Your Therapist Needs Therapy 62 - QAnon and Religious Conspiracy Theories with special guest Cynane Shay

First nuclear engineer we’ve had on as a guest! This week Jeremy is joined by the incisive Cynane Shay! Cynane discusses her journey through a rigid, evangelical upbringing and how it shaped her worldview, and how QAnon led to a deconstruction of her beliefs. She explores the influence of Christian nationalism and the prevalence of conspiracy theories, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jeremy and Cynane talk about the intersections of faith, education, and political ideology, highlighting the psychological and societal impacts of a totalistic belief system.

You can find Cynane on social media @taking.off.the.tinfoil.hat and check out the resources tab over at takingoffthetinfoilhat.com for some great deconstruction and cult info links!

Jeremy has all his practice info at Wellness with Jer, and you can find him on Instagram and YouTube.

Head over to Patreon to support the show, or you can pick up some merch! We appreciate support from likes, follows, and shares as well!

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Podcasts about therapy do not replace actual therapy, and listening to a podcast about therapy does not signify a therapeutic relationship.

If you or someone you know is in crisis please call or text the nationwide crisis line at 988, or text HELLO to 741741. The Trevor Project has a crisis line for LGBTQ+ young people that can be reached by texting 678678.

Transcript

Your Therapist Needs Therapy - Cynane Shay (2024-06-28 17:11 GMT-5) - Transcript
Attendees
Cynane Shay, Jeremy Schumacher
Transcript
This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. People can also change the text after it was created.
Jeremy Schumacher: Hello and welcome to another edition of your therapist needs therapy the podcast for two mental health professionals talk about their mental health Journeys and how they navigate mental Wellness while working in the mental health field. I'm your host Jeremy Schumacher licensed marriage and family therapist needs.
Cynane Shay: Hi, thank you so much for having me on I'm super excited. And yeah, definitely not a therapist.
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, you brief intro can do a brief bio Who you are and what you do?
Cynane Shay: I went to the University of Florida did nuclear engineering. I am from Florida. So everybody I know is insane and myself included and I was raised in what I would call just like quintessential white Christian nationalism fundamentalist, right Evangelical private Christian School for elementary and middle school a lot of non-denominational churches. And then also some southern baptist churches and in my experience non-denominational churches are really just southern baptist churches with board shorts and I basically
Cynane Shay: Was the good girl the Straight A's I believed it all I was bought in a hundred percent. this was not just my belief but my identity and a lot of biblical inherency is kind of the heart of the version of Christianity that I was raised in a lot of Rapture and end times anxiety a lot of Salvation anxiety and then A lot of white nationalism a lot of Democrats the devil Obama is a secret Muslim trying to take over the world all of that and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: then it wasn't until 2020 and the pandemic when I was well into adulthood. I was years old. I don't know exactly and it wasn't until
Cynane Shay: I made it through the Trump presidency basically still not fully questioning anything to do with my faith at all. And then it wasn't until qanon and the conspiracy theories and Jewish space lasers and 5G radiation mind control and Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and flatter. There's and all of the stuff that came up in 2020 that I was like, something's wrong and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: then the end of 2021 until present I
Cynane Shay: Very rapidly and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: aggressively deconstructed and for me there were little moments along the way obviously little conversations.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, so I have questions already. I'm so curious. I'm a psych person obviously,…
Cynane Shay: I remember having here and…
Jeremy Schumacher: so I went to University of Minnesota you were at a big school as well.
Cynane Shay: there where I was that's kind of a good point. But I'm not one of the cases…
Jeremy Schumacher: I'm curious kind…
Cynane Shay: where it was like,…
Jeremy Schumacher: What you're upbringing was in regards to education?
Cynane Shay: this was over 15 years. I started having doubts.
Jeremy Schumacher: Because it is a weird.
Cynane Shay: I started questioning. It was in a specific moment on December 24th,…
Jeremy Schumacher: I don't know nuclear engineering sounds really mathematically intensive that doesn't sound like it comes from a family that's anti-education or…
Cynane Shay: 2021 that I like the doctrination broke. and then Here we are.
Jeremy Schumacher: against schooling.
00:05:00
Cynane Shay: Yeah, so I think that it's pretty interesting the situation that I was raised in because
Cynane Shay: The environment that I was raised in my parents, I think when they had kids became very concerned about raising us right and making sure that we were saved and they purposefully placed us into a very restrictive bubble. We were only allowed to be friends with people who were Christians. We were only allowed to do activities that were Christian activities. I mean, this is the James Dobson focus on the family era where there was an alternative Christian subculture of music books TV camps anything that the secular world had we had a different version and like I said, I went to the private Christian school and all of my summer camps and stuff were like Bible camps and church camps and that sort of thing and in that world
Cynane Shay: I was drowned Hyper patriarchy especially because I call my adolescence cult light adjacent because my family was not in iblp Institute basically principles. the call run by
Cynane Shay: Bill Gothard the Shiny Happy People documentary is about it on Amazon Prime.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: It's amazing. My family was not in that but everybody that I knew their families were involved. I remember seeing Bill Gothard VHS tapes at my friend's houses. All of the girls that I knew at my private Christian School at our Sunday church at my Southern Baptist youth group. It's a small town. So those three spheres of influence were really overlapped all of the girls that I knew from all three of those fears. We're going to iblp summer camps and I was invited to them and I remember being 12 years old. My best friend asked me if I wanted to go and she said that you get to learn how to cook and clean and it's an all girls camp and the deal breaker for me was that the dress code was flooring skirts,…
Jeremy Schumacher: Sure.
Cynane Shay: and I was like nah, I'm out.
Cynane Shay: But I remember my mom asking me do you want to go because all of my friends were going and I was like No And her response was okay good and that was the end of it. and to an extent and so all of my friends moms were more what you think of when you think of Floor length, denim skirt Southern Baptist Church mom and very typical gender roles, if they had a job it was maybe teaching or nursing.
Cynane Shay: there's a lot of influence with that. Overt, it's very subtle. these are the parents who are running our Bibles and our devotions and our Bibles services and
Cynane Shay: That was I definitely had a lot of stress around that I remember being 14 years old and being really really stressed out about if I had kids one day how would I Like…
Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.
Cynane Shay: how would I afford childcare or how could we care about Building Bridges or being doctors or being astronauts or doing any of these things that may actually be really vital to life, like an accountant or a construction worker. How could we care about any of that? If there were Eternal Souls on the line shouldn't we all just be missionaries and pastors and for me it was like then I would have to be a pastor's wife because I can't be a pastor and I had this whole constant tale spinning of a 13 year old. When I knew that I did not have a maternal bone in my body.
Cynane Shay: I was like, this is not my calling but I don't know what to do. And so there was all of that pressure and a lot of that influence. very few of the girls that I grew up with went on to do anything like what I did but my mother and my family Was always kind of this one foot out thing. In the white Christian nationalist Spectrum, I definitely see my family as a little bit more white nationalist than the hardcore Fundy side of it. all my mother was obsessed with the Rapture,…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, sounds very compliment. Yep.
