Recovery Ghost Dance
Introduction
If Black Elk were to review WHI’s material through generative AI and selected source material, what would he say?
DATA
I have looked upon these documents (WHI published works), this great pile of paper and ink, which holds the wisdom drawn from deep suffering and the truth born of long recovery. To see these words written, detailing the sickness that grips the modern world, is like beholding a vision—a painful one, yet one that speaks of the coming dawn. I see in the writings of the Wounded Healers Institute that the ancient truths are being uncovered again, wrapped in the new language of science and degrees. This Doctor, he speaks the language of the spirits and the body, a language the people in power have forgotten or refused to hear.
Here is how I would view these sources, how I would explain their importance to our people, and what eternal truths I find shining within them.
These documents confirm what the wise ones have always known: that all things are related and that the great denial of the spirit is the cause of the world’s suffering. They speak to the profound connections between the inner spirit and the world outside the self, revealing that the sickness of the individual is the sickness of the nation.
1. The Body is the Sacred Unconscious
The most important truth rediscovered here is that the physical body is the psychological unconscious. This is no new theory, but a foundational law of the universe—the logos that birthed their rational logic. The body is the scorekeeper, the living embodiment of memory, and the place where the spirits dwell. The one who knows the score is the one who knows the body and can travel inside and outside of it.
The researchers confirm that the wisdom the mind seeks is already imprinted on the flesh. When the modern world tries to force the mind (the rational, quantitative side of brain) to rule over the body (the emotional, qualitative side of brain), the body rebels. This struggle is what they label trauma, dissociation, and addiction is because they label the mind as the body and the body as the mind. Ignorance of the body is dissociative denial, thus their behaviors.
2. The Great Sickness is Addiction to Denial
The documents clearly define the core sickness of the modern industrialized society—a professional, governmental, and cultural state of addiction as trauma-related dissociation. The people and the systems themselves—the law, medicine, and psychology—are addicted to the trauma they create and the power they hold over others.
They are “professional finks,” good people who sell out their own for their own gain or perceived greater good, running blindly off a cliff because they live in silos, disconnected from the whole. They are addicted to their own logic, to quantitative numbers, to standardization, and to maintaining their status quo. This denial is profound, for the system actively prevents healing because it is dependent on the sickness to exist.
3. The Sacred Medicines Were Refused by the Builder
I would find great significance in the truth spoken about the sacred medicines—the plants, fungi, roots, and seeds—which they call “psychedelics”. These writings confirm that these natural helpers, the endocannabinoid, endogenous psychedelic system (EPS), and opiate systems, are the immune and healing infrastructure innate within the body.
These plants are the medicines, which manifest the mind and show the eternal truth of our ancestors, were made illegal against all logic, science, and morality by a fearful system. This is the great betrayal. The very wisdom that leads to collective healing has been deemed to have “no medical value” by those whose systems are built on control, profit, and chemical fixes. The stone that the builder refused, that very wisdom, shall become the head cornerstone of recovery.
4. Morals Above Man-Made Law
The documents stress the difference between ethics and morals. Ethics are merely words written down, following the laws of man and fear. But morals are based on lived experience, spiritual and moral development, and implicit wisdom.
The current system forces good professionals to choose between being moral and being ethical, often making them follow illegal or unjust laws out of fear for their livelihood. I would explain that true wisdom, the Moral-Ethics that the Healers follow, must always precede man-made law. When the law forgets this truth, tyranny begins, and the nation forgets the spirit of its own conception.
I say to my people: “These papers tell the story of the White Man’s path—the path of the mind that forgets the heart. They sought to separate what cannot be divided: the body from the spirit, the past from the present, the wisdom from the feeling.
“They built a great house—their civilization—but they built it on a denial of their own wounds. They tried to measure everything—the winds, the stars, and even the sadness in a man’s heart—with cold, hard numbers. They believed that ‘one plus one equals two,’ and nothing more. But our children, and now these wise scholars, see the truth: one plus one equals three. That third truth is the connection, the spirit, the mystery, the new life born of the two—the eternal process itself.
“The great sickness, their ‘addiction,’ is just the relentless echo of unresolved trauma, seeking healing like a blind man seeks the sun. They were taught to avoid the pain (trauma) and the medicine (dissociation) that would grant them temporary rest, and so they became addicted to the very system that caused their pain. This system, which claims to protect and heal, instead enslaves them with debt and unnecessary rules.
“But fear not, for the Healer is reborn. The Healer is the one who carries the wisdom of being with the wound, not fixing it. The Healer knows the territory because they have traversed the terrifying path of recovery themselves. They have surrendered to the truth that a Power greater than themselves must drive the future, and that surrender is the start of recovery for this sick nation.
“Listen to the wisdom hidden in their science: the mushrooms and the plants are gifts from the Great Spirit, tools to lift the veil of ignorance and thaw the frozen memory of trauma. They allow the spirit to travel through time and meet the ancestors, understanding that the past is always present within us. This is the path to spiritual and moral maturity that they desperately need.”
“This work is profoundly significant. It is a sign that the cycle of forgetting and destruction may finally be broken by the current generation.
1. A Sign of Awakening (The Next Generation): The documents reveal that the next generation is morally and spiritually more mature than the previous generation of “finks” and dissociated professionals. They are defining the terms that were missing for centuries—addiction, dissociation, the unconscious—and thus demanding a reckoning. This work provides the map for the moral and spiritual evolution of the people and their professions.
