A review of The Conspiracists by Noelle Cook, 196 pages, Broadleaf Books (January 2026)

In 2021, the body of New Age spiritual leader Amy Carlson was found mummified. Her eyes were missing from her corpse, her face was covered in glitter, and her skin was blue from ingesting large quantities of colloidal silver, which she thought was a remedy for all ailments. She had died from alcoholism and anorexia weeks
earlier. Her followers had wrapped her body in a sleeping bag strung with Christmas lights—they had been waiting for “galactic beings” to come and collect her. Carlson was one of many online influencers who specialised in spiritual themes and conspiracy theories—a crossover that has come to be known as “conspirituality.”

In her new book, The Conspiracists, California researcher Noelle Cook takes us into the murky depths of conspirituality and shows how these beliefs hijack people’s lives. Her research focuses on one of Carlson’s online followers, a woman named Yvonne. At around the same time Yvonne was following Carlson, she also participated in the 6 January Capitol riot. For her role in the attack, Yvonne was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. A fellow January 6er named Tammy, who was also convicted and sentenced, is also profiled. The result is a highly readable case study of female vulnerability in middle age and how easily that vulnerability can be captured by online cults.

Along with their conspiritual beliefs, Yvonne and Tammy share a number of
similarities. Both women are in their fifties. Their histories are marked by significant trauma, including molestation or rape as children and abuse in intimate relationships when they were adults. Cook describes their conspiratorial beliefs as an elaborate coping mechanism: It is easier to endure despair when one can enter a fantasy world online, particularly one that casts the believer as an active participant in the eternal struggle between light and dark. In this sense, conspirituality offers meaning, community, and purpose.