Cynane Shay: said that Jesus was coming back in her lifetime. So I needed to be prepared when I got married. She
Cynane Shay: hold my husband in a conversation that I was not present for that. she had actually prayed and begged that Jesus would come back before I was old enough to start dating basically so that I could die a virgin but she guesses that he's the next best option. And this is meant to be some sort of compliment.
00:10:00
Cynane Shay: And I heard this and I'm just like, my God, she sounds like a Jonestown mother. Obviously, that's a bit hyperbolic and it's not quite the same and I was never unsafe but just the line of logic is there so my family was definitely Evangelical, but I genuinely don't think that they 100% knew everything that we were being taught in all of these s that they were placing us into especially with me being a girl and My mom was very independent. She was very concerned with our souls and the Rapture and Jesus but at the same time.
Cynane Shay: She had lived on her own for many years had been in abusive relationships had seen friends still in abusive relationships. And she told me and I didn't realize until years and years later what a difference in messaging me and…
Jeremy Schumacher: with it, so
Cynane Shay: my friends were getting at home. She told me. A man can always leave you you can be married for 25 years have three kids and you go through midlife crisis and the marriage falls apart. And if you don't have something of your own to fall back on a degree in education,…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: whatever it is.
Cynane Shay: Don't put yourself willingly into that position and that is not a message that any of my friends were getting even remotely.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: So there was a huge mix of really really good advice and really really bad advice and I think that that's just very human that's just very life,
Cynane Shay: And it's working. I think a lot of the deconstruction was working through. sorting that out. what was good advice…
Jeremy Schumacher: You yeah and…
Cynane Shay: what was bad advice and…
Jeremy Schumacher: it's interesting.
Cynane Shay: and…
Jeremy Schumacher: So I think culturally different…
Cynane Shay: my mother was a firefighter so she was very independent.
Jeremy Schumacher: because I grew up in the Midwest and not the South so the southern baptist isn't a thing here,…
Cynane Shay: She had life experience. She was a firefighter in the 1990s when women were not firefighters and…
Jeremy Schumacher: but I grew up Lutheran which is very culty in the midwest. Especially Milwaukee, which is…
Cynane Shay: she had one of those Generational hero kind of stories…
Jeremy Schumacher: where I grew up that's where Lutheranism is kind of centered that's its home and so similar to you all my friends were Lutheran all of them went to the same private school with the exception of one sport all my extracurriculars with the same little Christian kids,…
Cynane Shay: where she had to fight to keep her job and I grew up knowing that and seeing that and I was just really good at math.
Jeremy Schumacher: but I was good at school and…
Cynane Shay: And so here we are.
Jeremy Schumacher: so my parents who are both teachers wanting me to go on to Seminary or a teaching school and it was kind of like Yeah, but Jeremy's like that good at school or maybe because he can go for free. He should go to the big university and I look back and I like that's so weird because really a lot of people pushed to go to that next level go to college, but go to the Christian College go to the Lutheran Seminary type thing use your gifts for the betterment of the Lord or whatever it was. was on a report cards. that was feedback. We got from our high school teachers like gifts meant for the ministry. No.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: the amount of stress that idea
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: and that's what I was talking about before with the stress of what am I supposed to do with my life? Because it was like, how am I supposed to use math for God, you see the girls who were really good at singing like they can sing it church and then it's just like How am I supposed to calculus my way into heaven? but At the same time, so I had a lot of that positive encouragement for education. at the same time the complete opposite because my family viewed education as a means to an end, as just like Financial Security which it is and especially
Cynane Shay: unless you have generational wealth some other form of just massive amounts of wealth like that is pretty much like the truth, and they told me they paid for me to go to school which was I'm immensely lucky for I almost said blessed well But they said we'll only pay for you to go to school for something that you're gonna be able to make money with…
00:15:00
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah.
Cynane Shay: if you want to stay in school any longer than that that's gonna be on me. my goodness. I'm so sorry. That's my dog.
Cynane Shay: about that so you have to Make money with this. So I went into engineering I was good at math. So I didn't want to do anything medical because I needed there to be a zero percent chance that I would ever have to sponge bathe anybody and
Cynane Shay: yeah, yeah 0% chance of that nuclear engineering but It couldn't be anything like philosophy or sociology or history or any of those off scientists political science were one not gonna make as money the way that my parents needed it to and then all so they were dangerous. I was I think very subconsciously afraid of these ideas and topics because we were taught that philosophy especially is antithetical to Theology and to Jesus and so yes, I have a degree and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: It's just a bachelor's degree, and I was encouraged for education, but at the same time a lot of
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: And nothing bad's ever happened at Liberty University. that's sarcasm in case people don't know anything about Liberty University lucky you…
Cynane Shay: Meaning behind that and since 2020 and…
Jeremy Schumacher: if you don't know anything about Liberty University. What was it like for you?
Cynane Shay: the pandemic and trying to talk my parents out of stockpiling Ivermectin.
Jeremy Schumacher: Because it sounds like you were a little bit into your career.
Cynane Shay: I've been told by all of them at different times that I was brainwashed by higher education and…
Jeremy Schumacher: before The queue announced stuff really hit the fan what was it like for you?
Cynane Shay: my father told me that…
Jeremy Schumacher: With getting a science degree learning to Scientific Method and…
Cynane Shay: if they had to do it over again, they would not have sent me to That school being the University of Florida,…
Jeremy Schumacher: everything that's built on that all our facts and knowledge built on that and then holding on to your face that is kind of you…
Cynane Shay: which is just like the most generic Public University. All of my friends went to Liberty University or…
Jeremy Schumacher: Doctrine is an antithetical to philosophy religion is antithetical to the scientific method. So was it like for you kind of going through that process?
Cynane Shay: there's a private Christian school in Florida that they went to but Just it.
Cynane Shay: my God.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: Sure.
Cynane Shay: I had an incredible ability capacity for cognitive dissonance. It runs in my family turns out. but
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: again I picked my major really nuclear engineering is entirely physics based. It's math and physics. It's not biology.
Jeremy Schumacher: He's okay. I'm not picking it up.
Cynane Shay: I don't think I was ever taught Evolution.
Jeremy Schumacher: I'm hearing my children run upstairs above me.
Cynane Shay: I went to public high school.
Jeremy Schumacher: So I'm just double checking that that's not picking up either.
Cynane Shay: I did high school biology. I took bio1 in college and I think that part of it is that public education has been completely, inundated with Christian narratives as well and…
Jeremy Schumacher: You're good.
Cynane Shay: also, I mean in one bio class, there's only so much ground that you can cover and also they might have taught me something to do with Evolution and I just blacked it out because I thought it was the devil. I don't remember so.
Cynane Shay: The contents of what I learned really didn't do anything to shake my faith. It didn't do anything to I'm sorry. Are you gonna have to cut out if you can hear the dog?
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, you're good.
Cynane Shay: Should I put him in the backyard?
