause the damage. I had a spontaneous drying of my eye whites. Medication was used and has helped, but I have noticed a distinct loss of vision for small items like map numbers. I am not sure that this had anything to do with the box, but a similar problem occurred with the college students that lived in the apartment with it fall 2003. I decided to have the box checked to see if there was any type of residue on the box that could cause this type of irritation (like ammonia), but no residue was found on the box.

That first week with the box, those near the box reported several incidents of harm had come to their family members. So the box was moved from human proximity. I personally witnessed the Jasmine and cat urine smells in dealing with the box. Also, while reading a blog that said, "I should burn the box - my computer hard drive erased leaving the monitor still on , but all functions to the Internet were gone. Several other odd things have happened. I don't care to share them, these issues could be caused because I am more aware of my surroundings and I may be relating coincidence to the supernatural. I have not tried to do any research on the box pertaining to the supposed spirits - keeping this artifact boxed and stored away. Instead my current interest has been in finding the connection of this artifact with its unique Jewish history. I am investigating and doing research to understand how and why such an artifact with its contents was put together. With Kevin's help I am hoping to learn this artifact's ultimate purpose … and, to know the life story of its creator.

All information to date leads me to believe that this item has come from a family with a very, strong Jewish background, but not necessarily Cabbalist influences. The wooden box itself with its grape appliqué seems to be circa 1960's. The work looks similar to the Swiss cabinetmaker's style (mistakenly called "Black Forest"). It has been suggested that the box could not function as a wine cabinet (wine bottles are too tall and wine glasses don't fit in the small racks on the doors). It has been mentioned by several Jewish people that the box has a very odd resemblance to the Aaron HaKodesh shrines found in synagogues that hold Jewish scrolls - or Torahs. The choice of a box with a magical opening design as this one may have been purposely selected to mimic the religious arks that hold spiritual materials. Such portable arks do exist in synagogues and typically are for use with Shiva (seven days of mourning). If someone wanted to create a very powerful spiritual piece a sacred box in this style would make sense. I have found another box from a later time period and it was originally created as a liquor cabinet with small square liquor decanters, shot glasses and tumblers for making drinks. In all ways it matches the Dibbuk Box. I believe that was the original use of the wooden cabinet that is the Dibbuk box.

The wine cup is a Leonard Company silver-plate double jigger - an item I have found only in Oregon. The cup shows great amounts of wear and damage from use with wine (the lip of the cup is stressed with cracks from acid in the wine). I have worked with a Rabbi and a monument company and the marble piece could possible be made from broken headstones. Put together in this fashion it becomes a Matzevah or religious pillar - an item that those in the Jewish faith are told not use for worship. The candleholder is Victorian circa 1890 -1910 made by the Peking Glass company I have seen several of these at antique shops. These candleholders can be bought on eBay or found in antique malls. The candleholder has the natural wear in the black paint of being handled often using a thumb and pointing finger - and appears to have survived a very hot fire. The octopus legs seem to be bent backwards from extreme heat. Using a black light, melted wax was found dribbled on the outside door of the box. The naked eye does not see this. No biological material was found using the black light in or
on the box.

A Rabbi from the UK told me that the prayer on the back has the name God written with a hyphen so as to remove sacredness to a degree that the box could be destroyed without committing a sacrilegious act - something known to the Jewish sect. Jewish Museums and other Rabbis have contacted me, none seem to doubt that this is a piece of Jewish origin; however, its purpose is not known and use of something like this is not typical with the Jewish faith. I have been told this was not for Shabbat.

Working with the first buyer of the Dibbuk Box, Kevin, I have recently been able to learn more about the family that created the box. The story of the Dibbuk Box goes back to the 1930's. The Dibbuk Box owner's nick name was Havela (she was the 103 year old woman that wanted to be buried with the box). Havela and other family members in Poland resorted to holding séances hoping to talk to the dead… nobody in particular, it was a carryover from the Victorian parlor fads but very popular in Poland at this time. It was a game of sorts to do for fun in the evening hours. Havela, friends and family members thought they had reached a true spirit and as time went on ...it was easier and easier to talk with this spirit through their séance group. Soon they were having regular meetings with this spirit. However, if they were not punctual in calling upon the spirit - at the next séance, the spirit would do psychological harm to them by revealing personal secrets held by the members or some such thing.

