Ding Dong Darkness Time

Allison, Chris, and Beverly are back this week to wrap up their discussion on controversial cult... or spiritual influencer Teal Swan, and forewarning, it gets a little dark as we discuss topics of abuse, assault, and suicide, and all the ways Teal has been instrumental in promoting these things among her inner circle. If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide and self-harm, there is help no...

We're continuing our cults series by diving into what we've termed Cults 2.0, the online self-help gurus who've made it their mission to deliver spiritual wisdom and healing to the global masses via YouTube, Instagram, and other online platforms. And one particularly polarizing figure in this world is self-identified "social catalyst" Teal Swan. Welcoming friends Chris and Be...

Yes that's right, Ding Dongs. Allison is back after a longer than intended hiatus. In this short episode, she talks a little bit about the circumstances behind her absence, and she can't do that without talking about the scourge of chronic pain and all the damage it can do.  Not only physically, but emotionally and cognitively. Additional Info: Long-Term Effects of Chronic Pain https://w...

For the final episode of 2022, we decided to close out the year on a reflection of why so many of us love the genre of true crime. Though it's important to get something out of the way real quick: this obsession is nothing new for humans. In fact, it goes back centuries. We've only become better at making and distributing it since the days of the gory moralist pamphlets it started as.  A...

Who would have guessed that the disbandment of the Knights Templar in 1309 would have led to centuries of people scrambling to lay claim to their legacy as descendants of the legendary order of Catholic knights? With a lot of mysticism borrowed from a dozen different spiritual movements, including Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and perhaps a smidge of white supremacy, The Order of the Solar Temple...

On this Ding Dong Ditch episode, Allison does short dives on three incredible heists that netted millions of dollars in stolen assets. The robbery of the Central Bank of Forteleza Brazil in 2005 involved digging a 300 foot long tunnel from a front business into a bank vault holding the equivalent $70 million American dollars, in a case that spanned many years and left a lot of dead bodies even mor...

This special holiday week, let us all give thanks for the lovely Brett and Alice over on The Prosecutors, who had Allison on to talk about a particularly grisly cult that operated out of Mexico in the 1980s. Adolfo Constanzo and his followers perverted the religion of Palo Mayombe to aid in their drug dealing enterprise. Countless murders, including human sacrifice, abounded for years until they c...

If you think Reverend Sun Myoung Moon was merely interested in mass marriages in baseball stadiums, then buckle up, because there is a whole lot to learn about the  vast empire built by the now late religious figure who used anti-communist sentiment and Christianity to begin a following in South Korea in the 1950s, and then gain far-reaching influence with conservative and far-right movements in t...

Life was hard in early human history. And around 10,000 years ago during the Neolithic Period, when our interests turned to gathering in stationary settlements and manipulating the earth and animals in our favor, it became particularly challenging to hold it all together in the face of elemental forces we take for granted these days. This was fertile ground for the growth of cults. In this short e...

If you're a psychology nerd or always wanted to be, the premier episode of Season 3: Class of Cults is all for you. Allison gathers with two of her dearest friends, Chris from 80s High, who also happens to have a psychology degree, and Dr. Bart Abplanalp, noted forensic psychologist, to discuss what cults are, what types of cults exist, and all the ways in which every one of us is vulnerable...

Halloween is a time of great traditions. Most are wholesome, but some are destructive. The concept of Mischief Nights, usually preceding Halloween by a day or two, go back to the late 1700s in England, but they eventually popped up in the United States. And in Detroit in particular, things got particularly fiery for a number of years until the city banded together for the power of good. In this sh...

By popular demand, Ding Dong Darkness Time strays into the spiritual realm just in time for Halloween. Brett from The Prosecutors joins Allison to talk about his time as a paranormal researcher. Yes, that's right. Among being an amazing podcast host and hot shot lawyer guy, the man hunted ghosts, and he has brought with him some incredible insights into the search for the paranormal. Not only...

In the spirit of the Halloween season, Allison and Chris join forces to talk about  their favorite subgenre of horror: found footage! And because they're a couple of oldsters, they wax about how awesome it was to experience the viral marketing campaign around The Blair Witch Project as it was coming out. But that's far from all they cover here. The discussion dives into the origins of th...