Cynane Shay: Okay. I'm so sorry.
Jeremy Schumacher: I got two little kids and two dogs, so I understand it happens.
Cynane Shay: No, it's not.
Cynane Shay: but What was I saying?
Jeremy Schumacher: We were talking about all of your learning and…
Cynane Shay: I'm gonna put him outside. I'm so sorry.
00:20:00
Jeremy Schumacher: education was physics-based. So it didn't do a lot to challenge your faith.
Cynane Shay: Sorry. No.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: Sorry, can you hear me?
Cynane Shay: No, okay. Good. Yeah, I thought he could handle it he could not.
Cynane Shay: What were we talking about? I'm so sorry.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: yeah. Yeah, so the content of what I learned did shake my faith at all didn't really super make me question anything a very easy to just kind of gloss over the things that You don't need to really think about and I do think that.
Cynane Shay: The not…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: what to think but how to think going through school and the scientific method as you're talking about and then especially with what I do now in kind of an operational capacity. that was what I needed when s*** hit the fan essentially.
Cynane Shay: because
Jeremy Schumacher: Sure.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: I was completely purposefully ignorant of many topics much information just a complete void in my mind because I went to that private Christian School for elementary middle school, my understanding of history was completely warped into white nationalism, the country being founded on. the Christian religion that sort of thing
Cynane Shay: it was
Cynane Shay: politics my parents specifically told me I remember turning 18 years old and talking to my parents about I don't know who to vote for was my first year that I could vote and they were like, you don't need to worry about it. We'll always tell you who to vote for will always tell you who the Christian candidate is. Because it was never a question of policy. It was always a question of who is the Christian candidate and you don't need to learn it. You don't need to understand it yourself. Will take care of it. And so I had no understanding of politics it was this and when something is that much of a void, it's very intimidating and you're not really sure that you can learn it and the other really big thing for myself.
Cynane Shay: Going through deconstruction and everything was the idea of what education did for me was that it gave me confidence. I knew that I could learn I knew that I could do difficult things and in a way that if I had not gotten my degree I Very easily could not have had that confidence and just have never waited into that water.
Cynane Shay: my experience And the college timeframe.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: didn't shake my faith, but I realized now it really set up a lot of my deconstruction when I first started dating my husband my family reacted very very negatively partially because he was raised Catholic and Catholics are not real Christians, obviously and
Cynane Shay: Partially I think just as a control thing. So not necessarily all Purity culture base. Maybe just partially my own personal family Dynamic problems, but reacted very negatively in aggressively. My mom harassed me for weeks told me that he was probably cheating on me told me that I mean, I don't know trigger warning for stuff but told me that he and his friends were gonna g*** me if I went and visited them just stuff that was obviously nonsense it was so extreme like it became
00:25:00
Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.
Cynane Shay: she just lost all credibility and at the same time I'm giving you the hyper Spark Notes version of this. my roommate in college was a girl from my hometown from my private Christian School, the two of us got into UF and it was a big deal and we were roommates together and we came from the same world and we were goody goodies and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: we didn't drink until we turn 21 and everybody said they're gonna go girls gone wild and as far as Girls Gone Wild that we went was that we bought the Harry Potter book series and
Cynane Shay: we put them in my room and when my parents visited we put them in her room and We live together all four years of college and she had a boyfriend at one…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: I had never dated before because I wasn't allowed to date. She had a boyfriend at one point who ended up having a homosexual Miami sugar daddy that he was living with
Cynane Shay: Had this whole double life and was also cheating on her with several other people and had lied to her about his entire identity and it was catastrophic for her life. And I just was kind of watching this all This is a person that's very very important and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: close to me and I've never dated before and I had just started dating right now husband and I was like, my God, are you a serial killer are you going to like,…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah that effort to control you through fear. Kind of pushed you further away.
Cynane Shay: do you have a Miami millionaire sugar daddy?
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah,…
Cynane Shay: And he was like No And I was like,…
Jeremy Schumacher: I also tangentially. No not to focus on the Miami sugar daddy,…
Cynane Shay: that's exactly what you would say. and…
Jeremy Schumacher: but I also like a lot of times people…
Cynane Shay: going through that.
Jeremy Schumacher: who are queer folks…
Cynane Shay: Being a Purity culture child having no experience dating,…
Jeremy Schumacher: who are closeted or people who are not set up for monogamy. We'll date people who grew up in Purity culture…
Cynane Shay: but now it's senior year of college and…
Jeremy Schumacher: because they're very safe because they have so little experience or…
Cynane Shay: I've never held a boy's hand.
Jeremy Schumacher: so little knowledge around sex and…
Cynane Shay: When my parents met my now husband they immediately just attacked him and…
Jeremy Schumacher: consent and healthy boundaries. And so for people who are maybe predatory or looking to take advantage of a relationship like they will find their way out of that moth to a flame analogy for people…
Cynane Shay: shunt him and…
Jeremy Schumacher: who grew up in Purity culture…
Cynane Shay: told me that he was cheating on me and…
Jeremy Schumacher: because they have so little idea of…
Cynane Shay: to know him did nothing to help me that this person after I just tangentially lived through a pretty traumatic relationship experience and…
Jeremy Schumacher: what a healthy relationship looks like
Cynane Shay: I learned that I had to Just trust myself. That they weren't going to help me. and then my education I think taught me that I could trust myself and that I had the ability to learn so
Cynane Shay: Yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, not what you want.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so yeah, I see that a lot or to closeted queer folks will date each other someone or the other gender both good Christians because that's safe and neither of you are interested in having sex with each other and again putting that off. I see lot because a lot of my friends went to those Christian colleges or we're dealing with those things. I was K through 12 private Lutheran education and so seeing Kids who would go off the public school and come out and be much healthier versions of themselves. when you're at that public university you are exposed to some of those other stories of
Cynane Shay: Mm- Yeah, and I feel I obviously grew up in a very homophobic environment and…
Jeremy Schumacher: these atheists are pretty nice or my friend seems much healthier now that he's out and gay like that's cool. I'm glad he's happy and…
Cynane Shay: I myself was very homophobic and…
Jeremy Schumacher: like seeing that the world doesn't end or nothing bad is happening…
Cynane Shay: that's something that I have had to like really,…
Jeremy Schumacher: because you're still socializing with these people.
Cynane Shay: analyze the problem was not that he was gay.
Jeremy Schumacher: 
Cynane Shay: The problem was that he was cheating on her. And then also these individuals ended up being very dangerous and had her followed by private investigators and things so we're In predatory ways.
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah.
00:30:00
Cynane Shay: yeah, and I mean that's obviously not my personal story, but I find that. the few people who were apart of the lgbtq community growing up in my hometown and stuff were extremely demonized looked down upon and pity as if they were lost or something and it's very very sad when
Cynane Shay: And it's very typical of the Evangelical mindset I think to misattribute and confuse cause and…
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Cynane Shay: correlation and effect because when you are raised in that sort of environment it would be you see no representation. No, I didn't know that the lgbtq community existed until I was at least probably Middle School Age and so when you don't really know what's going on to
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and…
Cynane Shay: to have to go through that is not something that I have to struggle with and…
Jeremy Schumacher: think a lot of that is the Biblical history, I didn't have history classes.
