The Conspiracists feat. Noelle Cook (E355)
The new book The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging by Noelle Cook offers an unusually intimate look at why seemingly bizarre conspiracy worlds that involve starseeds, ascended masters, and shadowy cabals are powerfully compelling even when they damage the lives of believers. Rather than taking a detached academic approach, Cook traces how white, middle-aged women were pulled deeper into conspiratorial belief systems in the years leading up to and after January 6, through online communities, the pandemic, personal upheaval, and a New Age spiritual subculture fused with far-right politics.
The book follows Cook’s long, complicated relationship with two women in particular: Yvonne St. Cyr and Tammy Butry. Yvonne, from Idaho, sought structure in the Marines after a turbulent childhood, then found a home in the world of conspirituality, where politics becomes divine destiny and January 6th becomes a “spiritual war.”
Tammy, from Pennsylvania, carries a history of trauma and instability, including seeing how the real-world betrayal of the “Kids for Cash” scandal harmed her children, making QAnon’s “save the children” framing feel emotionally plausible. Together, their stories show how conspiracism can function as belonging, meaning, and an explanation big enough to encompass their pain.
Travis and Jake talk to Noelle about how her book came together, her relationship with the two subjects, and why conspiracist movements like QAnon can appeal to women over fifty years old.
Thank you for being a patron of QAA.
Noelle Cook
https://bsky.app/profile/noellecook.com
The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging
https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798889832423/The-Conspiracists
The first five episodes of Annie Kelly’s new 6-part podcast miniseries “Truly Tradly Deeply” are available to Cursed Media subscribers, with new episodes released weekly.
Cursed Media subscribers also get access to every episode of every QAA miniseries we produced, including Manclan by Julian Feeld and Annie Kelly, Trickle Down by Travis View, The Spectral Voyager by Jake Rockatansky and Brad Abrahams, and Perverts by Julian Feeld and Liv Agar. Plus, Cursed Media subscribers will get access to at least three new exclusive podcast miniseries every year.
Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
Comments (39)
Just finished the book. Well worth the read
The trade show metaphor also applies to functional medical disorders, AKA disorders without a clear structural cause that tend to have significant psychological underpinnings. POTS, fibromyalgia, type 3 ehlers danlos, PNES, gastroparesis to name a few. People with one tend to "pick up" more over time. People can't find satisfying answers in the medical system so they turn to online communities to find understanding and potential solutions.
I don't think it was fully explained, but the Cash for Kids scandal was a situation where 2 Pennsylvania judges were taking bribes from the operators of a private, for-profit juvenile detention centre to impose more detention verdicts on children accused of crimes in the state juvenile court system. https://www.pacourts.us/news-and-statistics/archived-resources/interbranch-commission-on-juvenile-justice
As a woman over 50, it’s true that we become invisible. Hearing someone else say that bluntly was a gut punch.
Are the guests warned beforehand that Ghostbusters will come up in the convo or do they just experience it organically?
Outstanding episode. Noelle is a gem (I'm getting her book asap), and the stories illuminating.
Great show. Noelle was an excellent guest. Keen to read her book. The socioeconomic aspect of conspiracy believers is something that needs further exploration. It doesn’t get covered enough. Is that a cultural thing for Americans? Australians reduce everything to class. Americans seem reticent to even bring it up.
I agreed with Jake’s conspiracy: Candice and Kirk were having an affair and that’s why Erika put a hit out on him and promised to make sweet love to that incel who killed him.
Jake getting choked up talking about mental health and having jaw problems has made me feel so seen. Having treatment resistant Trigeminal Neuralgia, widely considered one of the most painful chronic conditions to have, and the major depression that comes with it. It's the first time I've identified with another person in a long time. Thank you Jake, Thank you QAA
Noelle was such a good guest! Really wonderful episode.
