Editing Chain letter (section)

====Early examples and precursors====
In Europe, letters known as "[[Himmelsbrief]]" ({{langx|en|Heaven Letters}}; {{langx|de|Himmelsbrief}}) existed, with examples dating back as early as the 6th century.<ref name="現代20220109_p1"/> Purported to have fallen from heaven, delivered by God or an agent thereof, they often urged adherence to Christian teachings and promised protection from misfortune to those who possessed the letter.<ref name="現代20220109_p1"/> By the 20th century, these evolved to include instructions: copying the letter and sending it to a set number of people would bring good fortune, while failing to do so would bring misfortune.<ref name="現代20220109_p2"/> Eventually, the religious elements faded, leaving simple instructions to circulate the letter for good luck or face bad luck.<ref name="現代20220109_p2"/> Already in the nineteenth century, similar chain letters were known to have circulated among Muslim pilgrims going on the [[hajj]] to [[Mecca]]. Those chain letters promised blessings or curses and required replication.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hamed-Troyansky|first=Vladimir|date=2023|title=Letters from the Ottoman Empire: Migration from the Caucasus and Russia's Pan-Islamic Panic|journal=Slavic Review|volume=82|issue=2|pages=311–333|doi=10.1017/slr.2023.164|doi-access=free}}</ref>

[[File:Himmelsbrief christian text colored angel 1800.jpg|thumb|An example of a "Heaven Letter" (Himmelsbrief) from around 1800]]
One notorious early example of a money-based chain letter was the "Prosperity Club" or "Send-a-Dime" letter. This letter started in [[Denver, Colorado]] in 1935, based on an earlier luck letter. It instructed recipients to send a dime to the person at the top of a list of names, remove that name, add their own to the bottom, and mail the letter to five others, warning of misfortune for breaking the chain.<ref name="まぼろしチャンネル_200308"/><ref name="VanArsdale 1998"/> It soon swamped the Denver post office with up to 100,000 letters per day before spilling into [[St. Louis, Missouri|St. Louis]] and other cities.<ref name="まぼろしチャンネル_200308"/><ref name="VanArsdale 1998"/> Some consider this a precursor to the Japanese "Fukou no Tegami" (Unlucky Letter).<ref name="まぼろしチャンネル_200308"/>

In 1964, the head of the [[United States Postal Inspection Service]] ordered a nationwide crackdown on violators of postal fraud and lottery laws due to an increase of chain letters reported around college towns in the United States.<ref name="jefferson0227"/> The typical letters included a list of names and instructed the recipient to send money to the name at the top of the list, remove that name, add their own name to the bottom of the list, and forward the letters to two more people.<ref name="jefferson0227"/>