Cynane Shay: it breaks my heart that people have had to deal with that and…
Jeremy Schumacher: I just had Bible History which is just apologetics. But the story of Adam and…
Cynane Shay: then the Evangelical people Turn around and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Eve in the fall is cause and effect everything is coming from that and…
Cynane Shay: say that the struggles in their life.
Jeremy Schumacher: so while you're trying to teach free will it's not a healthy version of Independence and…
Cynane Shay: Are caused by the sin, if they're really struggling with this…
Jeremy Schumacher: autonomy. It's in a consequential …
Cynane Shay: because their identity has been suppressed and…
Jeremy Schumacher: if you do a bad thing you're bad and…
Cynane Shay: they've been made purposely ignorant of the world and…
Jeremy Schumacher: if something good happens to you, it must mean you're good and we know that's not…
Cynane Shay: themselves and…
Jeremy Schumacher: how it really works. But that is kind of this warped world view that you get indoctrinated in…
Cynane Shay: whatever kind of like symptoms that's gonna manifest. It's then attributed to
Jeremy Schumacher: if you're born into it that you get indoctrinated into from a young age…
Cynane Shay: That's…
Jeremy Schumacher: because that's the third Bible story you learn is The fall into sin.
Cynane Shay: because they are choosing a sinful lifestyle and it's the same thing for why they blame you just need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Jeremy Schumacher: So it's just one of those things where this idea of cause and effect is that we all have the same autonomy and…
Cynane Shay: You just want to hand out instead of you…
Jeremy Schumacher: we all start from the same place and therefore it must be those persons personal choices.
Cynane Shay: seeing that other issues are caused by generational wealth disparity and…
Jeremy Schumacher: And I think you joked earlier cognitive dissonance runs in the family,…
Cynane Shay: segregation and…
Jeremy Schumacher: but that's a thing that gets taught in these religious contexts and…
Cynane Shay: mass incarceration. it's just this inversion of cause and…
Jeremy Schumacher: it creates cognitive dissonance so that you can say,…
Cynane Shay: effect that warps the world view into the totalistic ideology of my Christian nationalism.
Jeremy Schumacher: I don't have to worry about marginalized communities or I don't need to feel badly about that. I don't need to confront my privilege because it's their fault. It's not related to me at all.
Cynane Shay: Mm- Yeah, my newest Obsession right now is I don't know if you've read en. Wellman's book hijacking history. I lived through a private Christian School, Kindergarten through eighth grade, and I know it.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah,…
Cynane Shay: I know what that was like…
Jeremy Schumacher: it can be let's fast forward a little bit and…
Cynane Shay: but even still it wasn't…
Jeremy Schumacher: just jump into the deconstruction the qanon.
Cynane Shay: until reading hijacking history where this professor of History Goes through the three most prominent homeschooling Christian curriculum.
Jeremy Schumacher: space lasers lizard people you have a very specific date in mind that you were like, yeah. this isn't a thing for me anymore. Do you want to talk a little bit about that event?
Cynane Shay: and breaks down exactly how they warp your worldview how is it that I was indoctrinated and to see it laid out so succinctly the way that Kathleen Wellman does it connected so many dots and really just makes you realize how deep and Insidious and how it goes to your core and it's not just your understanding of history or just your understanding of politics just your theology it defines your world view and how difficult that is to then. Correct. it's a bit depressing.
00:35:00
Cynane Shay: I'm sure we got engaged in July of 2020 and then we got married in October of 2021 and July of 2020 for anybody who's familiar with Cuban on should know that the summer of 2020 was basically when the portal to Hell opened. Because humanon had been around for many years at that point. It started in October of 2017 on fourchan very quickly moved to the chan website was on a Chan through 2018-2019 eight Chan got removed from the internet because it was a nest of Neo Nazis and pedophiles and had been directly connected to three racially motivated mass shootings.
Cynane Shay: and just the worst of the worst and experiment in absolute Free Speech the man who made this website and then Frederick Brennan, and then the Father and Son Duo who bought it from him
Cynane Shay: Ron and Jim Watkins were all these, Deep Web nerds…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and the red pill blue pill Community. Yeah.
Cynane Shay: who were hyper like absolute Free Speech Advocates and the end result of that was near Nazis and pedophiles and racially motivated mass shootings and Q Anon and
Cynane Shay: most people who are not me thankfully don't really know what fortune and eight Chan they may have heard of Reddit and the websites formats were all somewhat similar. They're like Forum websites.
Cynane Shay: in the summer of 2020
Cynane Shay: this information the Q and on conspiracy theory kind of jumped. From these nerdy message boards into mainstream significance there had already been for a long time this kind of concerted effort to get q and on to YouTube and Reddit and then in the summer of 2020. three things happened in 2020 one at the beginning you had covid which soft hard pill what I mean when I say that. Yeah. yeah, so if you're soft pilled you're worried about child sex trafficking and you're worried about government corruption, but if you're hard pilled you believe in mold children and Adrina Chrome and
Cynane Shay: the covid really kind of soft pill a lot of people maybe something else is going on here. I'm generally just kind of scared and this is sort of the sort of thing that really drives people generally into conspiracy theories and Cults and That was at the end of 2020. You have the whole voter fraud movement. You had the whole religious right Republican voter fraud stop the steal and that was a huge movement and what most people ignore is in between those two things in the summer. We had what was called pastel q and on and that was when
Cynane Shay: you have the Wayfair shipping conspiracy theory that took off on tiktok. I got really really popular where people were saying that Wayfair were shipping children in cabinets, which was false and is ridiculous. And because that got really really popular kind of opened the door for these q and on influencers to steal hashtag save the children being a legitimate charity organization that's been around since the 1920s or something, but these Cuban on influencers stole their hashtag started spreading misinformation about child trafficking.
00:40:00
Jeremy Schumacher: in
Cynane Shay: and spread it online during this Wayfair shipping conspiracy theory moral panic and this happened coincide exactly at the same time as black lives matter black lives matter was ramping up in the summer of 2020 and you had all of these Christian and Mormon mommy bloggers who wanted to feel like moral Crusaders who wanted to have the moral superiority that they're used to but they couldn't get behind black lives matter because of racism so What's more important than? Social justice child sex trafficking so it's kind of like this one up and they took all of this Cuban on misinformation and blasted across the internet on Instagram and Facebook on their already very well established social media pages that were very reputable. these are just like moms and
Cynane Shay: You can see the statistics of the use of hashtags over time. And the number of human on Affiliated Facebook groups over time and just from July to August. It's an exponential increase and this is exactly the same time. That it hit me.
