We are joined this week by writer and actress Mara Wilson to discuss how acting classes can function like cults and why. Mara reveals her personal Alison Mack story and talks about how we can protect child actors on sets. Then she tells us about her personal isolation tank experience and we try to figure out hacks for making isolation tank like experiences at home. At the end of the episode we have a very bittersweet important anno...

Emily is off this week, but Tess and Molly are taking your night calls about Joseph Smith, sphinx monuments, and the devil's tritone! First it's a night call about the Devil's Note, which some listeners liked and others did not at all. Then an email about Joseph Smith's head on the body of a Sphinx, and whether the "Salamander Letter" is a forgery (yes.) Molly waxes philosophical on the newest Housewives fra...

November is Dreams Month at Night Call, and we're kicking it off with some incredible dream calls and emails from listeners. Of course there are also more pyramids and architecture talk too. This time it’s Brasilia - the faded poppy mid-century utopia that is Brazil’s capital, and The Summum Pyramid - the mummification temple from 70s religion Summum in Salt Lake City, Utah. Would we get mummified and more importantly, would we...

This week we delve into the OTHER cult Mark Vicente was a member of: Ramtha! Learn how putting a tiny paper pyramid on your head might make you channel an ancient racist spirit. Then it’s even more pyramid pals and a general spooky season and Halloween roundup.

Notes

Ramtha

More Ramtha

Salma Hayek rude at lunch

 Faith Chapel Christian Center

 AT&T City Center

Ave Maria Grotto

Grotto Photos

Flinstone House

We’re joined by Lazor Wulf writer Nikki Mayard to wrap up The Vow with a nylon sash. Why did the editors save all the men’s rights stuff for the 8th episode? Did seeing Keith Raniere go full Frank TJ Mackey explain how people got so deep into this cult? Did he also maybe murder a bunch of women? Who is the best Vow character: Mark, Sarah, Catherine or Nippy? How privileged do you have to be to get into this kind of group? Will seas...

This week on Night Call we have Sadie Dupuis aka Sad13 as our guest! But first it's an update to Pyramid Pals with a call about a recently demolished but also fairly recently built glass walled pyramid for a pharmaceutical company. Why wouldn't Amazon want to operate out of this futuristic pyramid building out of a dystopian movie, too on the nose? Then we're joined by Sadie to discuss haunted portraits, haunted studios...

Emily is back with tales from the Pyramids of Wyoming and Nevada: the railroad ghost town of the Ames Monument, and driving past the current ghost town of Las Vegas glimpsing the Luxor Pyramid after whispers that MGM plans to blow it up soon. Then it's all calls and emails, starting with another call about the New Age to Q Anon phenomenon (Q Age). After that a listener in Australia calls in to talk about climate change around t...

Emily is on the road again, so it's just Tess and Molly this week taking calls calls calls, calls from the public! First we get a call from a listener debating whether or not to go to a family wedding. We talk about the no-win situation that is Coronavirus weddings - what to do when your family won't cancel, and why everyone should cancel big family events this fall and winter if possible even if they put money down. Then i...

A listener calls in with a harrowing tale of getting pressured into going to Disney World and then having a panic attack immediately afterwards. We discuss the prevalence of lockdown cabin fever leading to risky decisions immediately followed by intense regret. Then we get into The Social Dilemma on Netflix, and why we didn’t really like it. For the second half we are joined by writer Justin Charity for a reunion of Emily’s pod It’...

First it’s a night call about Esoteric Catholicism! Then we get into The Vow more deeply. In the second half we are joined by Samer Kalaf from Defector to discuss haunted New Hampshire and haunted new media. Then we get a truly weird tip about a youtube user named sweet peach and speculate about what the hell these weird animated videos are attempting to do. Plus the conspiracy about frequencies that make you go crazy and the trend...

Tom Cruise’s crazy trip to the movies to see Tenet prompts Night Call’s finest thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s latest movie that none of us have seen. Then we investigate Halo, the Amazon device that says it can read emotions, and debunk its dubious, dangerous claims. Two listeners provide us with their very different experiences with Kratom, off last week’s discussion. Then we are joined by food writer Katherine Spiers of Smart Mo...

Molly and Emily delve into the world of kratom, the Midwest’s favorite legal drug! What is kratom and why are opioid users using it to get off opiods? Molly’s tales of caffeine psychosis. Will Emily try kratom for the pod? The outlook is good! For the second half we are joined by Tess and special guest tech journalist Nitasha Tiku to talk about unfriendly AI, the singularity, the paperclip experiment, the dark enlightenment and mor...

We take a night call about Evangelion and neurotic artificial intelligence from a listener that gives Emily a great excuse to explain Eva to Molly and Tess. Then it’s the saga of Jordan and Mikalya Peterson, the Canadian father daughter grifter team. All meat diets, gothic intrigue, Russian doctors inducing comas for benzo withdrawal, the Numa Numa song and maybe even...murder? For the second half of the show we are joined by write...

A night call from a data scientist offers more accurate information about how our phones are “listening” to us. Then we take a road trip of the mind to the haunted Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada and find out why the graveyard next door is doubly haunted for reasons not related to clowns (hint: plague).

Then a night email prompts a fun chat about the sentience of A.I. as Molly puts forth the theory that the A.I. revolution could be s...

We start off with a night call about whether your phone camera knows which part of a photo you’re looking at (it does). More chat about phones and surveillance leads to Elon Musk’s Neuralink and a discussion of futurism (both kinds) and transhumanists. Then we get a night email from a listener in Key West about the bind faced by tourist towns with reopening. Emily makes a case for seeing the ocean safely. Then we are joined by come...

Emily returns with tales of a haunted hotel she stayed at in Mobile, Alabama. Then it's the #babywitches who hexed the moon, followed by a listener email about the queer Sapphic aesthetics of cottagecore. This of course leads into some discussion of Taylor Swift's new album Folklore, and how in a way it's always fall right now. We read a listener email about the struggles of international students right now, and another...

A night call from a teacher about the back to school catch 22 facing all teachers and students right now. Tess blows the lid off the secret pandemic pod tutoring circuit. Then it’s the rebooted Unsolved Mysteries and the Howie Mandel Tik Tok teen conspiracy! Is Howie okay? Has Howie ever been okay? A night email about the club at the top of the Baltimore hotel featured in the new Unsolved Mysteries, and the Berkshires UFO sighting ...

We kick it off with a night email from an anonymous listener working at an unnamed theme park about how unsafe reopening is. Then Emily explains “Dark Academia” the college themed Tik Tok teen trend that feels extra dystopian now that school reopenings are being threatened for the fall. Then we are joined by special guest writer Hannah Giorgis from The Atlantic to discuss Polish erotic thriller and viral hit 365 Days! Does this mov...

The girls are joined by writer Ezekiel Kweku for the top half this week. A Ghislaine news roundup and some television show fueled speculation about why Ms. Maxwell was staying in New Hampshire. Then it’s Randonautica, the creepy geocaching app taking Tik Tok by storm. Would any of us be game to follow a set of random directions to potentially enchanting surprise locations? Or does that sound like the worst idea ever? Then it’s a de...