Joseph Campbell & the Pre/Trans Fallacy



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Toby Johnson's books:

Toby's books are available as ebooks from smashwords.com, the Apple iBookstore, etc.


Finding Your Own True Myth - The Myth of the Great Secret III

FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III


Gay Spirituality

GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness


Gay Perspective


GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe


Secret Matter


SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with wonderful "aliens" with an Afterword by Mark Jordan


Getting Life

GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:  A Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods


The Fourth Quill

THE FOURTH QUILL, a novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil




Two Spirits
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams



charmed lives
CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with Steve Berman and some 30 other writers


Myth of the Great Secret


THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell



In Search of God


IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey



Unpublished manuscripts


About ordering


Books on Gay Spirituality:

White Crane Gay Spirituality Series


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  Toby has done five podcasts with Harry Faddis for The Quest of Life

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  Articles and Excerpts:

Review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness


Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"


About Liberty Books, the Lesbian/Gay Bookstore for Austin, 1986-1996


The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate


A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality


Why gay people should NOT Marry


The Scriptural Basis for Same Sex Marriage


Toby and Kip Get Married


Wedding Cake Liberation


Gay Marriage in Texas


What's ironic



Shame on the American People


The "highest form of love"


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Gay Consciousness


Why homosexuality is a sin


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


Common Experiences Unique to Gay Men


Is there a "uniquely gay perspective"?


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


The Gay Succession


Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?


The Reincarnation of Edward Carpenter


Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium


Easton Mountain Retreat Center


Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism


The Mysticism of Andrew Harvey


The upsidedown book on MSNBC


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Enlightenment


"It's Always About You"



The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara


Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara


You're Not A Wave



Joseph Campbell Talks about Aging



What 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



What Anatman means



Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal



The Danda Nata & goddess Kalika



Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva



John Boswell was Immanuel Kant



Cutting edge realization



The Myth of the Wanderer



Change: Source of Suffering & of Bliss



World Navel



What the Vows Really Mean



Manifesting from the Subtle Realms



The Three-layer Cake & the Multiverse


The est Training and Personal Intention



Effective Dreaming in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven


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Gay Spirituality


Curious Bodies


What Toby Johnson Believes


The Joseph Campbell Connection


The Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)


Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy


The Two Loves


The Nature of Religion


What's true about Religion


Being Gay is a Blessing


Drawing Long Straws


Freedom of Religion


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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


Having a Church to Leave


Harold Cole on Beauty


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Marian Doctrines: Immaculate Conception & Assumption


Not lashed to the prayer-post


Monastic or Chaste Homosexuality


Is It Time to Grow Up? Confronting the Aging Process


Notes on Licking  (July, 1984)


Redeem Orlando


Gay Consciousness changing the world by Shokti LoveStar


Alexander Renault interviews Toby Johnson



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Mystical Vision


"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


No Stealing


Next Step in Evolution


The New Myth


The Moulting of the Holy Ghost


Gaia is a Bodhisattva


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The Hero's Journey


The Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016


The  Gay Hero Journey (shortened)


You're On Your Own


Superheroes


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Seeing Differently


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


Facing the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom


What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?


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The Vision


The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside


A  Most Remarkable Synchronicity in Riverside


The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis


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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


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The Secret of the Clear Light


Understanding the Clear Light


Mobius Strip


Finding Your Tiger Face


How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated


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Joseph Campbell, the Hero's Journey, and the modern Gay Hero-- a five part presentation on YouTube


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About Alien Abduction


In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke


Karellen was a homosexual


The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance


Intersections with the movie When We Rise


More about Gay Mental Health


Psych Tech Training


Toby at the California Institute


The Rainbow Flag


Ideas for gay mythic stories


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People


Kip and Toby, Activists


Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.


Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement


About Hay and The New Myth


About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first man to really "come out"


About Michael Talbot, gay mystic


About Fr. Bernard Lynch


About Richard Baltzell


About Guy Mannheimer


About David Weyrauch


About Dennis Paddie


About Ask the Fire


About Arthur Evans


About Christopher Larkin


About Mark Thompson


About Sterling Houston


About Michael Stevens


The Alamo Business Council


Our friend Tom Nash


Second March on Washington


The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement of Spirituality"


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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


Love Together: Longtime Male Couples on Healthy Intimacy and Communication by Tim Clausen


War Between Materialism and Spiritual by Jean-Michel Bitar


The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal


Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal


The Invitation to Love by Darren Pierre


Brain, Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration by Daniel A Helminiak