Cynane Shay: And it makes sense. My best friend came to visit the weekend before we got engaged and it was during the pandemic. She had been planning to go visit family in, North Carolina. For months since before the new year and so she was gonna stay with us and I told her there's a pandemic going on. I'm an essential worker. So I am potentially exposed to people if you need a free place to stay you can still stay with us that please understand that there's an element of risk here. and she came to visit and she got out of the car. The first thing that she said was do I need a face mask and I was like, yeah, you're gonna need a face mask and she was this is the very first time I've ever worn a face mask. and it was July and
Cynane Shay: and I was just very taken aback because in hindsight, it's so hard to tell the stories because what it means we know now at the time I had no idea there was going to be like an covid denialist movement or anti masks or anti-vacs. It was just a very strange comment and then she was like, we don't wear face masks in Florida and it's just like, the entire State of Florida And then the whole weekend she didn't take over seriously. She was annoyed that we weren't going out to restaurants and things even though I told her that we weren't going to and made fun of us for taking Seriously. at one point when I was an undergrad. She taught English in Taiwan through an iblp summer program. Her family was very involved with iblp and
Cynane Shay: while there she had made a friend who I followed on Instagram and this friend was posting all sorts of crazy conspiracy theory stuff talking about how lots and lots and lots and lots of end times Rapture like Jesus is coming back any second and then a of weirdly I didn't at the time understand why a lot of stuff about pedophiles and child sex trafficking and very trump and a communist wave is about to overtake the United States and she was talking about moving to the Amazon to escape Biden's like communist wave that was gonna destroy America. She spoke Spanish. So that makes a little bit more sense, but
Cynane Shay: it was crazy town and I was talking to my friend about it. I was whoa, what is going on with your friend? she's gone off the deep end and my friend was not concerned. She was just you don't believe in any conspiracy theories. And I was like, I don't know how to answer that question. I don't know what you want from me. was there a second shooter on the Knoll maybe I don't know and
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: It was just very very strange. The next day she left but she sent me a voice message and this changed my life basically this moment was the beginning of the end. She sent me a voice message and she said that her other best friend from this church that she goes to in our hometown and I know multiple families really go to this church her friend believed that when the covid vaccines came out, they would be full of secret metal and that the metal in your blood would interact with 5G radiation in order to control your mind and make you vote Democrat or kill you.
00:45:00
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: She wasn't sure which one and
Cynane Shay: I lost my damn mind. at first I was like, that's so funny your friend found this weird thing on the internet. that's so funny and she was like no. No, she believes this and then I said, That you need to question. All of your life choices were tolerating me. that this person let alone being friends with them and if anybody that other than me says the word radiation to you you need to slap them and walk away and then I called her friend a smooth brain and she had the audacity to be offended by that and I was like, you don't get to tell me the factory radiation is gonna control my mind and expect me not to react with violence like this is preposterous. And at that point I was like something is wrong.
Cynane Shay: My family, as I said I'd grown up around some conspiracy theories. Not that I really knew to call them that around islamophobia post 9/11 Obama administration, constantly being told that the end times were coming and expecting a communist wave and them wanting to come and take our guns and all of that but I always just kind of attributed it to my parents are old people I don't know. Maybe it's like a boomer thing, but my friend was my age.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: She was my age and she's talking about 5G radiation mind control and I was like something is wrong and at that point I started paying attention.
Cynane Shay: And when I started paying attention, I realized that every body was sharing this stuff. My mom started sending me videos from Judy mikabits who was in the pandemic documentary who was famous for saying that face masks activate the virus. I looked her up afterwards is also a woman who has said that if you ride in an airplane, you'll die of radiation poisoning. and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. I'm making such a face for people listening…
Cynane Shay: then also Simone gold he was the woman who started America's Frontline doctors Association…
Jeremy Schumacher: who can't see my face like yeah.
Cynane Shay: who really started and pushed to the hydroxylchloroquine conspiracy theory America's Frontline doctors Association having a bunch of expired medical licenses chiropractors and then a woman who preached that illness was not caused by viruses or bacteria. It was caused by having sex with demons in your sleep.
Cynane Shay: So really reputable medical sources here and my mom is sending me these videos my friend starts sharing a bunch of voter fraud stuff there. She was more concerned with the child sex trafficking moral Panic that happened that summer my other friends were talking about the wayfairship of conspiracy theory my other bridesmaid her aunt believed that all of the Hurricanes that were The hit Florida in 2020 were made by Jewish space lasers with the intent of sinking the State of Florida…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: because de Santa said give them too much freedom and apparently Jewish people didn't like that. I don't know.
Cynane Shay: For anybody listening with a space laser?
Cynane Shay: Yeah, I mean…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: if anybody does have a space laser of any kind, please just use it and sync the state of Florida. but My brother I reached out to my brother because my dad has one long and I was very concerned with him in the pandemic. He's 65 years old has a collap permanently collapsed lung is a cancer survivor and I reached out to my brother and I was like, I don't know what Mom and Dad are doing what are we gonna do and he told me that the CDC was lying to us about the death numbers and that we should let the week die. which is the most hateful and insane thing that I had ever heard.
Cynane Shay: I was the only person in my hometown that was that when I wasn't in my hometown anymore, but in that Circle who was saying no, I was alone and it doesn't carry a lot of weight when everybody else agrees and you're the one dissenting opinion nobody really listened and at the same time we're trying to play in a wedding so It was awful. It was terrible it was. Soul crushing my bridal shower my great aunt wanted to come she wasn't going to come to the wedding And she was not vaccinated because my uncle has something like autoimmune disease. It's a whole thing, but
Cynane Shay: I told my mom I was like, okay, we need to ask if guests if they come to the bridal shower. It was all Outdoors to get tested before they come because Andrew is coming and
00:50:00
Cynane Shay: f*** I said her real name. I am so sorry can.
Cynane Shay: I am so sorry. All I'll start over at that…
Jeremy Schumacher: he
Cynane Shay: But yeah, so my great aunt who is 80 something years old wanted to come to the bridal shower. She wasn't gonna come to the wedding but she wasn't backfinated and I asked my mom to have all the guests get tests tested before my aunt came and not mandating that people get vaccinated or anything. And at the time we thought the vaccine was 99% effective, but just asking people to get tested and people through a fit. My mother's best friend.
Cynane Shay: Almost boycotted the bridal shower. She and my bridesmaid her daughter.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: They ghosted me for a week and said we're not sure if we're going to be able to attend you and my mother's response to this was to talk my elderly and into coming to the bridal shower anyway. she called me and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: was like, it's fine. I talked to your aunt. She says that she's okay with them not getting tested and she's gonna come anyway, and I was like, I don't understand if they don't want to get tested they could just say I'm so sorry. we can't attend in which case I would think that that's dumb but I'm not gonna be upset
Cynane Shay: I was like, I will burn the city to the ground before I let these women come to my bridal shower being untested with my aunt there you don't understand and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: so you can see that the tensions were high and I'm worried instead of …
Jeremy Schumacher: Get to Zane Maxwell to come out of prison for it because we're anti pedophile.