At this point in their dealings with the other world, it was the séance group's belief that more than one spirit was communicating with them. It seemed the spirits were more and more involved with the decision making of the séance group's daily lives. Then, the spirit then wanted to bargain with them to perform a ritual that would bring it (and others) to this world/side permanently. The group decided the best way to end this spirit's influence was to bring it to this world and trap it. On November 10, 1938 they tried to capture the spirit(s) and they said it went very wrong. They believe that what they tried to do - actually had an affect on Kristallnacht - when Jews were first attacked by Germans destroying their shops and many being pushed into Poland from Germany. The family of the Dibbuk Box indicated that the method of madness and breaking glass was consistent with their spirit. Oddly that is the exact kind of damage that this spirit did to Kevin's shop when released. Breaking all his light fixtures - causing terror to the worker and creating a mini Kristallnacht on basement floor of Kevin's shop. The ending of Kevin's lease mysteriously so Kevin (of Jewish descent) was without a business.

The Dibbuk Box that I now have was not originally used by the group to capture the spirit, but was created many years later to hold the spirit as they tried to pull them back together - and undo the evil they felt that they had released. All this information comes from a cousin of Havela who was the youngest in the group and now she regrets being involved in the whole thing. I didn't believe this story could be any stranger. I was wrong. The spirit came from séances held in 1938 just before WWII .

Who would have thought that the Dibbuk Box story would have led to the years prior to WWII and that those involved would feel that they somehow created/or at least played a role in a horror against people greater than most of us could imagine. The violence and destruction of Kristallnacht (when the evil spirits were released) that night … true horror was not really expected even by Hitler, but unstoppable evil seemed to be unleashed like a current through the German people that would not normally be so inhumane. It makes one wonder did something in the air so to speak make the attack on the Jews that night more intense. And once that barrier was passed the following acts and atrocities upon the Jewish people did not
seem so bad. Were the evil spirits that are said to have been guiding Hitler - one and the same as those reached by
Havela's group?

Do a goggle search and you can find many sites on the nature of Hitler his supposed demonic possession, séances
and the occult.

Thule member Dietrich Eckart prophesied that the day had come; he began introducing him in Munich occult circles as "the long-awaited savior". To Alfred Rosenberg he said: "I believe in Hitler; above him there hovers a star." Eckart was following his own mission revealed to him in a séance: that when "Lord Maitreya" would soon make his appearance as a German messiah to "lead the Aryan race to final victory over the Jews", he, Eckart, was charged with the responsibility of
"nurturing" him.

The Thule Society considered the Jew ("Juda") their cosmic enemy. As early as 1920, Sebottendorf advocated a "Final Goal" of "cleaning out the Jews once and for all", using "the most ruthless measures, including Sammellager [concentration camps] and sweeping out the Jewish vermin with an iron broom."

It is amazing that this little group of pretty typical Polish people messing around with séances should tap into something that they recognized as so evil and that on the eve of their trying to trap it, Adolf Hitler was on the eve of releasing it upon humanity. No wonder they were devastated to witness what followed ... the turning of their world to destruction in just hours after dealing with the spiritswho wanted to enter this world.

Here is a piece of history that I have never thought of and quite frankly would have laughed at just a few months ago. This Dibbuk Box has led back to opening a 75-year-old event that most people do not know about. It makes me wonder what forces were really in play at the beginning of WWII and did this little group truly stumbled into it. I do know that they have felt responsible ever since and tried to make amends to capture and hold the spirits because it is the right thing to do against all odds. Hence, this box was created later and possibly others like it. The biggest part of the Dibbuk Box story is out - the beginning and the end - more bizarre than anything you could try to make up. Now I hope the cousin of Havela will be able to fill in the details of what happened in-between. I could be wrong, but this may explain why this box seems to have
a mystical power that draws people to it. And many that write to me become almost addicted to what is happening with the box in ways they cannot understand, but they cannot seem to just let it go. It is a strange and amazing story. Putting all the pieces together and looking at it now feels right. The box had to come from someone, to account for some event, and then to fulfill some ultimate purpose. One must remember that with the Holocaust, much history and many of the Cabbalist rituals once performed have vanished with the many that died. Authors, screenwriters, religious leaders, and a host involved with the spiritual world, have contacted me and I have tried to answer questions as truthfully and objectively as possible. I have not made plans for the Dibbuk Box except to document its history, and the Dibbuk Box is not for sale. I will continue to keep this site posted with what I learn of its history and purpose, which is my main interest. Until more is known about this artifact, as a precaution, the box continues to be stored with its contents shut inside. Indeed, the box is being kept away from people as much as possible.

