What Toby Johnson Believes

Toby has a new book out: an updated, revised and expanded edition of his classic soft sci fi romance novel
SECRET MATTER -- with its quirky and mystical spin on what it means to be gay. Click on the title for info.
There's a funny coincidence/synchronicity about the release of this novel

Table of Contents Search Site Also on this website: Toby Johnson's books: GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe SECRET MATTER: updated, revised & expanded edtion from Lethe Press with Afterword by Mark Jordan Read Toby's review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco" GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE PLAGUE: A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING. Charmed Lives: Spinning Straw into Gold: Reclaiming Our Queer Spirituality Through Story Books on Gay Spirituality: White Crane Gay Spirituality Series   Articles and Excerpts: The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate Why gay people should NOT Marry Wedding Cake Liberation Gay Marriage in Texas What's ironic Shame on the American People The "highest form of love"  The cause of homosexuality What is homosexuality? What Jesus said about Gay Rights The purpose of homosexuality What the Bible Says about Homosexuality Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men Varieties of Gay Spirituality Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium "It's Always About You" The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara You're Not A Wave Emptiness & Religious Ideas Experiencing experiencing experiencing Going into the Light Meditations for a Funeral Meditation Practice The way to get to heaven Curious Bodies What Toby Johnson Believes The Joseph Campbell Connection Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy The Nature of Religion Being Gay is a Blessing Freedom of Religion The Gay Agenda Gay Saintliness Gay Spiritual Functions The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.  "The Evolution of Gay Identity" "St. John of the Cross & the Dark Night of the Soul." Avalokiteshvara at the Baths.  Eckhart's Eye Let Me Tell You a Secret Religious Articulations of the Secret The Collective Unconscious Driving as Spiritual Practice Meditation Historicity as Myth Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil Allah Hu: "God is present here"   Adam and Steve The Life is in the Blood Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery" Seeing with Different Eyes What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel? The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis The Techniques Of The World Saviors Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby Part 2: The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Part 3: Jesus and the Resurrection Part 4: A Course in Miracles The Secret of the Clear Light Understanding the Clear Light Mobius Strip Finding Your Tiger Face How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated About Alien Abduction In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance The Rainbow Flag Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta. About Michael Talbot, gay mystic About Guy Mannheimer The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the  "Statement of Spirituality"

Johnson's central ideas, profoundly influenced by Joseph Campbell's comparative religion approach, are: 1) that a transformation/maturation of religious consciousness is occurring in contemporary times because exposure to the various ideas--indeed, to the very existence--of other religions forces human beings to recognize the mythological, metaphorical, psychological--and not factual--nature of religious truths; this necessarily results in developing a critical perspective (which, among other things, has allowed the relaxation of morality and religious taboo that made homosexual liberation and gay identity possible), and 2) that gay people have an advantage in understanding this enlightened view of religious truth because we have necessarily been forced personally to develop such a critical perspective on cultural assumptions by our growing up as outsiders, "different" and "queer." So gay consciousness has a privileged view of the nature of religion. The rise of politicized gay identification, in turn, furthers this enlightened understanding of religion by undermining the authority and legitimacy of the institutions of traditional religion.     Additionally, 3) that the gay critical perspective on gender potentially liberates us from strict gender conventions and polarizations, and 4) that gay attraction to and development of emotional relationships with members of our same sex results in our seeing the world with the harmonious, non-dualistic vision that is the traditional goal of mystical religion. We don't see the world polarized in the "battle between the sexes" that, in turn, generates the dualistic belief in good and evil. Gay consciousness is "pre-Edenic," fundamentally innocent, free of "original sin."   Johnson says 5) the real message of religion is not about God (which is not a personal being but a metaphor for planetary consciousness) but about how human beings should live harmoniously and nonjudgmentally (not projecting "wrong" onto other people) in order to participate in and further the evolution of Earth (Gaia) into collective self-awareness and transcendent consciousness (God). The planetary consciousness is mediated through "vibes" people give off and receive; these are mythically described as "karmic resonances" and appear as psychic powers, synchronicities, and fringe phenomena (like alien abduction, crop circles, and apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary), as well as what's called "karma from past lives" and luck. (Being born gay is an example of good luck: in spite of all the problems, this "condition" certainly is what might be called having drawn a long straw in this lifetime!)   Johnson proposes 6) that the "real cause" of homosexuality is resonance with these "karmic vibes" (which results in the genetic, congenital, and psychological configurations that are variously attributed as causes of homosexuality). Gay people have a direct experience of karmic resonance in the phenomenon whimsically called "gaydar." Gaydar is the real cause of homosexuality.   7) Johnson champions the Mahayana Buddhist World-savior myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara which portrays a lovely, androgynous (gay-like) young man, usually shown barechested in a relaxed meditation pose, who saves the world by willingly taking upon himself, out of compassion and kindness, all the incarnations of all sentient beings to free those beings from suffering. All human beings are incarnations of this one single Being (a mythological version of the planetary mind Gaia). 8) The experience of homosexual attraction, the pang of longing inspired by same-sex beauty, and the ecstatic consciousness of homosexual orgasm are reverberations--and potential recollections--of human's common mystical oneness with Avalokiteshvara/Gaia. 9) The role of gay identification today is, on one hand, to alert human beings to the problems of overpopulation and demonstrate that a worthy, contributing, and fulfilling life can be lived without reproducing and, on the other, to call all people to get over dualistic, polarized (male-dominant) thinking, so we can all live in peace based in awareness of common planetary identity. 10) Gay consciousness represents a new religious paradigm recognizing consciousness--life itself--as "God" and "heaven" as here and now. Very succinctly, here's that I think the three messages of "Gay Spirituality" are.

Toby Johnson, PhD is author of eight books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and religious problems, three gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality. In addition to the novels featured elsewhere in this web site, Johnson is author of IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD and THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET (Revised edition): AN APPRECIATION OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL.

Johnson's Lammy Award winning book GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness was published in 2000.

His Lammy-nominated book  GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe was published by Alyson in 2003.