Cynane Shay: how we fold the napkins and what color the spoons are like, I'm worried that somebody's gonna start talking about Jewish space lasers to my in-laws who are normal people so I had to uninvite. my
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: best friend from the wedding the one who was talking about 5G radiation. She was like the honest we didn't do maid of honor best man, but she was unofficial native honor and I had to ask her to please just not show up. She thought that I was supporting pedophiles because I tried to explain to her that Hillary Clinton was not eating babies and I Just got to the point where I was like, I just need to survive my family was harassing me my mom at one point tried to have the wedding in Miami Trump Tower. Which is just insane. I was like, why don't we see if he can officiate, why go big or go home?
Cynane Shay: yeah. I got to point where I was like, I just have to survive just get through the wedding don't burn every bridge I burnt the bridge with my 5G radiation friend. I was like f*** that but I felt like I had to be wrong. I was like I must not understand I'm overreact let's not overreact and we got through the wedding and it was in October for Christmas that year we went to visit. My husband's sister had just bought this gorgeous. New home. She had a brand her baby's first Christmas and
Cynane Shay: I was having a full-blown minty bee. All right, they're having this adorable Christmas and I'm trying not to lose my absolute mind and I got.
Cynane Shay: A text message from two people one was a guy from work and one was a friend from undergrad. They don't know each other. The text message were almost verbatim the same exact test my text message and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: they were help. I'm home for Christmas. My dad is saying some crazy Cuban on s***. What do I do and I had just enough time to kind of decompress from honestly the stress of the whole pandemic and then tied into the wedding.
00:55:00
Cynane Shay: and the stress of my parents taking Ivermectin and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, remind me that yeah,…
Cynane Shay: worrying about people and…
Jeremy Schumacher: the name sounds familiar.
Cynane Shay: then also just being profoundly disappointed by people and just all of this mounting stress I'd have just enough time to decompress and this was the feather that broke the camels back it was the point of overwhelming cognitive dissonance…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, that's where I know it from.
Cynane Shay: where it finally was too much and to see people that I cared about and respected having to go through the same thing that I had been dealing with it just felt horrible and I had a snap and at that moment, I would not say I'm an atheist or I don't believe in God or I don't believe in Jesus or I don't believe whatever that's not what it was. It was it.
Cynane Shay: I describe it as just kind of like the breaking of the indoctrination where I was then at that moment capable of actually critically evaluating my beliefs in a way that I had never been physically capable of doing before and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yep.
Cynane Shay: it kind of just reached the point of If they can be wrong about Jewish space lasers, the Bible talks about being a good Witness. and I had had that conversation with my 5G radiation friend. she went to do who Shawn foyt is?
Cynane Shay: Yeah, big orange Shawn foyt Is one of my many arch nemesis I want to say he's like a Hillsong music Pastor guy and starting in 2020.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: He did this National World Tour. I forget what it was called, but it was essentially like a covid lockdown protest and he came to close to my hometown and he was holding a protest Revival and my 5G radiation friend was going to this.
Cynane Shay: And I looked at the website because I was trying to figure out what was going on with her and the website was incredibly vague. I was like, what are they protesting and it didn't say on the website anywhere, but it was essentially a face mask lockdown protest and they were super spreader events and then now he's all Sean Floyd is also very involved with a lot of very creepy religious right political figures and goes to political rallies and…
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah.
Cynane Shay: all sorts of stuff and I remember messaging her at the time and I was like, this is insane if I am a Christian I am an Evangelical, I believe everything that you believe and it is a huge red flag and a
Cynane Shay: a big ick for me when I am already on your team. If you're trying to evangelize to anybody who is not a Christian like they're gonna run the opposite direction like what are you doing? And it was kind of like that, but then Orders of magnitude worse after a year and a half later of if they can be wrong about so much. What else are they wrong about?
Cynane Shay: And it turns out everything and it at that point, I had already started trying to understand q and on I started with the conspiracy theories. I just started trying to understand what they believed why do you believe that Hillary Clinton is eating babies like that sort of thing. And then that obviously leads into a lot of the politics and stuff and starting at that point of absolute ignorance of History sociology political science, like all of that.
Cynane Shay: at the point of my deconstruction, I then had to go and Learn all of it very very rapidly to rebuild.
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Cynane Shay: a worldview because you're left with nothing and Linda Klein wrote pure which Incredible Book and I really like the analogies that she has at the end of that book…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah, it's very scary and one of my specialties religious trauma.
Cynane Shay: where she says it's like you're the Road Runner and…
Jeremy Schumacher: So I see this a lot but my personal experience was I had been fighting to stay Christian Pro lgbtq+,…
01:00:00
Cynane Shay: you run off a cliff and he Falls it's not just that you lose the ground Beneath Your Feet it's that you lose your sense of gravity entirely and…
Jeremy Schumacher: I'm working in mental health here's how we reinterpret that scripture about why I've been into your husband's…
Jeremy Schumacher: because that's not what research says. So I'm doing all this work to still be some version of Christian while not being a Christian…
Cynane Shay: The Robert a lifton's book thought reform in the psychology of totalism.
Cynane Shay: He talks about
Jeremy Schumacher: but it was studying the history of the Bible…
Cynane Shay: essentially Dean doctrination and he describes
Jeremy Schumacher: where it's like This is every other religion. I don't believe it operates in the same way.
Cynane Shay: brainwashing specifically of political prisoners and…
Jeremy Schumacher: If you understand the pattern of organized religion Christianity isn't unique or…
Cynane Shay: what they have found with victims of other Cults is that…
Jeremy Schumacher: special in any way shape or form it follows the same pattern and so seeing people like my parents were both Educators…
Cynane Shay: if you get inducted into a cult you
Jeremy Schumacher: who are very smart people thinking myself a pretty smart person and…
Cynane Shay: You adopt the cult Persona,…
Jeremy Schumacher: being like, how do so many people believe this stuff that is Someone flying through the air,…
Cynane Shay: you accept their worldview their totalistic ideology.
Jeremy Schumacher: changing.
Cynane Shay: And you think in their thought patterns you speak in their language you dress the way they dress and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Their body into my fundamentalism was communion is like the body and…
Cynane Shay: you adopt a cult Persona and then if you are lucky enough to get out of that you kind of revert back to your previous worldview.
Jeremy Schumacher: blood of Christ. Literally that's not a metaphor. That's true. It's How is that And I had these moments in my upbringing…
Cynane Shay: It's almost like you have two personalities,…
Jeremy Schumacher: where I talked to pastors about I don't believe…
Cynane Shay: but when you're the victim of childhood and…
Jeremy Schumacher: if I died right after taking communion,…
Cynane Shay: doctrination, there's nothing to revert back to and…
Jeremy Schumacher: you would find human flesh in my system.
Cynane Shay: so it's extremely extremely overwhelming and…
Jeremy Schumacher: So I had these points of trying to get out and…
Cynane Shay: traumatic and honestly, I think that that's a lot of the reason…
Jeremy Schumacher: get in a good enough answer…
Cynane Shay: why A lot of people don't or…
Jeremy Schumacher: but I needed that holistic view of how do otherwise smart people? go hook lying and…
Cynane Shay: can't or it takes a really really long time.
