The Ancient Wisdom Grift: Mad Studies and Indigenous Methods applied to the problem of spiritual disinformation narratives

Abstract

This study is an investigation of a text that supported disinformation narratives before and during the Covid 19 pandemic, an analysis of both the writing and the context of propaganda and spiritual influence driving conspiracy theories about public health institutions and medical science. The author of the text in question, an Indigenous scholar and public intellectual, conducted this self-reflexive investigation as part of his ongoing psychological therapy. His bipolar and ADHD conditions, along with personal and intergenerational trauma, had placed him among millions of psychologically vulnerable online content consumers radicalized over the last decade through systematic disinformation campaigns.  He utilized Indigenous Standpoint and Mad Studies Theory, with innovative Indigenous methods, to identify the tactics and processes of indoctrination and how they are promulgated in influencer discourses. He found pathways for addressing subjectivity issues in Indigenous and neurodivergent lived experience reporting that will be of interest to those in the field of Mad Studies, along with Indigenous insights into communicating with and about ‘red-pilled’ people, and suggested approaches for their care and healing. He also designed and applied a rigorous verification process for identifying coherent and consistent lived experiences of spirituality in a post-truth world, to separate cult induction trickery and pseudo-scientific delusions from authentic cultural traditions and spiritual meaning-making.