Arthur Evans

Toby has four new books 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.
An historical novel, written in collaboration with historian/anthropologist Walter L. Williams,
set in the Old West TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life With the Navajo. And a collection of gay positive stories
contributed by more than 30 writers titled CHARMED LIVES. And his beloved spiritual romance novel
GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE has just been rereleased by Lethe Press.

Contact Us Table of Contents Search Site Home Also on this website: Toby Johnson's books: TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams 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 GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE PLAGUE: A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING. CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: Reclaiming Our Queer Spirituality Through Story About ordering 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 A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality 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 The origins of homophobia Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness What is homosexuality? What is Gay Spirituality? My three messages What Jesus said about Gay Rights Queering religion The purpose of homosexuality Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality What the Bible Says about Homosexuality Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men Varieties of Gay Spirituality Waves of Gay Liberation Activity Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium Easton Mountain Retreat Center Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism "It's Always About You" The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara You're Not A Wave What is Enlightenment? What is reincarnation? Emptiness & Religious Ideas Experiencing experiencing experiencing Going into the Light Meditations for a Funeral Meditation Practice The way to get to heaven Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva John Boswell was Immanuel Kant 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 Sinfulness of Homosexuality Proposal for a study of gay nondualism Priestly Sexuality  "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 Pilgrimage Next Step in Evolution 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 More about Gay Mental Health Psych Tech Training The Rainbow Flag 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 About Guy Mannheimer About Dennis Paddie About Sterling Houston About Michael Stevens Our friend Tom Nash Second March on Washington The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the  "Statement of Spirituality"   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 Bougeois Over Coffee: A conversation For Gay Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson Dark Knowledge by Kenneth Low Janet Planet by Eleanor Lerman

My friend Arthur Evans Arthur Evans (October 12, 1942-September 11, 2011) was one of the great lights of the gay liberation movement, first as a political activist in New York City (with Gay Activists Alliance), then later in San Francisco as a gay spiritual activist. In May of 1976, Arthur gave a series of weekly Sunday night talks at the Gay Community Building at 32 Page St. in downtown San Francisco. The couple of these talks that I attended changed my whole understanding of what it meant to be gay. Though of course I’d considered the spiritual meaning of my homosexuality, it was Arthur’s lectures—that appeared later as the book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture—that introduced me to the idea of “gay spirituality.” At the occasion of Arthur’s passing, I’ve looked back in my journals. For May 31, ’73, I wrote: “earlier this night I went to hear arthur evans’ lecture on gay oppression and militarism in the american culture. arthur proposes a sort of religion of animism and a rejection of technology. … he suggests that the gay myth is one of intimate contact with nature, that patriarchal religions that displace and discount the gay experience propose a dominance over nature, whereas the gay religions glory in nature, do not see man as thrown out of nature, expelled by the mother goddess … for the gay person there is not the polarity between man and the world … the gay life is one of awareness of oneness and contact with the life of the earth. The heterosex myth calls man to go forth and multiple, fill the earth and subdue it. The homosex myth then calls for us to live gently with the planet, not subduing, but sharing it.” I had a little crush on Arthur in those days; he was adorable in his own way, a redhead with a big face and big smile. The word “counterculture” was important, a code word for our idealism and hope; Arthur adopted it as a term of gay culture. He called his political/social philosophy “magical socialism.” Though later he wrote that he had made a serious mistake in doing so, as a gay hippie in the ’70s, he gave up a career as an academician and lived as a “magical socialist.” He was organizer of a “fairy circle” in San Francisco (I notice that in my journal, already it is given the spelling faerie). He was my automobile mechanic; with Hal Offen, Arthur had a little Volkswagen service and repair business called “The Buggery.” He lived simply and austerely with little money, like a monk in some ways, in his aerie looking down on the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. That he lived on that corner is part of his historical identity. That this is so, I know, because I too lived at that corner. The year before Arthur and his partner Jay Schraeter moved into 604 Ashbury, I’d been living in the flat next door at 602. Though only for six months, it’s a fact that’s become part of my identity and connection with the counterculture and the “revolution.” Arthur Evans introduced the concepts of “gay spirituality” to so many of us in BAGL (Bay Area Gay Liberation). He changed the world. Though in his later life, he got a reputation as a curmudgeon, he was one of the heroes who furthered the revolution.

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.