From 1095 to 1291 CE, thousands and thousands of knights, peasants, nobles, soldiers, and more left Europe for the Holy Land around Jerusalem to take land and power away from Muslims, and into Christian hands. Pope Urban II issued a speech in 1095 calling Christian to take up arms and reclaim "Christian" lands. As incentive, he promised salvation for all who died fighting for what he said was God's will. But was it ever about God's will? Or was it about Pope Urban's will? Were the Crusades ever ...
Jun 19, 2023•2 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Did R. Kelly truly have a sex cult? For around a quarter-of-a-century Robert Sylvester Kelly wrote hit after hit after hit, becoming one of the most successful musical artists in American history. But also, the whole time it seems, he preyed viciously on young women and girls. He brainwashed them, physically abused them, psychologically abused them, and videotaped himself sexually abusing them in a variety of degrading ways. And he did all of that openly. Why did it take so long for him to be ta...
Jun 12, 2023•3 hr 57 min•Transcript available on Metacast On August 28, 2003, a 46 year-old pizza delivery man named Brian Douglas Wells robbed a PNC Bank near his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, with a bomb locked to his body at his neck. After the bomb detonated a few minutes later, it would take investigators years to figure out who placed the bomb on him and why. Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp tickets are ON SALE! BadMagicMerch.com Get tour tickets at dancummins.tv Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/y5XuZM56Z80 Bad Magic Charity of the Mont...
Jun 05, 2023•2 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Between October 1977 and February 1978, with a nickname originating from the fact that many of the victims' bodies were discovered in the hills surrounding the city, the Hillside Stranglers terrorized the Los Angeles greater metro area, raping and strangling ten young women and girls. Generally posing as police officers, serial killing cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono were originally believed to be just one man. What led to these men coming together to kidnap, rape, and kill? How did the...
May 29, 2023•2 hr 16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Did you know that American banana corporations turned almost all of Central America into US satellite states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for roughly half-a-century? It took the massacre of thousands of unarmed, exploited, and striking Columbian banana workers in 1928 to turn the tide against American imperialism. Today we explore just how several central American nations became true Banana Republics. Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp tickets are ON SALE! BadMagicMerch.com Get tour tick...
May 22, 2023•3 hr 34 min•Transcript available on Metacast We've covered a lot Los Angeles area cults from the 1960s and 70s, but as it turns out, there were cults in LA long before that. Lots and lots of cults. Today's topic, the WKFL Fountain of the World Cult, more commonly known as The Fountain, formed in the 1940s. And their apocalyptic teachings would influence Charles Manson's vision of Helter Skelter. Today we share an explosive story of robes, sex, visions, and compound madness - from the 1940s and 50s! Cult! Cult! Cult! Wet Hot Bad Magic Summe...
May 15, 2023•3 hr 39 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the late 1940s, troubled lovers Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, ran a scam using dating services commonly known as Lonely Hearts Clubs to con and kill women. Their trial became the most sensationalized of the decade. Today we break down how these dating clubs operated, and get to know these two weirdos and killers in another true crime, deranged lovers edition of Timesuck. Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp tickets are ON SALE! BadMagicMerch.com Get tour tickets at dancummins.tv Watch the Suck ...
May 08, 2023•3 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast On May 18, 1980, at 8:32 AM local time, a major explosive eruption took place at a volcano in southwest Washington State. After months of earthquakes and smaller eruptions, Mt. St. Helens exploded. Over 1,000 feet of mountain was gone in just a few moments. And 57 people quickly died as hot volcanic ash, mudslides, and a fast-moving, incredibly hot cloud of death and destruction tore through miles of forest. Why didn't many of these people heed warnings that a deadly explosion was imminent? Toda...
May 01, 2023•3 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Terry Blair. The Prospect Killer. Before he became a serial killer in the Prospect Avenue neighborhood of Kansas City in 2004, his mother, brother, and sister had all been convicted of different murders. He has two nephews in prison for life for murder. He has a half-brother in prison for life for rape and assault. He witnessed his stepdad get murdered. He has several other violent felons for relatives. After serving over two decades in prison for the murder of his children's mother, Terry went ...
Apr 24, 2023•2 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we look into a series of murders, mostly occurring in the mid-1980s, in the southeastern US. The bodies of unidentified women kept being found along I-40. Collectively, these killings came to be known as the Redhead Murders. And a possible unknown serial killer thought to be responsible for killing many of these women was named the Bible Belt Strangler. Have any of these murders been solved? Who are the main suspects? And what new forensic advancements have recently made the identification...