All the free episodes from 121 and earlier are still not available. As soon as you guys re-enable access to them, I will immediately sign up for 1 year of Cursed Media. If you don't, I'll just be quietly resentful until you do
I dunno if it’s the same thing I experienced, but I remember listening off Spotify until the episodes appeared on Patreon then I continued from there. This was a year plus ago
Yo I know rougarou, he always smokes up all my weed.
Mentioning ghostbusters in increasingly obscure moments is unreasonably funny.
Good episode. Calm and educational.
Everyone needs a hobby I suppose
Noelle is so right. I do understand her connection between pain and conspiracy. It’s so much easier, losses included, to ignore your life being a literal dumpster fire and to believe you’re a Divine Being not meant for this mortal realm. 🧚🏻♂️ Great work, guys!!
We need a conspirituality to Marxism pipeline
It’s easy to believe that a Satan-worshipping cabal is torturing children to extract hormones for consumption when you grew up being taught that your soul will live forever because your sins have been washed away by the blood of the lamb.
My gf was at her job yesterday, and two of her colleagues got onto the vaccine, and how they hadn't taken it due to; a friend having a bad reaction, and a friend's father having a heart attack 2 days after having the vaccine. They then openly admitted to; paying 700 to a doctor to say they'd taken the vaccine in order to go on holiday, and stealing a pack of vaccine cards from a doctor's office in order to fill it out and go on holiday. They also said that since the pandemic, it's all been proven that it's bullshit. That they were so comfortable admitting this in front of a room of people, all of which were not really responding to any of its, speaks volumes to how vindicated they feel that they were right to act they way they did. Just, staggering. Hesistancy I can understand, to a degree, I don't agree but I can understand why people would feel that way. But actively defrauding a system designed to protect people, and travelling on a plane to another country, that is beyond selfish, that's shameful behaviour.
Incredibly charming guest, loved what she had to say. Jake deserves to be trapped in infinite tsukuyomi for grinding the interview to a halt to make another worthless ghostbusters cartoon reference
Really enjoyed this episode!!!
Cool episode, you could learn stuff and there was a clear and easy to follow story without fucking Julian going off the rails every three minutes
Boring episode with no Julian.
Everyone should have adopted my pandemic coping mechanism of taking two naps a day instead of going online
I don’t think my Patreon subscription can handle another Ghostbusters reference.
More than I can listen to? Hah! I've listened to every episode at least 3 times 🙃 keep em coming!
More than I can listen to? Hah! I've listened to every episode at least 3 times 🙃 keep em coming!
Ooooo. Wu-anon!
ODB would've crushed it talking about the Q map.
Are conspiracy theorists generally crazy and disconnected from reality? Yeah, kind of. But they aren’t wrong that the entire system is bullshit. So, while they may not be factually correct, their instincts to reject an insane system are spot on.
Right problem, wrong solution
This is an incredible episode-great guest! I don’t mind that you all sometimes cover regular news nowadays (recent Venezuela based episode as an example) and I get why you do it, but I love to see you all get back to your Qanon/conspiracy theory roots.
So I'm one of the Tsuki project migrant listeners on the discord (I think there's just one other one) that Travis spoke to when y'all did an episode on that. And the thing I figured from this new episode is that the best we might be able to hope for is people still have some of these surreal beliefs but that they mellow out. I've found that due to how unreal everything feels now is that the Tsuki project "reality being disconnected" still kinda feels valid as our ideas of a consensus reality get ripped apart by the actual stuff going on. It *is* really comforting to have some explanation, even if you don't really consciouslly fully believe it in the front of your mind anymore. If things ever go back to "normal" maybe these beliefs will fall by the wayside a bit. But I think as long as things are so insane on a material level then people will grasp at these beliefs if only to try to hang on to *something*
Will Noelle be chatting with the Conspirituality fellas at any point? I love these dives into real people’s journeys!
New Zealand Jake talking about The Real Ghostbusters podcast series when?
Third 🥉!!
Hell yeah
Liv Agar!