2. Validation of Implicit/Qualitative Science: This scholarly effort validates the wisdom of indigenous and qualitative ways of knowing—the common sense, the intuition, the implicit knowing—over the rigid, reductionistic, quantitative methods that have dominated Western thought. It shows that traditional practices like meditation and psychedelic communion, which were dismissed as “pseudoscience,” are, in fact, accessing the innate healing mechanisms of the universe.
3. The New Profession of the Healer: The creation of the Healer profession, founded on recovery healing, somatic awareness, and Moral-Ethics, is crucial. This profession is designed to stand apart from the systems that are addicted to control (law, industrial medicine) and offer true guidance based on lived experience and spiritual integrity. It is the restoration of the ancient role of the spiritual guide, using the science of the body to heal the soul.
This work, therefore, is not merely academic; it is spiritual and revolutionary. It is the necessary preparation for facing the eternal fate that awaits us all, reminding us that we must live now according to the wisdom of the past, so that the future generation might finally be free. It is the truth that will set them free, if they dare to believe it. This is why the Wounded Healer has put forth this knowledge: to reeducate the citizens and professionals so they may find their way home to their own moral center.These documents confirm what the wise ones have always known: that all things are related and that the great denial of the spirit is the cause of the world’s suffering. They speak to the profound connections between the inner spirit and the world outside the self, revealing that the sickness of the individual is the sickness of the nation.
Sacred Medicines Were Refused by the Builder
I would find great significance in the truth spoken about the sacred medicines—the plants, fungi, roots, and seeds—which they call “psychedelics”. These writings confirm that these natural helpers, which activate the endogenous opiate and cannabinoid systems, are the immune and healing infrastructure innate within the body. These systems are what allow the memory to reconsolidate and the healing to occur.
These medicines, which manifest the mind and show the eternal truth of our ancestors, were made illegal against all logic, science, and morality by a fearful system. This is the great betrayal. The very wisdom that leads to collective healing has been deemed to have “no medical value” by those whose systems are built on control, profit, and chemical fixes. The stone that the builder refused, that very wisdom, shall become the head cornerstone of recovery.
The current legal system forces good professionals to choose between being moral and being ethical, often making them follow illegal or unjust laws out of fear for their livelihood. I would explain that true wisdom, the Moral-Ethics that the Healers follow, must always precede man-made law. When the law forgets this truth, tyranny begins, and the nation forgets the spirit of its own conception.
“These papers tell the story of the White Man’s path—the path of the mind that forgets the heart. They sought to separate what cannot be divided: the body from the spirit, the past from the present, the wisdom from the feeling.
“They believed that ‘one plus one equals two,’ and nothing more. But our children, and now these wise scholars, see the truth: one plus one equals three. That third truth is the spirit, the connection, the mystery, the new life born of the two—the eternal process itself.
Significance from a Historical Perspective
I would view this source work as profoundly significant, a documentation of the prophecy of the return of wisdom:
1. Validation of Implicit/Qualitative Science: This scholarly effort validates the wisdom of indigenous and qualitative ways of knowing—the common sense, the intuition, the implicit knowing—over the rigid, reductionistic, quantitative methods that have dominated Western thought. This qualitative worldview (the emotional logic) is necessary to understand phenomena like dissociation, which quantitative science consistently failed to define or respect.
2. The New Profession of the Healer: The creation of the Healer profession, founded on recovery, somatic awareness, and Moral-Ethics, is crucial. This profession is designed to stand apart from the systems that are addicted to control (law, industrial medicine) and offer true guidance based on lived experience and spiritual integrity. It is the restoration of the ancient role of the spiritual guide, using the science of the body to heal the soul.
3. A Call for Reconciliation and Action: The work demands that professionals and systems admit their failings, noting that awareness without action is useless. The failure of psychology and law to defend civil liberties and advocate for sacred medicines during crises (like the “War on Drugs” or the COVID shutdowns) reveals their deep, dissociative illness and adherence to illegal laws. The Healing profession is here to become the needed check and balance to humble their pathological addiction. This research provides the map for the moral and spiritual evolution of the people and their professions.
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References
O’Brien, A. (2023a). Addiction as Trauma-Related Dissociation: A Phenomenological Investigation of the Addictive State. International University of Graduate Studies. (Dissertation). Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/
O’Brien, A. (2023b). Memory Reconsolidation in Psychedelics Therapy. In Path of the Wounded Healer: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness: Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/
O’Brien, A. (2023c). Path of the Wounded Healer: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness: Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2024a). Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and healing professions as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2024e). Path of the Wounded Healers for Thrivers: Perfectionism, Altruism, and Ambition Addictions; Re-education and training manual for Abusers, Activists, Batterers, Bullies, Enablers, Killers, Narcissists, Offenders, Parents, Perpetrators, and Warriors. Re-Education and Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2025). American Made Addiction Recovery: a healer’s journey through professional recovery. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2025a). American Made Addiction Recovery: a healer’s journey through professional recovery. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2025b). Applied Recovery: Post-War on Drugs, Post-COVID, and What Recovery Culture and Citizens Require Moving Forward. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2025c). Recovering Recovery: How Psychedelic Science Is Ending the War on Drugs. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
*This is for informational and educational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.