It's October, peak Ding Dong Darkness Month, and this episode gets things off with a roaring start by summoning Bloody Mary and what other toilet spirits might be lurking about. What's up with that bit of folklore anyway? Sprits in the bathroom? And can you really summon a  scary woman by speaking her name 13 times into a mirror? Maybe! Get ready for more psychology geekery. But more tha...

Twas the night before Christmas in 1945, and the Sodder family was settling in for the night at their Fayetteville, West Virginia home. However, in the wee hours of the night, a fire broke out, and five of the nine Sodder children were never accounted for after the blaze. Over the decades, speculation raged as the family continued to believe that the children were taken, and there were plenty of s...

Queen Elizabeth II has died, so this seems a great time to talk about incest in royal bloodlines. Focus is mainly on the Habsburg Dynasty of the 1600s, a family whose interbreeding was so severe, the most powerful monarchy since Charlemagne eventually extinguished itself. We're gonna talk a little about that infamous jaw too. Also... was the incestuous bloodline of Queen Victoria ultimately r...

Let's talk about cannibalism! Specifically medical cannibalism. Humans have been using corpses medicinally for centuries. A little ground up skull for a headache. A sip of blood for the spirit. A slather of human fat for a wound. But around the 12th century, they went particularly nuts for Egyptian mummies, and for the next 500 years, it was available at any town apothecary. Learn all about g...

There are countless examples in true crime of the psychiatric phenomenon Folie à Deux, also known as shared delusion or shared psychosis. In this short episode, Allison goes into three very distinct cases. In 2016, an Australian family, the Tromps, took an extremely bizarre impromptu road trip that ended with all of them separated and in various states of mental agitation and catatonia. In the lat...

Show Credits: Graphics -- Nathaniel Dickson: http://ndickson.com Music -- Spencer Morelock , Ken Dickson Ding Dong Darkness Time Media: Twitter: @dddarknesstime Instagram: dddarknesstime Gmail: dddarknesstime@gmail.com

All war is hell, but World War I was a rare breed of nightmarish, thanks in large part to the advances of the Industrial Revolution, and in particular, the advances in chemistry. In this short episode, Allison lays down a basic primer of the development of chlorine, phosgene, and other gases used on the battlefront, and then she tells a harrowing story of a Russian fortress to which the Germans la...

A Norwegian man died in 1989 and his grandson had his cryogenically frozen corpse placed into a shed up in Nederland, Colorado. Hijinks ensued, and today an annual festival called Frozen Dead Guy Days is held to celebrate Grandpa Bredo. Learn about this odd American legend and more about the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of human cryonics. There's also a brief dovetail into death aversion. Wil...

Ah, Light as a Feather. That childhood slumber party staple that some would swear has some kind of actual sorcery involved. But what are its origins? Can it open a door to the spirit world? Is it even actually possible to lift a whole person with only a couple of your fingers? This short episode goes into it all. Allison even takes a moment to talk about what creepy little weirdos kids are in gene...

Karaoke is a harmless enough pastime, but sometimes it can get you killed. This is especially true if you try to sing Frank Sinatra's classic tune "My Way" in the Philippines, where upwards of a dozen deaths can be attributed to people singing this song in one of the country's ubiquitous karaoke establishments. But in this episode of Ding Dong Ditch, Allison goes into even more...

In 1944, a Finnish ski patrol soldier named Aimo Koivunen outran a Soviet platoon after this unit was besieged in the Laplands. It was a testament of extreme human will and endurance, and it wouldn't have been possible without... methamphetamine. Yes, you read that right. Listen on to learn more about Aimo's harrowing journey, and how meth and other amphetamines have played a vital role...

Everything's Eventual, y'all. Including the ultimate ending of our Stephen King Boogaloo! But Allison and Chris want to go out on a haunting note, so they decided to pluck their two favorite stories from King's celebrated short story collection, Everything's Eventual. While the entire catalog is worth celebrating, these are two key stories that we think go very well together, e...