A Walk with Four Spiritual Guides by Andrew Harvey


Can Christians Be Saved? by Stephenson & Rhodes


The Lost Secrets of the Ancient Mystery Schools by Stephenson & Rhodes


Keys to Spiritual Being: Energy Meditation and Synchronization Exercises by Adrian Ravarour


In Walt We Trust by John Marsh


Solomon's Tantric Song by Rollan McCleary


A Special Illumination by Rollan McCleary


Aelred's Sin by Lawrence Scott


Fruit Basket by Payam Ghassemlou


Internal Landscapes by John Ollom


Princes & Pumpkins by David Hatfield Sparks


Yes by Brad Boney


Blood of the Goddess by William Schindler


Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom by Jeffrey Kripal


Evolving Dharma by Jay Michaelson


Jesus in Salome's Lot by Brett W. Gillette


The Man Who Loved Birds by Fenton Johnson


The Vatican Murders by Lucien Gregoire


"Sex Camp" by Brian McNaught


Out & About with Brewer & Berg
Episode One: Searching for a New Mythology



The Soul Beneath the Skin by David Nimmons


Out on Holy Ground by Donald Boisvert


The Revotutionary Psychology of Gay-Centeredness by Mitch Walker


Out There by Perry Brass


The Crucifixion of Hyacinth by Geoff Puterbaugh


The Silence of Sodom by Mark D Jordan


It's Never About What It's About by Krandall Kraus and Paul Borja


ReCreations, edited by Catherine Lake


Gospel: A Novel by WIlton Barnhard


Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey by Fenton Johnson


Dating the Greek Gods
by Brad Gooch


Telling Truths in Church by Mark D. Jordan


The Substance of God by Perry Brass


The Tomcat Chronicles by Jack Nichols


10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives by Joe Kort


Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same Sex Love by Will Roscoe


The Third Appearance by Walter Starcke


The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann


Surviving and Thriving After a Life-Threatening Diagnosis by Bev Hall


Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods by Ronald Long

An Interview with Ron Long


Queering Creole Spiritual Traditons by Randy Conner & David Sparks

An Interview with Randy Conner


Pain, Sex and Time by Gerald Heard


Sex and the Sacred by Daniel Helminiak


Blessing Same-Sex Unions by Mark Jordan


Rising Up by Joe Perez


Soulfully Gay by Joe Perez


That Undeniable Longing by Mark Tedesco


Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman


Wisdom for the Soul by Larry Chang


MM4M a DVD by Bruce Grether


Double Cross by David Ranan


The Transcended Christian by Daniel Helminiak


Jesus in Love by Kittredge Cherry


In the Eye of the Storm by Gene Robinson


The Starry Dynamo by Sven Davisson


Life in Paradox by Fr Paul Murray


Spirituality for Our Global Community by Daniel Helminiak


Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society by Robert A. Minor


Coming Out: Irish Gay Experiences by Glen O'Brien


Queering Christ by Robert Goss


Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage


The Flesh of the Word by Richard A Rosato


Catland by David Garrett Izzo


Tantra for Gay Men by Bruce Anderson


Yoga & the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darren Main


Simple Grace by Malcolm Boyd


Seventy Times Seven by Salvatore Sapienza


What Does "Queer" Mean Anyway? by Chris Bartlett


Critique of Patriarchal Reasoning by Arthur Evans


Gift of the Soul by Dale Colclasure & David Jensen


Legend of the Raibow Warriors by Steven McFadden


The Liar's Prayer by Gregory Flood


Lovely are the Messengers by Daniel Plasman


The Human Core of Spirituality by Daniel Helminiak


3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke


Religion and the Human Sciences by Daniel Helminiak


Only the Good Parts by Daniel Curzon


Four Short Reviews of Books with a Message


Life Interrupted by Michael Parise


Confessions of a Murdered Pope by Lucien Gregoire


The Stargazer's Embassy by Eleanor Lerman


Conscious Living, Conscious Aging by Ron Pevny


Footprints Through the Desert by Joshua Kauffman


True Religion by J.L. Weinberg


The Mediterranean Universe by John Newmeyer


Everything is God by Jay Michaelson


Reflection by Dennis Merritt


Everywhere Home by Fenton Johnson


Hard Lesson by James Gaston


God vs Gay? by Jay Michaelson


The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path by Jay Michaelson


Roxie & Fred by Richard Alther


Not the Son He Expected by Tim Clausen


The 9 Realities of Stardust by Bruce P. Grether


The Afterlife Revolution by Anne & Whitley Strieber


AIDS Shaman: Queer Spirit Awakening by Shokti Lovestar


Facing the Truth of Your Life by Merle Yost


The Super Natural by Whitley Strieber & Jeffrey J Kripal


Secret Body by Jeffrey J Kripal


In Hitler's House by Jonathan Lane


Walking on Glory by Edward Swift


The Paradox of Porn by Don Shewey


Is Heaven for Real? by Lucien Gregoire


Enigma by Lloyd Meeker


Scissors, Paper, Rock by Fenton Johnson




Toby Johnson's Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:




Gay
Perspective cover
Gay Perspective

Things Our [Homo]sexuality
Tells Us about the
Nature of God and
the Universe


Gay Perspective audiobook
Gay Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated by Matthew Whitfield. Click here







Gay
Spirituality cover
Gay Spirituality

Gay Identity and 
the Transformation of
Human Consciousness



gay-spirituality-audiobook
Gay Spirituality   is now available as an audiobook, beautifully narrated by John Sipple. Click here








charmed lives
Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling

edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman







secret matter
Secret Matter

Lammy Award Winner for Gay Science Fiction

updated







Getting Life
Getting Life in Perspective

A Fantastical Romance





Getting
Life in Perspective audiobook
Getting Life in Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated by Alex Beckham. Click here 






The Fourth Quill

The Fourth Quill

originally published as PLAGUE




johnson-the-fourth-quill-audiobook
The Fourth Quill is available as an audiobook, narrated by Jimmie Moreland. Click here






Two
Two Spirits: A Story of Life with the Navajo

with Walter L. Williams




Two Spirits
audiobookTwo Spirits  is available as an audiobook  narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click here






Finding Your Own True Myth - The Myth of the Great Secret III
Finding Your Own True Myth:
What I Learned from Joseph Campbell

The Myth of the Great Secret III








In
Search of God in the Sexual Underworld
In Search of God  in the Sexual Underworld










The Myth of the Great Secret II

The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.

This was the second edition of this book.




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Toby Johnson's titles are available in other ebook formats from Smashwords.



Things I Learned from Joseph Campbell


There are three identifiable themes in the thought of Joseph Campbell and his fans (Joe would not have liked the word "followers" which perhaps would have been the appropriate term there!). These are loosely associable with what Campbell identified as the four functions of myth: psychological/pedagogical, social, cosmological, and mystical/metaphysical.

These themes are: training young people in the nature of mythology, reclaiming myth as a high cultural art form, and (I think, most importantly) identifying the so-called "new myth." There is also in the work of the Joseph Campbell Institute an effort to link like minds in various sorts of real and virtual roundtable discussions. These then correlate respectively with the pedagogical, mystical, cosmological, and social functions.

The Pedagogical Theme:


While the content of Campbell's books and talks was always the vast range of mythological stories and artistic expressions that he loved to rhapsodize about, the single, central message in all his work was simply that all religion is myth.

His joke was that "myth is other people's religion." But the implication of that, of course, was that one's own religion is also myth to somebody else. None of it is true in any literal sense. All religion is metaphor for certain biological and psychological dynamics that determine and direct human experience. The metaphors of religion are supposed to assist with the "right" ways to experience one's human life and so to make the "right" choices about how to live a decent, happy, contributing life.

This is a radically different way of understanding religion from the mainstream Judeo-Christian religion that dominates the U.S. (and, in particular, the culture of New York City in the middle of the 20th Century when Campbell was coming of age and then flourishing). Judeo-Christian religion claims to be historically true, and so not mythological at all.

For Campbell's readers and fan, then, one of the central problems of modern life is how to raise children to understand religion, that is, how to gain from the moral lessons in the stories and to be properly edified, but not to fall into unscientific and unreasonable belief in the religious doctrines in the way the religious institutions would want. A solution for how to teach children about religion was then developed which mimicks the experience of the adults in discovering and being edified by Joseph Campbell's ideas--and those of the whole field of comparative religions and new-paradigm science. Teach the children all the myths.

This results in a sort of valorizing of myth for its own sake: exposure to the mythological stories of all the various human cultures of the world will be beneficial. Indeed, this is a theme in Jungian psychoanalysis (which arena of thought was the basis for the new-paradigm of religion). For Jung, cultural myths were like the dreams of the collective unconscious; and in the same way as Freud discovered that talking about one's psychodynamic processes, including analysis of dreams, was therapeutic for mental disorders, so Jung thought bringing mythological themes and associations into consciousness would be beneficial and healing for the human personality.