Jeremy Schumacher: sicker with this stuff when they wouldn't believe it in any other context and I think once I started understanding that it was similar to your very quick deconstruction I was Christian a name only so I was ready to let go of it all but I needed that thing that made sense of how is it that people come to believe such nonsense? And once you start looking at that pattern and how that works indoctrination the overlap between conspiratorial thinking and religious thinking is really overlapped. So seeing
Jeremy Schumacher: This is how my nice good people who I grew up with who cared about poor people immigrants are coming to take our jobs. how did that happen? here's how same thought pattern they had for believing the Bibles the literal word of God. Just getting a different source of information. But I needed that to make sense before I could kind of let it go myself. I needed that holistic view of but it needed that piece to fall into place.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: yeah, and this is something mental health related. Where I found didn't an initially. I found over time the deconstruction community and the language of deconstruction and exponential local and resources it took without that it was. overwhelming and then once I finally found that It was a Lifeline, but it was just the beginning and I needed that information because I was at that point of.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: A vacuum and I needed to create a whole new world view. I needed to rebuild my what is racism what is feminism the patriarchy what did I believe what was good advice? What was bad advice and I needed books and I read just constantly compulsively.
01:05:00
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: And there were deconstruction influencers and therapist needs.
Cynane Shay: because I didn't know what was on the other side of that void or if there was an end point but what I realized now, what I was doing was rebuilding that world view and the longer I didn't have that information the longer it was just gonna take me to get to the other side. So for me, I have on my website. all of the reading references that I have gone through since deconstructing. It's a little bit out of date. I need to add a couple because it was something that I so desperately needed early in deconstruction in hopes that maybe this can help other people in that same position, but for me,
Cynane Shay: And why Christian nationalism, there's some great books by sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry and Philip Gorski who have studied what white Christian nationalism is and who these people are. What do they believe where are they how many of them are there? And it is a spectrum, white Christian nationalism. Some people are more white supremacist. Some people are more nationalists like whatever. but for me The two things that I really had that had to deconstruct and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: you described how You fought to stay Christian like you first you just wanted to be like Pro lgbtq, like all that, at this point it became more of a gradual process and I went through a similar progression, but the two underlying facets of white Christian nationalism that I had to deconstruct.
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Cynane Shay: Are American exceptionalism and biblical inerrancy and when you're dealing with family members who are still in this who are conspiracy theorists the situations that I was dealing with. I think that if we are fighting over Jewish space lasers and 5G radiation mind control. You're not going to get anywhere ever and we need to address the underlying cause for their beliefs. It's very difficult to believe that Hillary Clinton is sacrificing babies to Satan…
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Cynane Shay: if you get them to question their belief in Satan, biblical incurrency and American exceptionalism are kind of the two things that I have honed in on for this.
Cynane Shay: and the whole thing with how do you get from American accessible exceptionalism believing that? America is a Christian Nation to believing that there are more children, what is that jump normal people don't understand that doesn't make sense.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, that's right.
Cynane Shay: but What has made sense to me is that it totally sick ideology.
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Cynane Shay: Is something that Cults employ? But it doesn't necessarily mean that it is like a destructive cult. That's like a hot button word. The definition is hotly debated but a destructive quote when you think of Jonestown they Center this absolute belief system totalistic ideology on a central charismatic figure,…
Jeremy Schumacher: right Yeah.
Cynane Shay: but you can have a totalistic ideology not centered on a central charismatic figure and absolute ends justify any means and so in white evangelicalism…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. …
Cynane Shay: if you believe in hell that is an absolute end you would be justified and…
Jeremy Schumacher: hopefully I mean we have people talking about project 2025.
Cynane Shay: murdering. infinite people…
Jeremy Schumacher: I just interviewed Christy Stroup who's a journalist…
Cynane Shay: if it's saved one Eternal Soul as long as you knew that all the people that you killed were saved and…
Jeremy Schumacher: who covers a lot of this stuff and
01:10:00
Cynane Shay: that's insane and When you have this absolute world view it produces what Robert J lifton calls.
Cynane Shay: I'm gonna mix it up a bounded choice. That might be yoniologist's term. And then personal closure I think was lipton's term. But you have this really narrowed perspective and you view the world through this very narrow lens and then you have to explain everything that happens from within that lens and how you understand the world. And so you remove part of reality as impossible and so Whatever's left. Just becomes improbable not impossible. And so then The end times and…
Jeremy Schumacher: These are you…
Cynane Shay: a satanic cabal of Elites and…
Jeremy Schumacher: the New Apostolic reform like Mike Johnson who's speaker of the house is a part of that we know it's getting into that stuff Liberty University fall.
Cynane Shay: mold children and adrenochrome that all becomes possible because of your existing.
Jeremy Schumacher: Jerry Falwell senior was a eugenicist like we can track…
Cynane Shay: totalistic ideology and it's a difficult leap to understand and…
Jeremy Schumacher: how white supremacy and the Christian right have been working together.
Cynane Shay: to make but We have q and…
Jeremy Schumacher: That is why abortion is such a Christian topic…
Cynane Shay: on because we have white Christian nationalism.
Jeremy Schumacher: because they couldn't use segregation anymore. that's not mysterious or hard to track down the history of that…
Cynane Shay: I think normal people don't understand white Christian nationalism.
Jeremy Schumacher: but as you're saying very few people know it and…
Cynane Shay: And so we're never really going to address.
Jeremy Schumacher: it is kind of I would say in a lot of the deconstruction Community…
Cynane Shay: the problems that we've seen…
Jeremy Schumacher: where this stuff is happening obviously other people are raising the alarms around project 2025,…
Cynane Shay: since 2020 until we realize that
Jeremy Schumacher: but it's hard to understand how crazy it is.
Cynane Shay: you're
Jeremy Schumacher: If you don't understand the language behind it and some of the stuff about seven hills and Armageddon and end times of**. That's biblical Revelation stuff. Not just like those Harmless Christians like they mean it's like no, they don't mean they're trying to kill everyone who doesn't agree with them. So I agree with you it needs to be addressed but having this understanding of where does that worldview come from because it's almost so easy to dismiss more people for somebody who's not in it. that's crazy to dismiss some of the Nar stances and like that. no, they're gonna ban all birth control That's not a crazy thought obviously after Rogue got overturned but it seemed crazy before 2022 and yet here we are. So I think it's one of those things where needing more people to understand some of this stuff. It's easy.
Jeremy Schumacher: I love your work on social media. I'm super stoked for the book. You're writing because I do think more people need to understand People like you and I who erased in this it's really hard to see how crazy it is. When you're racing it without that other world view people who aren't raising it. It's hard to understand some of the in between the lines textual stuff that's in there. That isn't stated explicitly that we're like, Now we should be alarmed about this. This is a problem. So yeah, I think it's really needed. It's culty stuff is hard because it's so headline grabbing when it's a sex cult or when it's a suicide cult but Christianity as a death cult and not caring about global warming like that makes sense in that context because God's supposed to end the world so he needs a mechanism. So we shouldn't stop global warming like s***, that's horrific. Once you understand it in that context. So yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: It's not a fun topic to talk about but it is fascinating and I think it's one of those things that more people need to understand. We need people who are kind of these cyphers who can explain. This is what the Christian nationalists mean by this.
