J. W. Ocker - Cursed objects: Strange but True Stories of the Worlds Most Infamous Items

To steal this book,

if you should try,

Its by the throat

youll hang high.

And ravens then

will gather bout

To find your eyes

and pull them out.

And when youre

screaming Oh, oh, oh!

Remember, you

deserved this woe.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but many seemingly innocuous objects will make your life suck. They might even kill you. We call these objects cursed. A cursed object could be a vase, a chair, a painting, a doll: things we all have around our houses, in our attics and basements. They could be in museums, separated from the general populace by a thin piece of glass. They could be out in the open masquerading as ordinary statues or rocks, for instance. Anything can be cursed, and you rarely know until its too late. Good thing you have this book to help you.

So what is a cursed object? In lore, its an inanimate item that brings misfortune, harm, or death to its owners or those with whom it comes in contact. An object can become cursed because someone with powerful and mystical knowledge hexes it. Or it could have been present at a scene of great tragedy, absorbing dark energy like a battery and powering other tragedies going forward. It could be inherently evil from the start, all the way down to its MADE IN CHINA sticker. Or it could all just be in our heads.

You dont have to believe in cursed objects to be fascinated by them. Because another, less paranormal definition of a cursed object is an object that gathers stories to itself and more specifically, tragedies. Objects are intimately connected to people. We make them, live with them, use them, love them, and are sometimes even buried with them, and people continuously find themselves in the midst of tragedy. Cursed objects are those items that have simply been the mute witnesses to more tragedies than other items. They then become devices for remembering those stories and provide opportunities for retelling them.

And dont get me wrong. Theres magic in that, too: that a simple oak chair, out of millions of oak chairs in the world, would be connected to so many stories of misfortune and death (see Busbys Stoop Chair, ). The idea that cursed objects operate as storytelling mechanisms for tragedy in culture is at the heart of this book, although that doesnt mean we wont have fun with the notion that there might be other, less explainable, and more sinister forces at work.

In this book, well look at crystal skulls and creepy dolls, tiny stone heads and ancient weapons. Well cover the infamous, including Annabelle the Doll ()? Probably not. Ive risked visiting a few firsthand for you. I even brought one into my home. Well dip into the business of cursed objects, where cursed is prized as a marketing term and cursed objects are collected, displayed in museums, and even sold on eBay. Well learn that even technology and digital artifacts can be cursed.

Before we begin, well need to define some terms. Cursed is often used synonymously with haunted and possessed, but these three qualities are distinct. For our purposes, the difference is one of intelligence. Cursed items have none. Theyre objects that have become bad luck via someone who has purposefully cursed them or by happenstance. By contrast, a haunted object has a spirit intelligence attached directly to it, and a possessed item is similarly inhabited, in this case by a demonic entity (although some say that an object cannot technically be possessed, only humans canlucky us). Both haunted and possessed objects can function practically as cursed objects if they bring misfortune to enough people, but if they merely act spooky, then theyre not cursed.

Take, for instance, the wedding dress of Anna Baker at the Baker Mansion History Museum in Altoona, Pennsylvania, or the haunted mirror at the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Both objects are mentioned regularly in articles about cursed items. But stories of the Anna Baker wedding dress mostly involve the dress moving around on its own and the specter of its owner popping up here and there. The haunted mirror at the Myrtles Plantation reflects creepy figures and sometimes appears smudged with ghostly handprints. Both objects are spooky as hell, but neither causes the serial misfortune that a cursed object is supposed to.

For the purposes of this book, Ive also ruled out cursed objects without detailed curse stories. For instance, the Villa Zorayda Museum in St. Augustine, Florida, displays an Egyptian rug made entirely out of cat hair that was once wrapped around a mummified human foot (also on display). Some posit that its the oldest existing rug. Others posit that its cursed and that anyone who steps on the rug will die (hence why the rug is currently hung on a wall). However, its entire curse story was contained in those three sentences. A fascinating object, but difficult to wring a narrative essay out of.

Now, more than objects can be cursed. People can. Places can. But for the purposes of this journey, Im interested in objects that are cursed. I generally followed the terrifying maxim, Could I inadvertently pick it up at a flea market or an antiques store and bring it into my home? or, Could I brush up against it in a museum and be forever damned? And, with a handful of notable exceptions, thats exactly what is included in this book.

So, beware. Because its not just ancient artifacts looted from old coffins buried deep in exotic climes that will ruin your life. It could also be the I Hate Mondays coffee mug on your desk that your mom bought you at a garage sale.