It's not entirely clear how true this might be. Indeed, it is this notion that is really what the modern "new-age, new-paradigm," philosopher of religion Ken Wilber calls the "pre/trans fallacy," i.e. confusing the irrationality of primitive religion with the trans-rational mystical consciousness of evolved post-modern, post-quantum theory thought. Just because American Indian languages like Hopi (as discussed by Benjamin L. Whorf) consist primarily of verbs, it does not follow that the Hopi elders understood the quantum nature of the cosmos.


The High Culture Form Theme:


Fans and followers of Joseph Campbell's--like Campbell himself--like stories. They like aphorisms like that of Eli Wiesel that "God created human beings because He loves stories." Campbell liked to tell stories. His audiences liked to listen to him. And they probably went home and repeated those stories to other people.

One theme then in Campbellian thought is that we ought to read and listen to and analyze the great treasury of mythological stories that come down to us from around the world because they're great art in themselves. Religion and creative art are aspects of one another.

In the same way you go to art museums to appreciate the high culture forms of past artisans and artists, so you might read the mythological stories from the past and even participate in the religious practices of those people who still practice religion (and believe in it as literal truth--"God's own Truth") but with your own enlightened perspective.

This results in even more valorization of myth for its own sake. And further raises the spectre of the "pre/trans fallacy." Just because you--as a modern, sophisticated, intelligent person well-read about religion--can see deep and profound meaning for you in the stories of the past, it doesn't follow that the prophets and evangelists who composed the religions knew or intended such profound wisdom.


The "New Myth" Theme:


One of the things Joseph Campbell liked to talk about was what would be the myth of the future, what will be the content of the religious doctrines in the future?

He opined that we can no more predict the myth of the future than we can predict tonight's dream. And in that context, it sounded like he was talking about the birth of a new religion with a new savior: a new Jesus (or Maitreya or whatever) who'd rise to prominence with a new religion to spread.

But that is NOT really what the new myth is going to be about. And Joe knew that perfectly well.

Way back in the 1970s, when Joe was starting to achieve prominence with the West Coast counterculture, this current writer was on the crew that regularly hosted and put on (and ushered, cooked, cleaned, stuffed envelopes, put up posters, etc.) his Northern California appearances. I met Joe originally at the Mann Ranch in 1971. I was fresh out of Catholic religious life, studying Comparative Religions--especially "hippie" neo-Buddhism--at the California Institute of Asian Studies (which later changed its name to Integral Studies). I was fascinated with Campbell's ideas because of the implication they had for my own religious belief: it meant my Catholicism was a myth like all the others and that "Truth" transcends all the various traditions.

I told him that in a conversation over dinner that first time I met him. I told him I thought his vision of religion as myth and metaphor was in fact the insight that would found a new paradigm spiritual consciousness. In my own rhapsodizing, I guess, I told him I thought his ideas were the "new myth." Joe was gratified to have fans--especially bright-eyed young men. I think because he didn't have sons of his own and he taught at a girls' college, his young male fans represented something like his legacy. BUT he didn't want to be seen as a guru of any sort. That is something he did not like among the hippies and counterculturalists who were drawn to his lectures. He was an academician and a scholar, not a spiritual teacher or guru. He didn't want to be anybody's priest or psychological guide.

And so he always deflected my enthusiastic rantings during the question and answer parts of his talks when I'd get up and proclaim the meta-myth of myth--i.e. understanding the nature of religion as myth and understanding one's own understanding as yet an example of more mythological thinking.

But this is THE important idea in Campbell. He referred to the evolution of myth in the conclusion to The Hero with A Thousand Faces:

The descent of the Occidental sciences from the heavens to the earth (from seventeenth-century astronomy to nineteenth-century biology), and their concentration today, at last, on man himself (in twentieth-century anthropology and psychology), mark the path of a prodigious transfer of the focal point of human wonder. Not the animal world, not the plant world, not the miracle of the spheres, but man himself is now the crucial mystery. (Hero, p. 391)

That prodigious transfer has continued on into the twenty-first century now with brain study, DNA research, bio-feedback studies of meditators, and complex theories of consciousness (including, of course, the role of consciousness in determining the outcome of scientific experimentation). Ken Wilber's work, by the way, is another example of this shift in the human experience toward greater and greater reflexivity and self-consciousness.

To paraphrase the last sentence in the quote from The Hero: Not the supernatural world of the gods of old, but consciousness itself in now the powerful image of the essence of existence. Not an external personality watching over the earth, but the spark of consciousness itself is the appropriate image for God today. God isn't "out-there"; God is "in here," in the sense that our own awareness of our being aware and creating images for ourselves of what our experience is is the thing that inspires us to feel wonder and to sense a place within the cosmos.


