|
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 edition from Lethe Press
with Afterword by Mark Jordan THE FOURTH QUILL, a
novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: Reclaiming Our Queer Spirituality Through Story PLAGUE:
A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING.
Books on Gay Spirituality: White Crane Gay Spirituality Series
Articles
and Excerpts: Read
Toby's review of Samuel Avery's The
Dimensional Structure of
Consciousness Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco" The
Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate Why gay people should NOT Marry What's ironic A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness What Jesus said about Gay Rights Common Experiences Unique to Gay Men Is there a "uniquely gay perspective"? The Reincarnation of Edward Carpenter Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality What the Bible Says about
Homosexuality Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men Waves
of Gay Liberation Activity Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium Easton Mountain Retreat Center Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement of Spirituality"
"It's Always About You" Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara You're Not A WaveWhat is Enlightenment? What is reincarnation? How many lifetimes in an ego? Emptiness & Religious Ideas Experiencing experiencing experiencing Going into the Light Meditations for a Funeral Meditation Practice The way to get to heaven Buddha's father was right Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal The Danda Nata & goddess Kalika Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva John Boswell was Immanuel Kant The Two Loves The Joseph Campbell Connection Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy Gay Spiritual Functions The Sinfulness of Homosexuality Proposal
for a study of gay nondualism "The Evolution of Gay Identity" "St. John of the
Cross & Religious Articulations of the
Secret The Moulting of the Holy Ghost The Hero's Journey as archetype Marian Doctrines:
Immaculate Conception & Assumption Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil Allah
Hu: "God is present here" The Life is in the Blood 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 How Gay
Souls Get Reincarnated In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel? Toby's friend
and nicknamesake Toby Marotta. Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first
man to really "come out" About
Michael Talbot, gay mystic Book Reviews Be Done on Earth by Howard E. Cook Pay Me What I'm Worth by Souldancer The Way Out by Christopher L Nutter The Gay Disciple by John Henson Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth A. Burr Extinguishing the Light by B. Alan Bourgeois Over Coffee: A conversation For Gay Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson Dark Knowledge by Kenneth Low Janet Planet by Eleanor Lerman The Kairos by Paul E. Hartman Wrestling with Jesus by D.K.Maylor Kali Rising by Rudolph Ballentine The Missing Myth by Gilles Herrada The Secret of the Second Coming by Howard E. Cook The Scar Letters: A Novel by Richard Alther The Future is Queer by Labonte & Schimel Missing Mary by Charlene Spretnak Gay Spirituality 101 by Joe Perez Cut Hand: A Nineteeth Century Love Story on the American Frontier by Mark Wildyr Radiomen by Eleanor Lerman Nights at Rizzoli by Felice Picano The Key to Unlocking the Closet Door by Chelsea Griffo The Door of the Heart by Diana Finfrock Farrar Occam’s Razor by David Duncan Grace and Demion by Mel White Gay Men and The New Way Forward by Raymond L. Rigoglioso The Dimensional Stucture of Consciousness by Samuel Avery The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love by Perry Brass |
What is "Gay Spirituality"?The natural evolution of consciousness leads us to understand the human religious impulse to be not about adhering to strict purity taboos and rules and restrictions, especially about sex, OR about believing in certain mythological doctrines, but about living in such virtuous ways that the problems and suffering in the world clear up in the course of evolution itself AND that human beings come to understand the world's mythological heritage as metaphors, not dogmas, that are clues to the nature of consciousness and of our oneness with "God." World changing, world saving, world serving activism flows naturally from the realization of who we really are at the level of spirit. The goal of gay spirituality, I think, is to find for ourselves--and to assist other gay people to see--how our homosexuality can be understood as a clue and an operative practice to experiencing that oneness with "God." The goal of the spiritual life is to experience being in heaven now. Meditation and spiritual practice serve to reveal this transcendental reality; they transform experience so that the world DOES appear and BECOMES heaven now. For gay people spiritual vision sees how the styles of gay life can be perceived as--and thereby transformed into--clues to heaven. Gay spirituality, for instance, sees that a frivolous whimsy of gay life, like drag (from Radical Faerie-style genderfuck to stage drag and serious female impersonation, from Halloween costume to personal effeminacy) resonate with age-old myths of androgynous, bisexual gods and cross-dressing shamans. Gay patterns of free and anonymous sex resonate with the mystical poetry of the Sufis and of, specifically, St John of the Cross whose poem "On a Dark Night" is about discovering that the man he has had anonymous "park sex" was Jesus--for all of us, mystically, we are Jesus and Avalokiteshvara and God-incarnate to one another, and should behave so! The gay encounter with AIDS in the last decades resonates with myths of asceticism, voluntary suffering, mystical substitution and self-sacrifice for the salvation of others--by both the "victims" and the caregivers. Talents of gay personality, like style, design and artistry and, perhaps even more important, sensitivity, compassion and drive to service, show us the virtues we can and should cultivate for our spiritual growth. Our gayness gives us a perspective on life and cultural convention; we understand the world, other people's lifestyles AND religious tradition from over and above; we should strive to be visionaries and world-transformers. Our attraction to same rather than opposite potentially makes us less distracted and obsessed with duality; we are blessed, if we want to be so, with clues to nondual vision. Our spirituality must resonate outward from us to save the world. This is where the evolution of consciousness is taking us all as Earth/Gaia wakes up and we all see heaven now. And, I think, it's a gay thing to point the way. This is how we, as gay people, give good service by being openly gay AND by transforming what it means to be gay so everybody understands us not as sinners but as saints. This is how we become saints. Spirituality IS self-fulfilling prophecy IS activism in service of humankind. Toby Johnson, author Gay Spirituality: Gay Identity and the Transformation of Human Consciousness |
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. Both books are
available now from Lethe
Press.