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Rage of Bahamut!

Or RoB for short, is a virtual trading card game for the android and iOS devices. The game is completely FREE to play but you can buy in game items to help you along the game faster. There really is no object to the game or specific goals that you need to achieve but there are quest you can do and wars you can participate in. Its like a mix between pokemon and magic the gathering... so if you are keen to either of those (or God forbid both of them) I am sure you will enjoy the game.


When you begin the game there are 3 Realms you can choose from:::

(DEMON) - I chose demons because I like using dragons and vampires and all sorts of things you general think of when you think "demon"
(GOD) - God realm has a lot of Angels and mythical creatures like faeries and pixies... cute little "girly" things in my opinion lol. No but in all honesty I love a lot of the God Cards.
(MAN) - And Man Realm has a lot Knights and Princesses... Even witches! which at first I thought belonged with the Demons but a Witch is just a human that just practices magic so it makes sense.

QUESTING:
In the game you play though quest's so that you can earn experience and level up. You use stamina every time you quest but it regenerates at 1 stamina every minute. If you do not feel like waiting you can buy "cure water" that replenishes your stamina instantly but honestly its not needed. Every time you level up you gain 3 attribute point that you can put into any of 3 sections: strength, defense, or stamina. If you like questing a lot then put a lot of points into your stamina. You should do this anyways for at least the first 15 levels that way you have a lot of stamina and can quest more... which will allow you to level up faster. When you play through the quest you earn "rupies" which is like in game money and every 3-4 hits you earn a free card (usually a normal or high normal card). You also earn "treasure artifacts". Each treasure set has 8 pieces and you can find 3-4 of them just by questing... the other two you need to steal from people threw battle. Once you complete a treasure set you receive a special card.

---About once a month they have a questing event in which you play through a special quest line and you earn special prizes. There is also a ranking board and they give out prizes depending on which spot you are at when the quest event is over.



BATTLING:
Battling is the main part of the game and ultimately what the whole game revolves around. As you progress through the game you get stronger and stronger cards either through events or by trading for them (Or you can buy card packs but never do). You use these cards to make a "deck" which you use to battle with. You can initiate a battle although even when you are not playing someone can attack you (that's when your defense comes into play). When you battle someone, if your attack is stronger than their defense you will win. But its not as simple as it sounds... Certain cards give certain bonuses and even using cards from your own realm (if you picked god realm in the beginning of the game and you use an all god deck) can make a big difference. Cards that are from your own realm get a 3%-5% bonus whether attacking or defending. When you beat someone in battle you get "Honor Points" as well as rupies.

---Honor points are used to determine your battle ranking. At the end of every day your honor points will be turned in for the day and saved. At the beginning of every week (Monday) they give out "gems" to all the high ranker's and as long as you scored 500 honor points throughout the week then you too will get some gems. Gems can be turned in for special prizes and card packs... even High Rare and Super Rare cards!

GOD REALM

MAN REALM

DEMON REALM

Anyways... There is a lot more to the game and you guys should check it out if it sounds like something you might like. I've already made this longer than I wanted to so just check it out and see if it interest you. If you have a smartphone just search for it in your APP Marketplace.

If you do decide you want to try it out I suggest you use someone's referral code, mine is JXS93102 but I'm not asking that you use mine... there are other neocodex members that play this game too and I'm sure they would appreciate it if you used their code. You get 50,000 rupies and a rare card if you use a referral code. As opposed to not using one and not getting any bonuses. So you can see why its a good thing for everyone. So good luck! and be safe!

**Just like neopets there are scammers! so dont give out your username and password no anybody
AND LEARN THE PRICE OF CARDS BEFORE YOU ACCEPT ANY TRADE!!! Imagine if you were new to neopets and someone offered you 100K for a draik egg you found in a random event or something. The person might tell you, "dude im paying you 100K for a food item!!! its such a good deal" But as we all know... that would be anything but a good deal. So same principals apply.

***When you play through the game you get "CP Claim Tickets" for beating the first boss, again at level 20, and you get (2) of them at level 40. When you claim the tickets if you happen to get a (S Rare) or (SS Rare) card and you want to make some money send me a PM or email at [email protected] - I will pay you anywhere from 20-200 "other" for your card depending on what it is!!! So who knows... you might even make some "other" from playing a FREE to play game!