In the terms Wilber used to identify the fallacy of over-valorizing mythic consciousness of the past, we might say today's "enlightened" consciousness is able to look back at the history of religion with modern, scientific rationality and see simply "they can't all be true" and that the wisdom of religion lies in the meaning of the stories, not the content. So rationality sees beyond the non-rational, pre-rational thinking of mythological consciousness. AND it finds the self-reflection (made possible by our historical, anthropological, global perspective) reveals consciousness is even bigger than we can grasp. That "bigger," elusive, inarticulable quality of consciousness is what's called trans-rational.

Wilber isn't exactly attacking Campbell and the Campbellians with his "pre/trans fallacy" as adding a layer to the self-reflection that is part of mythological sophistication. He's giving us the reminder that even when we've figured out what myth is, we're still dealilng with a mythical construction of our own minds.

I'm not sure Wilber necessarily understands that. But THAT is certainly what we ought to get from Wilber's critique of Campbell's ideas.

That "transrational" (but not at all irrational) realization represents a future evolution of the mind in understanding its own workings.



Campbell and the Fallacy of Over-Valorization of Myth


Ken Wilber's ideas challenge the valorization of the myths of old--with their irrational "magical" thinking--objecting that not all the myths are of equal value or equal wisdom. Just because an idea comes out of religious enthusiasm does not make it a good or benefical idea.

I think that is something Joe Campbell would have agreed with. Though his style was to say all religions are false in being descriptions of material reality, but all are also true as being descriptions of psychological realities.

Joe clearly preferred Buddhism to Christianity, but not because the Buddha was a better teacher or did better miracles, but because Buddhism had long ago developed the outside stance on religion and had already refocused onto the nature of consciousness (instead of the personality of God).

One of the ways Joe demonstrated his preferences for Buddhistic thinking over Judeo-Christian thinking is, I fear, one of the things that besmirched his public image just after his death. Joe used to do imitations of accents. His educated-class New Yorker identity showed itself in his making fun of old Jewish ladies and Irish Catholic priests and nuns. This got characterized by critics of Joe's as bigotry and anti-Semitism. I tend to think it was more than he was good at doing those impersonations--and not so good, for instance, at doing a Japanese accent.

At any rate, myths have many levels of power. Part of the function of a myth is to alter consciousness. Myths are like spiritual practices. Believing in a specific myth changes how one sees their world, and can actually produce changes in consciousness itself, i.e., belief can produce mystical experience.

Myth conveys meaning and wisdom. But not all the effects of myths are positive or evolutionarily productive.

The story of Jesus on the cross is a beautiful myth about enlightened spiritual consciousness embracing all life, even the suffering and death that can prove to be part of it--even when that suffering is caused by other human beings.

The story of the Passion of Jesus conveys wisdom about loving life. That is its message of mystical--and  cognitive-- transformation.

But the story also has justified and inspired countless generations of Christians to believe God delights in human suffering. The followers of Jesus who should have seen from his death that the first commandment should be "no torture," instead went into the torture business in Jesus's name just as soon as they had achieve the power and the ownership of the torture chambers.

Christianity with its message of Jesus as the only begotten son of God ended up becoming belligerent and genocidal out of what supposed to be a sign of God's generosity. As the "only" true religion, Christianity could spread itself by violence.

In the end, the meaning that we should derive from the myths is always much less the content of the myths themselves and more the hint at the elusive nature of consciousness itself.

I.e., the reason for looking at the myths of old is to experience wonder: to see hints at wisdom for how to live a good life, to see hints at how big consciousness is. This experience founds the "new myth" of consciousness itself and the meta-myth of religion as the universe giving itself clues about the nature and shape of psychological reality.



Read about Toby Johnson's friendship with Joseph Campbell

Read about "The Techniques of the World Saviors," a sample of what Toby Johnson learned from Joseph Campbell -- and about the myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

See Joseph Campbell's replies to Letters to Joe from Toby Johnson.

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Toby Johnson, PhD is author of nine 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, four 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 and editor of a collection of "myths" of gay men's consciousness. 

Johnson's book GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness won a Lambda Literary Award in 2000.

His  GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our [Homo]sexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe was nominated for a Lammy in 2003. They remain in print.

FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III tells the story of Johnson's learning the real nature of religion and myth and discovering the spiritual qualities of gay male consciousness.

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