Proposition: John Boswell was a

Reincarnation of Immanuel Kant

Toby has three 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.

Contact Us Table of Contents Search Site 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 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 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 Waves of Gay Liberation Activity Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium Easton Mountain Retreat Center "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 Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva 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  "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 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 Psych Tech Training The Rainbow Flag Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta. 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

Immanuel Kant was the famous philosopher who proposed the radical distinction between what we human know (the phenomena) and what is "actually" out there (the noumena). Kant was probably what we today would call a gay man. Despite being famous for being rather strict, he was quite popular and even famous for throwing wonderful dinner parties and entertaining with his stories. (There's a joke that he gave a lecture to an empty room because his students had questioned whether he would--out of "duty" to the categorical imperative--so they played a prank on him by cutting class.  His answer to the prank was to give the lecture. But really the categorical imperative would not require that.)   John Boswell was a Yale University professor who did extensive research into the history of homosexuality and the Catholic Church. One of his great conclusions was that the condemnations of homosexuality in Christendom DID NOT come from Jesus, St Paul or the early Church, but developed following the Black Plague in Europe. The Church used homosexuals as scapegoats for the plagues while simultaneously (and importantly) motivating people to engage in reproductive sex in order to repopulate the continent. He is known, therefore, for making a distinction between what we think Christianity teaches and what it "really" is. John Boswell, tragically, died young of AIDS. On the back cover of his most important book, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, the above photo of him appears. Of course, my proposal that John Boswell was a reincarnation of Immanuel Kant is whimsical. Reincarnation itself is a myth/metaphor for the fct that people's lives in the present are affected by the lives of people who've lived before.                       But don't these two images even look sort of alike. Don't Kant and Boswell have the same eyes and cheeks? I think Kant would be quite pleased to be remembered as a lookalike for the attractive gay thinker of our age. I got fascinated with Kantian thought in college--the best paper I ever wrote argued a parallel between the Kant's "categories" and C.G. Jung's "archetypes." Immanuel Kant was apparently a homosexual. He was a short little blond man with curly hair and babyface who was very popular for the dinner parties he held. He never married and had no family. There's a story of how he got quite jealous and angry at a friend of his who stole a young man away from him who'd been brought to see him on a "blind date." Noumenon and Phenomenon I've come to understand that the distinction Kant is most famous for between noumenon and phenomenon is, in fact, an intellectualization/metaphysicalization of the distinction homosexuals experience between the gay world and the straight world. That is, a closeted homosexual (as Immanuel Kant as a college professor in 18th C Germany would have naturally been) experiences a huge difference between the world as other people say it is and the way he experiences it; there is a "secret reality" he knows about that the others do not. The distinction between the "normal world" and the "secret reality" is a perfect parallel to the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon. The phenomenal world is what everybody experiences, the world as it is resolved in the human mind and that everybody agrees on (with, at least, a "working definition"). The noumenal world is what "really exists" out-there, beyond the filtered perceptions of the human sensory apparatus, i.e., what "God" experiences. (And indeed Kant proposes there has to be a God -- for categorical reasons -- to appreciate that the right and the good are consistent with the noumenal reality.) A HUGE part of gay consciousness is the realization that we experience the world differently from "normal" people; we see things others don't; we know "what's really going on" (at least with regard to a hidden current of homosexual motivation--and activity--that pervades human culture and history unbeknownst to most people).

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.