Post by Joanna on Aug 5, 2014 2:32:59 GMT -5
Artist Lists ‘Haunted Chair’ on ebay as Social Experiment
“Please Help!!!”: ebay seller begs bidders to buy $666 chair that is “haunted by a poltergeist,” but there’s something else you need to know.
Ebay is a one-stop shop for practically every item imaginable, including – according to one listing – an old cane chair that the seller says is “haunted by a poltergeist.”
Andre Williams, an Australian ebay user known as “truevintage,” is currently listing the chair as part of what he called an “experiment in human behavior and human psychology,” with the opening bid set at $25. But anyone looking to purchase it immediately can do so for $666, a figure known for its association with the biblical figure of the Antichrist.
In the sales post, Williams pleads with possible buyers to take the “haunted” chair, which apparently came from “the hard rubbish of an old 1880s home” in Australia. “After a week of having it in the house, I heard some crying during the night. Then in the morning I noticed that the chair was on [its] side,” the post reads. “I didn’t connect the dots until it happened several times over two years. Sometimes there is laughing accompanied by tapping noises.”
The ebay description goes on to claim that the chair is leaving marks on the floor, indicating that someone – or something – might be sitting in it. And that’s not all. “Recently I found the marks going up the wall and along the plaster ceiling. Please believe me, I am not crazy,” the description continues. “Whenever I hear the crying, the chair is always found on its side. As yet I have not caught anyone or thing in the act.”
But there’s only one problem. Williams, who is an artist, told the Daily Mail the posting – “meant to be a bit of theater” – is a social experiment of sorts. “People get so caught up in [supernatural things] that they want to make it true, they believe what they want to believe. It was a bit of experiment in human behavior and human psychology,” he told the outlet, noting that he will reinvent the chair as something else and re-post if it doesn’t sell.
So far, though, the experiment hasn’t yielded any action, as there are no official bids on the chair.
Source: Billy Hallowell, The Blaze, July 31, 2014.
