Talk:The Possession/@comment-30300784-20170311100838

Like many possession-based horror films, The Possession is based on a true story. The story is of the eBay seller Iosif Nietzke, a Missouri college student, who sold an ancient Jewish wine cabinet box online, and warned buyers of the bad luck that came with it—for example, he was only in his 20s and had started losing his hair when he got the box.

Buyers bid on the box very quickly, even knowing about the "bad luck". It sold for $280 to a museum curator named Jason Haxton. After he bought the box, The Forward, a 107-year-old Jewish newspaper, published an article about the mysteries behind the box.

Many rabbis and other high-level Jewish scholars have offered to open the box and one even asked Haxton to take all images of the box off the Internet because it would serve as a way for spirits to invade homes. The spirit people are worried about is the "Dybbuk", which is supposed to be a malevolent spirit of a dead person.