Inside the Macabre Personal Museum of Occult Collector Calvin Von Crush
A look at Calvin Von Crush’s morbid collection of rare occult and paranormal history, human remains, and grotesque freaks of nature.
In the latest from The Midnight Archive, filmmaker Ronni Thomas explores the amazing and bizarre occult collection of Calvin Von Crush.
“As an atheist and skeptic,” Crush says, “I’m in awe at the power people give to lifeless objects no matter how innocent or macabre they may be.”
Crush, a full-time tattoo artist, has spent years scouring dark nooks and crannies for rare pieces of occult and paranormal history. A director of the Talking Board Historical Society, he has amassed an impressive collection of vintage spirit boards, but it doesn’t end there. His TBHS profile says, “Ouija boards are just a segment of his massive horde of pieces related to the occult and paranormal history. His apartment is also home to a number of freak animals in jars, taxidermy from far-away lands, and pieces of people that lived long ago.”
Calvin Von Crush with an articulated human skeleton from his collection
Crush recently completed a renovation to convert part of his home into his own personal museum.
“I share my home with a real human head shrunk down to the size of a baseball, countless antique photos manipulated through trickery and passed off as dead loved ones, dozens upon dozens of wooden boards with the alphabet on their surface that are thought to open doors to the other side and let spirits guide our hands to messages. Even the skeleton of a murdered Parisian prostitute named Monique and nearly 50 freak animal specimens of varying levels or grotesque deformity call this creepy crypt home.”
Watch this walk-through for a glimpse inside:
Crush has practically built a temple to what some may consider dark energy, but he doesn’t experience anything supernatural.
“Not once has anything ever bumped in the night,” Crush says. “No ghoul or ghost has ever come knocking, but my door is forever open and the spirit, pun intended, is always willing.”
For more, you can find Crush and other collectors profiled in Morbid Curiosities: Collections of the Uncommon and the Bizarre.
