Timothy Leary, The CIA, and an LSD Bardo: Who is Joanna Harcourt-Smith?

As I write this article, I have a slight resentment to include Timothy Leary's name in the title, since Joanna Harcourt-Smith's contribution to the psychedelic movement extends far beyond her relationship with the counterculture ring-leader.

However, the fundamental role of their intense, LSD-fuelled love affair in Joanna's later work cannot be ignored. And the tale itself, captured in Errol Morris's engrossing feature "My Psychedelic Love Story", is certainly fascinating.

In fact, all of Joanna's life is anything but dull.

The Elitist Hippie

Born in the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland, to the heiress Marisya Ulam, Joanna's step-grandfather Arpad Plesch - known for his collection of rare botanical books and esoteric pornography - later also became her stepdad, after he stabbed her grandmother in the heart with a silver dagger, and subsequently married Marisya in order to stay in control of the family fortune which had landed on Joanna's mother.

This dysfunctional route into the world shaped young Joanna into a self-acclaimed "damaged socialite."

Following a strict upbringing in Catholic boarding schools and under the feet of her emotionally distant and violent mother, Joanna's early adulthood saw her take on the role of rebel, and find her place within the growing anti-establishment movements of the 1960s.

Joanna became part of the political revolution. She travelled to America to join the Weatherman protests and support the campaign for McGovern, Nixon's opposing electoral candidate. As she quotes in her memoir:

"I had become part of the movement demanding change… My christening would commemorate my future participation in drug revolution and peace movement in America."

By the age of 25, Joanna was twice divorced with two children, fully embracing her hippy-dom and rock and roll lifestyle by moving in with the Rolling Stones during their exile in France, indulging daily in cocktails of cocaine, whiskey, heroin and LSD.

It was in Lucerne, Switzerland, that Joanna met Timothy - a fugitive at the time. During their first phone call, he asked what kind of drugs Joanna was on. To which she responded:

"Every one I can find, but especially psychedelics."

This phone call would spark a whirlwind romance and hasty marriage within two weeks of Joanna and Timothy's meeting. Together they would travel in Leary's yellow Porsche across Europe, sleep in luxurious hotel rooms, and socialise with the likes of Andy Warhol, all whilst under the influence of LSD.

On the couple's route to find refuge in Afghanistan, Timothy was seized by FBI agents and sent to jail. He spent three years in 26 different prisons, writing, contemplating and ingesting the LSD Joanna would smuggle in.

Playing The Role Of Spy

In exchange for Timothy's early release, Joanna made a deal with the FBI to become an informant, which gained her a bad reputation within psychedelic circles. The beat poet Allen Ginsberg called Joanna a "CIA sex provocateur", and some even blamed her for "single-handedly bringing down the 60s."

Yet in reading Joanna's memoir, it's clear that these accusations are far from the truth.

What brought down the 60s was not a woman doing all she could to free her lover, but rather the crushing prohibitionist laws and increasing scaremongering of psychedelic drugs by Nixon's government.

Joanna's collaboration with the FBI was simply a means to free Timothy. To free him from a prison system that intended to eventually poison his brain with forced injections of anti-psychotic drugs. And her predicament, that on release, Timothy would spread the messages of revolution, cognitive liberty and freedom for all.

A Soldier For Love

At the start of their romance, Timothy had told Joanna he had created her in his mind to free him (red-flag narcissist alert). But in deep infatuation and a hallucinogenic haze, she firmly and faithfully took to this role.

Joanna dedicated every inch of herself to Timothy's freedom.

Riddled and bright orange with jaundice, she still flew across different countries for Timothy's safety. She led several campaigns for his release once imprisoned and withstood the "blackmail and horrendous sexism and disdain for human life" whilst working with the FBI as part of a trojan horse maneuver to set Timothy free.

Yet, among a backdrop of misogyny, people seemingly neglected Joanna's diligence in light of a false and rather cruel reputation of a liar and manipulator.

Falling To Rock Bottom

Despite the couples' "perfect love", Joanna and Timothy began fighting and drinking following his release. Timothy told Joanna that if she left him to go and visit her mother, who was ill with cancer at Houston Hospital, he would leave her.

True to his word, she woke after an argument, and he had gone. With no money and pregnant with his child, Joanna crumbled. In her words:

"Mummy was close to death, Timothy was gone, I was two months pregnant and penniless, angry people wanted me dead, and I was hopelessly addicted to drugs and alcohol."

However, from this fall to rock bottom began Joanna's journey of finding herself amidst the wreckage of a terribly intense start to her still young life, as she was only 30 at this point.

*Joanna and Timothy after Timothy’s release from prison*

Tripping The Bardo

A bardo is a word from Tibetan Buddhism to describe the 49 day period between death and re-birth. Before prison, Joanna and Timothy's love affair lasted 49 days, and hence Joanna titled her memoirs "Tripping the Bardo" (a captivating page-turner which I highly recommend, available on print and kindle by Amazon).

So during such a bardo with Timothy, what died, and what was born?

