Museum Curiosa is located in Oakland, California. For information email: info@museumcuriosa.com

Oscar Jensen, a mortician in the late nineteenth century, died amidst rumors that he was stealing valuables from corpses. After he died, his wife discovered a stolen cache of gold teeth and fillings hidden in hollow door knobs. Facing financial hardship, she reluctantly began selling the treasures. Deeply ashamed, she whispered into the knob a promise to repay the debt and sealed them with wax.

In the summer of 1972, three Georgian teenagers were approached by a John Samis, a local psychic, who allegedly gave the girls these scry boxes. He instructed them to use this nutpick to scrape a question into the wax contained within the boxes. Then they should place them under the Georgia sun and stare into the melted wax to receive an answer. Journal writings from one of the girls suggests that the boxes told them to go to a secret place where they would find immense treasure. The morning of August 13, 1972 the girls set out to find this treasure and were never seen again. The scry boxes were found in the basement of Samis' home, who had also disappeared.

Dr. Edward M. Chester was an occultist and alternative medical practitioner from Suffix, Maryland. He was a quack physician and surgeon, who spent time in jail for prescribing dangerous potions. He was banned from practicing medicine and implicated in murder after his death. These three boxes were found in his home after he died in 1946. The specific use of each object is unknown, however it is believed that the hair and teeth were taken from the corpse of his sister whom he loved dearly.

Ester Brennen had a particularly powerful experience watching an evangelical preacher on her television. She believed that the television itself held the intense spiritual power she perceived. After her television broke, she disassembled it very carefully and preserved every part in wax and salt. She also covered the wooden cabinets with writings documenting her experience of channeling the Word Of God.

Heinrich Meyer, a piano maker who worked for Kohler & Chase, was rumored to have made magical pianos in the late 1880's. The pianos were used to evoke spells when specially composed music was played on them. These keys were salvaged from a dismantled piano by John Thurman, a music teacher in New York City. He recognized the unique markings on the interior surfaces of the keys as being those of the Meyer pianos. These are the only examples ever put on public display.

Ruedolph Callicutt was a traveling salesman who was determined to create a water that would grant immortality. He postulated that this could be done by filtering water through the right combination of natural materials which he collected in the kit. The tool on the lid was used for making measurements and calculations on the materials.

This electrical device is one of dozens built by Warren Randolph who believed that all ailments could be cured with electricity. He refused to allow his family to seek conventional medical treatment subjecting them instead to electrocution in an attempt to cure everything from the common cold to his wife's stomach cancer. Although he was unable to cure his wife, he was convinced that he was only months away from discovering the right combination of voltage at the correct intervals to cure her. He bequeathed these devices to a cancer research center, along with volumes of documentation describing the treatments he administered to his family and beloved dogs.

This ice pick was a promotional advertising give-a-way manufactured by company owned by John Hammond. Hammond was an occultist leader who embedded many of the symbols of his cult into his kitchen products. This is the actual ice pick used to mark lower ranking members in the cult's initiation ceremonies.

Mother Lenka was a prominent and well respected nun who heard a distinct and clear dictation from an inner voice which identified itself to her as Jesus. Her lectures, writings, and counseling were a source of inspiration and healing to many. After her death, her journal revealed that the scar on her left ankle was caused by hanging up her leg every night in order to better receive the Word of Christ. She believed it came through her uterus just as Jesus' soul entered Mary.

This is an example of an unusual divination technique in which numbered maple seeds are tossed from a balcony onto a specially etched floor. The page shown is an example of an etching on the floor of the Sect of the Gold Horizon used for divining in this way. Predictions about the future were made based on the orientation of particular seeds in relationship to the markings on the floor.

This reed belonged to a popular jazz musician who held it sacred. He kept it in his mouth for days at a time and only removed it to drink and eat. He claimed he received his music directly through it's power and that they were the unsung songs of the dead. Ironically he was successfully sued for plagiarism for the most successful song he wrote using this technique.

This wand was made to be buried with two twins who had died of tuberculosis in 1943. The family belonged to a sect whose funeral rituals included the sacrifice of a pig and the creation of a wand from its entrails. The wand would be buried with the dead as protection for their soul. This rare double headed wand was made from the same pig but was rejected by the mother of the twins. She insisted that two pigs should be slaughtered to forge separate wands for each child.