Apr 17, 2023•2 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we dig into the origins and the history of America's Irish Mob. We begin centuries ago in Ireland, when a series of oppressive, discriminatory laws designed to break the backs of the Irish and leave them too powerless to rebel against British rule, followed by the Great Famine that was greatly intensified by these same laws, led to hundreds of thousands of Irish fleeing the Emerald Isle for America to avoid certain death. Impoverished and often malnourished, these new immigrants were met w...
Apr 10, 2023•3 hr 56 min•Transcript available on Metacast The conclusion of the the craziest cult story I had never heard of. This week, things, incredibly, get even weirder and darker than last week. More sexual debauchery. More twisted visions. And mass murder. And then it all comes crashing down after Jeffrey leads his followers into the wilderness where are there are dreams of magical vaginas, additional wives, and a lot more scat play. Want to apply for the Cummins Family Scholarship fund? Click this link! : https://learnmore.scholarsapply.org/cum...
Apr 03, 2023•2 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast The craziest cult story I had never heard of. Jeffrey Lundgren was a cult leader and a mass leader before being caught, imprisoned, and executed. What a wild ride he had before it all came to an end. Twisted sexual desires, doomsday predictions, and more. Today I tell the first of two parts of this tale. Who was Jeffrey Lundgren? How did he twist RLDS/Community of Christ teachings to convince his followers that he was the prophet Joseph Smith preached of who would redeem Zion for the faithful? A...
Mar 27, 2023•3 hr 55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Skull and Bones has been shrouded in mystery ever since it was founded nearly two centuries ago now, back in 1832. All members take an oath promising NEVER to reveal the group’s activities and secrets. And that oath is taken seriously. According to the traditional narrative, Skull and Bones was founded by a group of Yale juniors who were either angry over that year’s honor society elections or inspired by occult European secret societies, or perhaps both. Is this group a nefarious organization c...
Mar 20, 2023•3 hr 56 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Zebra Murders were a series of racially motivated attacks and murders committed in San Francisco, California, by some so-called "Death Angels." From October of 1973 to April of 1974, a group of cold-blooded killers truly terrorized the city. Why? Nation of Islam teachings had convinced them that white people, in general, were truly evil "white devils" who needed to be destroyed. They were also taught that it was time for black men and women to violently start ridding the world of these white...
Mar 13, 2023•3 hr 33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Early in the morning of March 28th, 1979, equipment failures and a stuck open relief valve prevented the removal of heat from Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear reactor’s core - an essential function that prevents reactor damage. And within hours, it seemed like things were on the brink of a catastrophic nuclear crisis. In the end, a true crisis would be averted... kind of. While the reactor's partial meltdown did NOT kill anyone... the media coverage of it DID nearly kill America's...
Mar 06, 2023•3 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast On March 18th, 1990 two men disguised as Boston police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and overpowered the two security guards on duty. In just 81 minutes, the thieves stole over $600 MILLION worth of historic art. Valued at over $200 million at the time. The Gardner Museum heist remains the biggest art theft in the world - and the biggest private property theft in US history if not in the history of world. Thirty-three years later, the case still remains unsolved. So who st...
Feb 27, 2023•2 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast On October 8th, 1941, with Stalingrad surrounded, Leningrad besieged, and the Nazis making new gains on Russian territory every day, Joseph Stalin ordered the creation of three new Air Force regiments... the first female aviation military regiments in world history. Led by famed civilian aviator Marina Raskova, these young women, most of whom were between the ages of 17 and 26, would have to transform from flight hobbyists to killer soldiers. The 588th Night Bombers Regiment would earn the nickn...
Feb 20, 2023•3 hr 53 min•Transcript available on Metacast What is the the Perfect Murder? It's what two affluent and academically brilliant young Chicagoans, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, wanted to pull off in 1924 when the murdered fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks. WHY did they want to kill anyone? In part, to prove to themselves that were Übermensches after misunderstanding the philosophical nihilism of Nietzsche. They had come to think that they were truly advanced humans. People above the law. And that normal morality didn't apply to him. They cou...
Feb 13, 2023•2 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, China in 1989 is one of the most important, noteworthy tragedies in modern Chinese history. It was the biggest protest against communism rule in over sixty years. But thanks to the consistent suppression and propaganda of the modern Chinese government… many if not most Chinese citizens today...don’t even know it ever happened. Why is the communist regime in charge of China so insistent on erasing the history of this event? What IS the history of this eve...
