SHE SOLD HER SOUL FOR DESIGNER DOLLS: Woman LITERALLY Sells Soul for $1,180 Worth of Creepy Dolls

Read the article: https://weirddarkness.com/woman-sells-soul-labubu-dolls

A 26-year-old Moscow woman signed away her eternal soul in blood for trendy collectibles, sparking condemnation from the Russian Orthodox Church.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Darren Marler and this is a weird Darkness bonus byte.
Sometimes the line between social experiment and spiritual catastrophe gets
written in blood. The marketing specialist in Moscow thought that
he was making a joke when he posted an offer
on telegram to buy somebody's soul for one hundred thousand rubles.

(00:26):
The punchline came when someone actually took him up on it.
The man calling himself Dmitri posted his advertisement on the
Russian social network Telegram with a specific requirement. Whoever accepted
would need to sign a contract with their own blood.
The amount offered translated to roughly eleven hundred and eighty dollars,
an American currency, not exactly the fortune one might expect

(00:47):
for eternal damnation. Dmitri described the entire thing as a
social experiment rather than a serious transaction. Marketing specialists often
pushed boundaries to understand consumer behavior, but this particular test
ventured into territory that most professionals wouldn't dare explore. He
later admitted he thought the whole proposition would be taken

(01:08):
as a joke. The response came from Karina, a twenty
six year old woman living in Moscow. She didn't negotiate,
She didn't ask questions about what would happened to her
soul after the transaction. She simply agreed to the terms.
The contract signing wasn't some theatrical production with candles and pentacles.

(01:28):
Karina signed her name on a physical document and then
pressed her blood to the paper as verification. Dmitri documented
the exchange by posting photographs online showing the young woman
holding the blood marked contract with her personal information carefully obscured.
Dmitri celebrated his purchase on social media, writing that he
felt like Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. The

(01:49):
reference to the fictional character who carved out his own
heart for immortality and ferried souls to the afterlife seemed
particularly apt for somebody who just completed what he claimed
was the first soul acquisition. Despite his boasting, Dmitri admitted
he had no actual idea what to do with his
newly purchased soul. The marketing specialist had achieved his goal

(02:10):
of creating viral content and proving people would do almost
anything for money, but the spiritual commodity he had acquired
had no practical application in his daily life. Karina's spending
choices revealed her priorities with stark clarity. The entire sum
went toward a collection of Laboo Boo dolls and a

(02:30):
ticket to see Russian folk singer in a dezd Kadashiva.
I'm probably butchering that name, but I don't care. The
money disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, converted from
rubles to consumer goods in a matter of days. When
the popular telegram channel Mash reached out to Karina for comment,
she expressed complete indifference about her soul's fate or what
its new owner might do with it. Her only concern

(02:52):
had been acquiring the dolls that she wanted. The objects
Karina traded her soul for aren't ordinary toys. Laboo Boo
alls are furry creatures with sharp teeth, large eyes, and
rabbit like ears, created by Hong Kong artist Kassing Lung
as characters in a Nordic inspired picture book. The Chinese
toy company PopMart transformed these literary characters into physical collectibles

(03:15):
in twenty nineteen, launching what would become a global obsession.
These dolls gained massive popularity in April twenty twenty four
after Lisa from the K pop group Black Pink was
photographed with a Labubu keychain on her bag. Celebrities including
Rihanna Cher and du Lipa have been spotted with the creatures,
transforming them from niche collectibles into status symbols. The toys

(03:38):
are sold in blind boxes, meaning buyers don't know which
specific doll they're getting until they open the package. In
the United States, one blind box retails for twenty seven
to ninety nine, but rare additions can fetch over one
hundred and forty nine dollars on resale markets, particularly rare
one hundred and thirty one centimeter first generation Labubu sold

(03:59):
it all fuction in Beijing for two hundred and eighty
two thousand dollars in June. The psychological mechanics behind the
Labuobu craze mirror other collectible phenomena. The blind box format
triggers a dopamine response from the excitement and instant gratification
of opening the package. Popmark deliberately manufactures scarcity, producing limited

(04:21):
quantities of certain designs to drive demand and secondary market prices.
Not everyone sees these grinning creatures as harmless collectibles. Authorities
in Russia's Federation Council proposed banning Labuboo sales, citing their
terrifying appearance and potentially negative influence on children's mental health.
Iraq's Kurdistan Region went further, seizing over four thousand dollars

(04:44):
and implementing a ban, claiming the toys could influence children's
behavior and attract demonic spirits. Conspiracy theorists have linked Labubu
to the ancient Mesopotamian demon Puzuzu, primarily due to the
dolls sharp toothed grin and eerie esthetic. These theories spread
rapidly on TikTok and Reddit, with some users claiming supernatural

(05:05):
experiences with their dolls. Pakistani actress Misha Khan warned that
the dolls might attract negative spiritual energy or jin. Designers
and cultural analysts have dismissed these claims, stating that the
character draws from European folklore and contains no occultic symbolism.
Yet the association between Labooboo and dark forces persists in