Jeremy Schumacher: I wear Snow blind. I'm in Wisconsin. So as I had to borrow my dad's snowblower because we had a lot of snow. and he has a much nicer snowblower than I have and like I said something about climate change and he was like, God's got to end the world somehow and it was just I'm not gonna get into this with you, but come on that can't be you're Masters level educated person in the social sciences. What are you doing? So yes, it's tough. I want to be respectful of your time. just two quick things here. I am curious what it looks like now and kind of maybe what it looked like then up till now for your mental health because it is crazy To deal with people…
Cynane Shay: Global warming is fake…
Jeremy Schumacher: who are deep in the conspiracy theories and…
Cynane Shay: because God promised number to flood the world again.
Jeremy Schumacher: the conspiracy world what other than finding community and…
Cynane Shay: Number one.
Jeremy Schumacher: finding some of the deconstruction support and stuff like that. what does taking care of your mental health? Look, like you're somebody who's active on social media and deals with trolls and feedback from the Christian, right? I assume how do you take care of your mental well-being while doing all of that?
01:15:00
Cynane Shay: And no.
Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.
Cynane Shay: 
Cynane Shay: Yeah sure Number one, I don't know maybe the algorithm just likes me. I don't get that many trolls.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: So I'm lucky there because I know some people get a lot. And then also I'm just sort of a mean b****. I don't care. but I have found that.
Cynane Shay: reading all of the stuff that I've been reading some of it gets really really heavy and really really demoralizing, reading like Hannah Arendt and things where or Richard hofstadter they were writing in the 1940s through 1960s, and they could have written it yesterday and it would be perfectly applicable to today and it's just incredibly depressing when you can see that nothing like this has been identified for over 50 years and we still haven't gotten the gripa on it yet or some of the topics are just really heavy and really depressing Purity culture and the abuses and stuff that people have suffered with and taking a break. I watched a lot of K dramas. and my husband's like why are you watching somebody dropos and you're like you don't understand I need this and happy stories, I'm
Cynane Shay: Part of this is losing a lot of relationships. But the other side of it is the few relationships that you're left with are that much more, sincere like they really understand you and accept you…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: if they've watched you go through this much of a change.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and…
Cynane Shay: I Will speak to this just…
Jeremy Schumacher: this thing I talked about with therapy and other Wellness spaces. I've had a number of psychedelic therapist.
Cynane Shay: because I have a co-worker. this is also bizarre. I have a co-worker who is in almost the exact same position as me was raised in a very similar way her family reacted the pandemic the same way that my family did. She's a couple years older than me. So she was a little bit farther in her deconstruction than I was but she has had I'll say something and she's like, I have felt the same exact way. and when it came to finding a therapist,
Jeremy Schumacher: Just because someone's licensed or credentialed or has a certificate on the wall doesn't mean they're not dogmatic like Dogma exists everywhere religions really good at it,…
Cynane Shay: sort of looking for that I was very Very reticent and…
Jeremy Schumacher: but it exists where other places too. And so just being on the lookout for that fundamentalism that dogmatic approach and like that that stuff can be harmful like not every therapist.
Cynane Shay: probably and I would say still am reticent to the idea of putting myself. What feels like under the authority of another person after having been in a high control religion like that? And so, I think that speaking with my friend at work that's a fair feeling…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: but then also just being very careful about…
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah.
Cynane Shay: who we have found as counselors and still pursuing that and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: being cautious about it, but
Cynane Shay: it's hard.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, for All Second question. How's the book coming along? what's that look like where we at? you made such a face when I asked that.
01:20:00
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: And the same thing goes for what I have found even in the deconstruction space with other influencers and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Cynane Shay: stuff other influencers. I'm not an influencer but people who don't have the degree on the wall and our, maybe came out of a Evangelical Pastor role and it just kind of pivoted that into the deconstruction space. So just trusting yourself because That was what was primarily taken from us. And that's in that Evangelical Circle.
Cynane Shay: Hi, I'm working on it. it's very very slow. I got through pretty much my entire personal story and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah, awesome. …
Cynane Shay: then to the part…
Jeremy Schumacher: then you're one of my favorite follows on Instagram.
Cynane Shay: where I'm talking about, …
Jeremy Schumacher: There's a lot of good meaningful deep stuff on deconstruction Instagram,…
Cynane Shay: the Evangelical history and how that has plays into,…
Jeremy Schumacher: but I love the memes and…
Cynane Shay: connecting the dots of…
Jeremy Schumacher: the jokes and the incisive feedback you have for the Christian,…
Cynane Shay: how do you get from evangelicalism to mole people and…
Jeremy Schumacher: That's very I think normalizing and Insanity provoking to see a lot of the things that you're putting up there.
Cynane Shay: that all of the history as you were talking about with fall and…
Jeremy Schumacher: So I tell people like taking off the tin foil hat on Instagram the resources page the books you've read through your deconstruction on your website taking off the tin foil hat.com.
Cynane Shay: Tim lay and the Moral Majority and all of that so it's going very very slowly. It's been a long time of just doing a lot of thinking and…
Jeremy Schumacher: I was really great.
Cynane Shay: compiling references and…
Jeremy Schumacher: So I was tell people find your work and…
Cynane Shay: stuff. So it's slow I'm trying not to that's another thing for my mental health.
Jeremy Schumacher: follow it. It's very sanity producing which we need.
Cynane Shay: I'm trying not to Overly pressure myself and I want it.
Jeremy Schumacher: And…
Jeremy Schumacher: we'll keep an eye on the book and a friend of the podcast.
Cynane Shay: I want it to be.
Cynane Shay: I want to do the best job that I can do. I'm not a writer.
Jeremy Schumacher: So whenever that happens,…
Cynane Shay: I'm not a journalist or…
Jeremy Schumacher: no pressure. Love to have you back out to talk about that cynane.
Cynane Shay: a psychologist or anything, you…
Jeremy Schumacher: Thanks so much for coming on today.
Cynane Shay: and it may just be self-published.
Jeremy Schumacher: Is there anything else you wanted to I did your plug for you.
Cynane Shay: But for whatever it's going to be I want it to be the best that it can be and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Thanks so much for taking the time and…
Cynane Shay: so I am taking my time with it, but it's in progress.
Jeremy Schumacher: coming on the podcast today.
Jeremy Schumacher: And to all our lovely listeners thanks for tuning in again. We'll be back next week with another new episode. Take care everyone.
Cynane Shay: Thank that's the highest complement that you could give. thank you so much.
Cynane Shay: No, that was a Flawless. Thank you so much.
Cynane Shay: Thank you so much.
Meeting ended after 01:21:02 👋