One key element in the story is Joanna's journey in overcoming her childhood trauma. Neglected as a child, Timothy was her first experience of true and requited love. In some ways, their affair began the death of emotional blockages, and the birth of an opened heart.

But with the couple's copious drug and alcohol use, the death could also be elicited in all the feelings and traumas Joanna continued to suppress through intoxication.

Until Joanna's death, she continued to advocate psychedelics as the sacred tools our Western world needs to reconnect with ourselves, each other, and the living earth.

However, she recognised how her daily LSD consumption with Leary was unsustainable. With no guidance and only Timothy's encouragement to keep taking it (again, more red flags), she was unaware of how to utilise the drug with respect and intent, lending LSD to becoming simply another ingredient to her ongoing drug concoctions. She described:

"LSD revealed to me a vision of what freedom could be, but over time I realised that only strong individuals dedicated to running clean can achieve and maintain such visions."

And after many post-Timothy years of alcohol and drug abuse, running clean is exactly what she did next.

With the support of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and finding the path of the Buddha, Joanna broke her way out of a decades-long entrapment of addiction.

A Future Primitive

As she built herself up, Joanna stayed true to her role as a revolutionary, setting up the Future Primitive podcast, in which she hosted over 700 conversations with visionaries and innovators about creating personal and collective change.

Only this time, with her open heart, the revolution she craved wasn't just about bringing down the government but instead exploring a compassionate foresight of the future, in which humanity has a loving and closer connection with the planet.

Till her death in October 2020, Joanna remained sober from the type of drugs that can alienate one from oneself - such as heroin, benzodiazepines and alcohol - but had become an outspoken psychedelic activist. She always referred to the single session of MDMA therapy she had in 1983 that instilled a powerful self-connection and majorly pushed her path to sobriety.

She continued to cultivate compassion through her loving community in Santa Fe, New Mexico, her Buddhist practice, and fulfilling her childhood dream of writing and publishing. Her legacy remains in her stories, her podcast, and her three children - of which one, Lara Tambacopoulou, I had the pleasure of meeting, and owe many thanks for helping create this blog piece.

By political forces that may never come to be fully understood, Joanna remained a controversial figure until the end of her life but only to those that kept old myths alive.

To most others, and certainly to those who knew her well, she was a woman of tremendous vibrancy, boldness, and tenderness who, via a turbulent life, became deeply aware of the power of human connection and love above all other layers of the human experience.

Revealing The Shadow-Sides Of The Flower Power

"Tripping the Bardo" isn't just a novel about love. It's a reflection of battling childhood trauma, a woman's strength, and a cultural reflection on the early Western psychedelia.

Whilst reading Joanna's memoirs, I'm reminded of my own dreamy desires of Woodstock, hanging out with Jefferson Airplane, and riding around America in large buses whilst on LSD.

Yet her book demonstrates how this romanticised hippie 60s lifestyle of altered states is not sustainable, nor offers any redemption on our dysfunctional past. Joanna embodied the glamorous rock'n'roll archetype, and it took her nearly 30 years to recover. And she wasn’t the only flower power to suffer from drugs. Janis Joplin overdosed on heroin, Jimmi Hendrix choked to death after swallowing his vomit on barbiturates, and Brian Jones’ was arrested multiple times for drug-related reasons, before his dead body was found in his own swimming pool, with suspicions that he took his own life.

A Bardo of Psychedelic Culture

Perhaps the cultural trajectory of psychedelics in the West could be a bardo itself, as their awareness and use continue to re-emerge, only this time on a much larger global scale.

No longer limited to a subculture of free love, dreamcatchers, and flares, the general population is becoming increasingly knowledgeable about psychedelics and their potential benefits through a surge of ongoing psychedelic research.

As we now better understand how psychedelics can be used as therapeutic tools, and how several communities across the world have used them therapeutically across various traditions for centuries, the distinction between psychedelic use and drug culture seems much more firmly asserted than in the past.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the gap between death and re-birth is a space for awakening to occur. So, following a decades-long bardo of prohibition and stigma, let’s hope that from this re-birth of psychedelia is met with better integrity and safety, and, in light of Joanna’s mission, a global drive to heal humanity and our broken connection to the Earth.

Joanna highlighted some important messages about psychedelics today through her publications. Revealing that yes, psychedelics can be extremely powerful, but to just use drugs and have an experience does not create healing. They are merely catalysts.

She also strongly alluded that psychedelics are not the only tool for insight and inspiring positive change. Joanna's internal work came from dedication to meditation, connection with nature, psychotherapy, a close-knit community, Buddhist practice, and following the 12 steps of AA. Psychedelic drugs might not be for everyone, but that isn’t to say that those with who the drugs disagree, can’t still have a meaningful psychedelic experience through non-drug-related means.

Final Words

Like many other psychedelic heroines, Joanna's contribution to psychedelic history is relatively unrecognised. However, in recent years, the media have begun illuminating Joanna's powerful psychedelic journey. I hope from this more people come across her writing and podcasts and feel inspired.

As I have been so inspired myself.