Feb 06, 2023•3 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the 1960s, a strange new cult emerged in Manhattan's Upper West Side out of the Sullivan Institute. A cult created by shady "therapist" Saul Newton, who twisted the psychoanalytical teachings of Henry Stack Sullivan into something insidious - a way from him to sleep with paying therapy patients, have them move onto his compound, and play god over their lives. He and a few of his wives would run their scam for decades. They convinced members to live on their compound, pay to be in continual th...
Jan 30, 2023•3 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week we investigate the life and crimes of one of the Freeway Killers. Patrick Kearney, the Trash Bag Killer, was convicted for 21 murders, confessed to 32, but is suspected of up to 43 killings of both boys and young men between 1962 and 1977 in Southern California. Lesser known then the other Freeway Killers, previous Suck subjects Randy "Scorecard Killer" Kraft and William "The Freeway Strangler" Bonin, Patrick Kearney at first appears less brutal than his murderous counterparts. And in ...
Jan 23, 2023•2 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we dig into the life of Julius Caesar and the final days of the Roman Republic. How was Caesar and what was Rome when he lived there? How did he transform himself from a random minor noble in a Republic full of fandom nobles, into one of the most powerful man in Rome and one of the most known historical figures of all time? Today's tale if full of alliances, betrayals, a very confusing Roman political system, and more as I try my best not to ruin the tale of the man who set Rome on the pat...
Jan 16, 2023•2 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast What do you think you know about Amanda Knox? Do you think she was a sex-crazed party girl who got away with the murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007? That's what I thought before I dug into the research for this episode. I do not think that anymore. The case against her is the sloppiest murder trial I've ever looked into. Outlandish investigative bias, ridiculous crime lab mistakes, and a court system where jurors are allowed to be influenced by the media during the trial. And in this ca...
Jan 09, 2023•3 hr 42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we dig into the history of Dungeons and Dragons and look at what influences Gary Gygax and others drew from to create such an immersive and addictive RPG experience. We'll examine the long history of wargaming and fantasy literature to understand where games like D&D come from. And I'll lay out exactly how D&D came to be associated with Satanic influences. Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! That'll make sense when you listen. Happy 2023 and Hail Nimrod! Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camps comin...
Jan 02, 2023•3 hr 59 min•Transcript available on Metacast We take a look this week at the incredibly inspirational life of Helen Keller. She accomplished SO much despite completely losing her sight and ability to hear at the age of just 19 months. Had the miracle worker Anne Sullivan not entered her life when she did, I don't think we'd know Helen's name today. Anne's life - also so incredible. Their intertwined story got me all fired up. We also take a look back at what went on at Bad Magic in 2022 and what we hope to accomplish going forward. Thank y...
Dec 26, 2022•2 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Josef Mengele was a great guy! Just very misunderstood. Wait, no. I'm thinking of someone else. Josef Mengele was a MONSTER. His complete and total lack of empathy for anyone not a member of Hitler's nonsensical racial purity dream boggles the mind. He saw his experimental patients at the Auschwitz concentration camp as nothing more than lab rats who happened to kind of look human. His experiments were cruel and misguided. And mostly dealt with identical twins. Child twins. And saddest of all - ...
Dec 19, 2022•3 hr 49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Herb Baumeister was VERY likely the I-70 Strangler, killing a suspected nine boys and men between 1980 and 1990. And then, over the next six years, he seems to have killed at least another twenty-five men and boys and buried them on his Indianapolis area property. And now this property - Fox Hollow Farms - is reportedly VERY haunted. Today we explore what we know about Herb's life, go over the many suspected crimes, and how he was about to be arrested before he took his own life. And then, after...
Dec 12, 2022•2 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Evangelical End Times pastor Mike Bickle founded the International House of Prayer in 1999, later renamed IHOPKC, in Kansas City after saying God had told him to do so in a series of prophecies. Former members have referred to it as a cult. Is it? Or is it an organization, with its focus on modern day prophecy, where cult leaders can easily recruit followers? In 2012, IHOPKC member Bethany Deaton was found dead, and investigators looking into her suicide (originally thought to be a murder case),...
Dec 05, 2022•3 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Strange and thought provoking episode today! In the 1940s, 50s, and early 60s, animal behavior researcher John B Calhoun ran a number of experiments on rodents regarding how their behavior would be affected by increased urbanization if all their basic needs were made. The results were terrifying. Crowded rats and mice became increasingly violent and lost their reproductive instincts to the point that eventually, the utopia went extinct after enduring a final phase full of random violent attacks,...
Nov 28, 2022•3 hr 33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
