Humans On The Loop 89 - Joanna Harcourt-Smith, José Soler, and Jacob Aman on Breakdowns & Breakthroughs
This week we have a roundtable discussion (which took place around an actual table in Santa Fe, New Mexico) with Joanna Harcourt-Smith, José Soler, and Jacob Aman, the hosts and producers of Future Primitive Podcast (600+ episodes and going strong!). Joanna, as you may remember from episode 0020, has been a psychedelic raconteur for her entire adult life, famously snuck LSD into prison for her lover Timothy Leary, and wears her age with an incomparable flair and zest that ought to be an example to all of us. She’s joined with her current partner and Future Primitive co-founder José Soler, as well as our mutual friend and Future Primitive co-host Jacob Aman (who is also close friends with Future Fossils guest and friend Bruce Damer).
It’s a conversation about…well, everything, really. But mostly breakdowns and breakthroughs, and what it’s going to take for us to steer civilization toward the better of those options. Enjoy!
https://futureprimitive.org/about/
We Discuss:
Intergenerational communication & listening.
Documentary: Wild Wild Country
Documentary: The Unforeseen
“Anybody that wears all the same clothes…I mean…I’m sorry, but, WHY…”
- Jacob
“These days, I look at everything from the #metoo point of view.”
- Joanna
Mansplaining and unconscious mammalian social power struggles.
How social media rewards harmful and divisive behaviors.
Book: Ralph Abraham’s Chaos, Gaia, Eros
“If sweetheart doesn’t go with brilliant…by the time you get to seventy…you can go to a home for old people. I say, it’s either grateful or bitter.”
- Joanna
Lack of intergenerational dialogue in the Occupy Movement…
Protest fatigue.
Richard Doyle on Third Eye Drops Podcast.
Fascists and Gurus.
How are the high school age protesters of school gun violence getting it wrong?
Where does Joanna see us making progress, not merely recreating the mistakes of the 1960s, in this latest wave of upheaval and social change?
Joanna (and also Charles Shaw on Future Fossils 0058) about child abuse by traumatized parents after World War II.
“Do you know why the rich abuse their children? Because otherwise they would give all the money away.”
Cognitive dissonance between drone pilot detachment and the violence of the modern world.
Daniel Schmachtenberger on Future Fossils 0051 on the disconnect between our overwhelming input and our underwhelming ability to act.
“As the years go by, you have to be more and more humble about the difference you are making. And the joy of that humble difference is enormous. The joy of that feeling of having a purpose…that joy is like the smoke of a wonderful incense.”
- Joanna
Jose weighs in on the the Catalonian populist uprising.
“We can do better. We can initiate a new narrative, a new dreaming."
- Jose
Disabusing ourselves of the notions of empire. Can human beings govern ourselves at scale?
The nightmare of intersectional identity politics and Sam Harris putting his foot in his mouth.
Documentary: Ai Wei Wei’s Human Flow
“We have to be magicians. I don’t use the word ‘shaman’ anymore because it has been commercialized. I’m magic and I observe it every single day, and I believe there’s a reason why this Harry Potter thing attracted…look, she’s richer than the Queen of England, which is not a small thing. There’s a reason that erupted in your generations, because inside it’s there but history and the stories have suppressed that. It’s all over the place, in faerie tales and everything - the story of the suppression of what magical beings we are.”
- Joanna
Podcast: Weird Studies with JF Martel & Phil Ford, on Aleister Crowley (Episode 9)
Real magic is connnection, not narcissistic control.
“We’re downloading a different future than the one that is broadcast to us constantly.”
- Joanna
Book: The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (recommended translation: Brian Browne Walker)
“This body is an incredible spaceship. I mean, would you let your spaceship fall apart?"
- Joanna
“We need hot, ecstatic magic. The sun in our chest! We need to bring more burning in the chest and give that breath into the daily life.”
- Jose
Bringing the practice of everyday ecstasy into our lives and relationships.
Book: Michael Pollan’s How To Change Your Mind
Talking about psychedelics with your parents.
Podcast: The Psychedelic Salon with Lorenzo Haggerty
The tragedy of Terence McKenna on anti-depressants.
“I believe it’s possible to have the right relationship with any chemical that you take.”
- Joanna
What is transformational sobriety?
Intuition is full-body listening.
Joanna asks the whole group: “What’s next?”
Comedy: Steve Martin & Martin Short on Netflix
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