Buddhism and the Flipside

Miscellaneous

Thursday

Hacking the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer and Janis Joplin


Another mind bending podcast. In this case, someone in the "Hacking the Afterlife" forum on Quora suggested we interview "more women." I replied because I wasn't in charge of the guest list, I had no say over who "elbows their way to the front of the line" in our class. But because a friend of mine is doing a film about her, I thought perhaps an interview with Janis would be interesting, as she popped up in the Clive Davis documentary on cable.  

(Apologies to Clive Davis! I saw that I called him Clive Barnes on the video! What was my brain scrambling? It was Clive Davis, not Clive Barnes.)

I had no idea if she would show, and didn't tell Jennifer about that possibility. Clearly, she hears me say "I want to speak with Janice" - in this interview. And "Janice" comes forward - and we interview her. Jennifer recognizes that she's a musician, that she's from the Mama's and Papa's era - other details.  I confirm that Luana saw them all together at Monterey Pop in 1967. 

(A sequence in the documentary "Hacking the Afterlife." Janis is never mentioned in the film, but Luana was there with Fred Roos and Harry Dean Stanton and Harry reminded us of that fact on camera, a week after his passing.)  I did a little precursory digging prior to the podcast in case she showed up. The on camera moment when Jennifer realizes who she's "speaking to" is fun. 

Janis has a sweet message for her old mentor Clive Davis - another figure Jennifer knows little about (except many of his clients are in our class).  I confirmed a tidbit from a previous podcast, where a friend of Paul Simon's told him to "not worry about his last song, because his last song is not his last song." 

I got a note from Paul saying "(His) words have an absolute connection to what I am doing. Rather astounding if true! Thank you."  We don't believe our loved ones still exist.. And yet, with hypnotherapy, mediumship or meditation we can learn new information from them. As we do in this podcast, #72 with Janis.