(05:27):
certain communities, making Karina's soul selling transaction seem even more
ominous to those who believe in such connections. The Russian
Orthodox Church did not treat this transaction as a harmless
publicity stunt. Church officials released a statement declaring that Karina
had truly sold her soul and therefore chosen the side
of evil. Their response carried the weight of centuries of

(05:50):
theological tradition about the nature of the human soul and
its relationship to the divine. The church's official statement predicted
specific consequences for career, moral and personal decline, illness, suffering,
and even death. These weren't presented as possibilities, but as
inevitable outcome suffer decision. The language echoed biblical warnings about

(06:12):
gaining the whole world while losing one's soul. The church
also addressed Dimitri's role in the transaction, stating that in
Orthodox interpretation, he had become satan by purchasing a soul.
Both parties were advised to come to their senses, visit
a church, admit their mistake, and sincerely repent. The Orthodox

(06:33):
position on such matters stems from a complex theological framework.
According to Orthodox teaching, man cannot be truly himself without
the spirit of God, and if someone is not the
temple of God's spirit, the only alternative is becoming a
temple of the evil spirits. The Church views the human
body and soul as sanctified through participation in sacraments, particularly

(06:54):
the Eucharist, making the concept of selling one's soul fundamentally
incompatible with Orthodox Christianity. Orthodox Christianity maintains specific teachings about
the soul's journey after death. Some Orthodox traditions describe souls
passing through spiritual trials or toll houses after death, where
demons attempt to claim souls based on unconfessed sins. Within

(07:17):
this framework, voluntarily signing one's soul over to another person
represents a catastrophic spiritual decision. The Church teaches that many
who have engaged in Satanism or witchcraft believe they have
permanently lost their souls, yet maintains that God can free
them from such binding through sincere repentance. Repentance, in Orthodox understanding,

(07:39):
doesn't merely mean feeling remorse, but it involves a complete
change of mind and behavior, turning away from old patterns
of living. The transaction between Dimitri and Karina exists in
a strange, liminal space between performance art and spiritual reality.
While secular law would never recognize such a contract as buying.

(08:00):
The Russian Orthodox Church's response suggests they view the spiritual
dimensions as entirely real. Regardless of the participants' intentions, the
entire incident reads like a parable updated for the social
media age. A young woman values trendy collectibles and concert
tickets more than what many consider the most precious part
of human existence. A marketing specialist treats the eternal as

(08:22):
content for viral posts. Both participants seem utterly disconnected from
the gravity the religious traditions attached to such actions. Research
has shown that during economic downturns, people will often turn
to small luxuries they can afford when larger purchase items
remain out of reach. Psychologists refer to this as affordable luxury,

(08:43):
where items like collectible dolls serve as substitutes for genuine
financial security or major life purchases. Karina's transaction takes this
concept to its absolute extreme, trading what believers consider priceless
for what amounts to retail therapy. The global Labubu phenomenon
itself reflects modern consumer culture's ability to transform any object

(09:05):
into a must have commodity through celebrity, endorsement and artificial scarcity.
New York magazines. E Liza Crissillo observed that lebuboos blur
the line between toys and fashion, existing as both childhood
playthings and adult status symbols. Since the story went viral
across Russian social media and international news outlets, neither Dmitri

(09:28):
nor Karina has publicly expressed any change of heart about
their transaction. The marketing specialist got his viral moment and
proof of concept for his social experiment. The young woman
got her dolls and concert experience. The contract, signed in
blood presumably remains in Dmitri's possession, though its ultimate fate
remains unknown. How many people would make the same trade

(09:51):
if given the opportunity. In a world where viral fame
and consumer goods often seem more real than abstract spiritual concepts,
Kana's choice might not seem as shocking as the church's
reaction suggests. For those who take spiritual matters seriously. This
is a lesson that some boundaries shouldn't be crossed, even
in jest. Orthodox tradition maintains that contracts with evil can

(10:15):
be broken through genuine repentance, but the psychological and spiritual
damage from treating one's soul as a commodity for sale
might prove harder to reverse than simply tearing up a
piece of paper. The Labubu dolls Karina purchased will eventually
lose their novelty. The concert she attended is already faded
in a memory. But if the Russian Orthodox Church's warnings

(10:37):
prove accurate, the consequences of her transaction have only just
begun to unfold. Whether viewed as a cautionary tale about
consumer culture, a demonstration of spiritual poverty, or simply a
bizarre news story from Moscow, the woman who sold her
soul for designer toys has entered into a peculiar kind
of immortality, remembered not for what she created or accomplished,

(10:59):
but for what she would willing to give away. If
you'd like to read this story for yourself, you can
read it on the Weird Darkness website. I've pleased a
link to it in the episode description, and you can
find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange, and more,
including numerous stories that never make it to the podcast,
at Weirddarkness dot com slash news