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FINDING
YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned
from Joseph Campbell: The
Myth
of the
Great Secret
III
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, a sci-fi novel with
wonderful "aliens" with an
Afterword by Mark Jordan
GETTING
LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:
A
Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods
THE FOURTH QUILL, a
novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with
the
Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams
CHARMED
LIVES: Spinning Straw into
Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with
Steve Berman and some 30 other writers
THE MYTH OF THE GREAT
SECRET:
An
Appreciation of Joseph Campbell
IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE
SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey
Unpublished manuscripts
About ordering
Books on
Gay Spirituality:
White
Crane Gay Spirituality Series
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"
Gay Consciousness
Why homosexuality is a sin
The cause of homosexuality
The
origins of homophobia
Advice to Future Gay
Historians
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
Queer
men, myths and Reincarnation
Was I (or you) at
Stonewall?
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
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
Toby's Experience of
Zen
What is Enlightenment?
What is reincarnation?
What happens at Death?
How many lifetimes in an
ego?
Emptiness & Religious Ideas
Experiencing experiencing experiencing
Going into the Light
The Episode of the Blank Slide
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
A Funny Story: The Rug Salesmen of Istanbul
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
Drawing a Long Straw:
Ketamine at the Mann Ranch
Alan Watts &
Multiple Solipsism
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
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
Marian Doctrines:
Immaculate Conception & Assumption
Not lashed to the
prayer-post
Monastic or Chaste
Homosexuality
The Monastic Schedule: a whimsy
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
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
Sex with God
Merging Religion and Sex
Revolution Through
Consciousness Change: GSV 2019
God as Metaphor
More Metaphors for God
A non-personal
metaphor God
The Hero's
Journey
The
Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016
The Gay Hero Journey
(shortened)
You're
On Your Own
Superheroes
Seeing
Differently
Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil
God and Sex
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?
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
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
Joseph
Campbell, the Hero's Journey, and the modern Gay Hero-- a five part
presentation on YouTube
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
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"
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
In Search of Lost Lives by Michael Goddart
Queer
Magic by Tomas Prower
God
in Your Body by Jay Michaelson
Science Whispering Spirit by Gary Preuss
Friends
of Dorothy by Dee Michel
New by
Whitley Strieber
Developing Supersensible Perception by Shelli
Renee Joye
Sage
Sapien by Johnson Chong
Tarot
of the Future by Arthur Rosengarten
Brothers
Across Time by Brad Boney
Impresario of Castro Street by Marc Huestis
Deathless
by Andrew Ramer
The Pagan Heart of the West, Vol 1 by
Randy P. Conner
Practical
Tantra by William Schindler
The Flip
by Jeffrey J. Kripal
A New World
by Whitley Strieber
Bernhard & LightWing by Damien Rowse
The Mountains of Paris by David Oates
Scissors,
Paper, Rock by Fenton Johnson
Toby
Johnson's
Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:
Gay Perspective
Things Our [Homo]sexuality
Tells Us
about the
Nature of God and
the Universe
Gay
Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated
by Matthew Whitfield. Click
here
Gay Spirituality
Gay Identity and
the Transformation of
Human Consciousness
Gay
Spirituality is now
available as an audiobook, beautifully narrated by John Sipple. Click here
Charmed
Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling
edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman
Secret
Matter
Lammy Award Winner for Gay
Science Fiction
updated
Getting Life in
Perspective
A Fantastical Romance
Getting
Life in Perspective is available as an
audiobook narrated by Alex Beckham. Click
here
The Fourth Quill
originally published
as
PLAGUE
The Fourth Quill is
available
as an audiobook, narrated by Jimmie
Moreland. Click here
Two Spirits: A Story of
Life
with the Navajo
with Walter L. Williams
 Two
Spirits is available as an
audiobook narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click
here
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
The Myth of the Great
Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.
This
was the second edition of this book.
Toby Johnson's
titles are
available in other ebook formats from Smashwords.
|
Joseph Campbell and the Blank Slide
Excerpted from Finding Your Own True Myth
It
is a familiar theme in religious stories that people fail to see God
when he appears to them because he is not what they are expecting. They
already have a clear conception of what God is like, and when he or she
confronts them directly, they turn away because “that just couldn’t be
right.”
The description of the dying process in Tibetan Buddhist myth
illustrates this. The second summer at the ranch I was assisting Joseph
Campbell at a lecture on the Bardo Thodol, The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
My job was to operate the slide projector. Campbell had given me a
loaded carousel and asked me to change the slides at his signal.
As the lecture began, slides appeared of the Tibetan mountains and
countryside, then paintings of Tibetan priests like those who might be
attending the dying soul on its afterlife journey, and then finally of
the dying person. At Campbell’s nod, I clicked in the next slide. The
screen was flooded with bright white light; no slide had entered the
projector. Something’s wrong, I thought, and slid the advance lever
again.
This time a mandala of the bliss-bestowing buddhas appeared. And even
as I was relaxing, Campbell explained my error. I had demonstrated his
point.
The immediate experience of the soul on entering the afterlife is of the Clear Light.
This is the direct experience of nirvana, of ultimate consciousness.
Yet the soul bypasses it, looking for some expected image—even though
it has been taught over and over that the Clear Light is the first
thing it will see. I’d studied Tibetan Buddhism. I knew that the Clear
Light would be the first vision after death. Yet when the slide that
was no-slide appeared as the bright white light on the screen, I
panicked and switched it off.
Now the first teaching of the mystics is that God or nirvana is never
what one expects. One’s opinions always get in the way. What one must
empty oneself of is opinions. The reason for teaching emptiness is to
call the mind past its opinions. That is true, in some ways, of all
religious doctrines. By undermining the belief in the obvious sensible
material world, doctrine breaks one bond to views and opinions. If,
however, the belief in the spiritual world takes on the same simple
solid character that it was designed to undermine, then the spiritual
teaching has been lost.
Perhaps we moderns who believe nothing are closer to the Light than we have ever imagined!
Joe liked that story about the blank slide. He commented on it in our
correspondence.* I think he liked that I fell for his trick, even
though, in fact, he had warned me it was going to happen. That made my
automatic reaction even better. I’ve in turn applied that lesson to
Joe’s own understanding of his contribution to the evolution of
consciousness.
And I’ve pondered and used the image of the Clear Light in my meditation and in my writing. My novel Getting Life in Perspective
was partly set in a fictional utopian colony in the Rocky Mountains in
the 1890s. In my novel I called it the Clear Light Colony.
I’ve thought about what the “Clear Light” is. We never see clear light;
light is always colored. The bright light from the slide projector was
white, not clear. By definition, you can’t see something that is clear.
But, actually, we are surrounded by clear light all the time. All the
light that doesn’t strike our retinas is, for us, totally clear. We see
right through it. The light passing by is perfectly transparent to the
light that does strike our eyes and that we do see. Light is perfectly
clear until it hits or reflects off something. In the Tibetan myth of
dying, maybe the way to understand the Clear Light is as the world
without you in it.
The light is clear because it isn’t striking your eyes anymore. You’re
gone. The “Clear Light” then refers to the bigger reality that isn’t
reduced and filtered by anybody’s ego or point of view. Getting life in
perspective is realizing it’s not all about you. Your ego is just a
point of view.
But then, whose view? Who is watching?
Another way to understand the Clear Light that you can see right
through without paying any attention to it is the light that is coming
off your own body, the light that other people see you by. The Clear
Light is the truth of who you are. The Clear Light is the truth of how
other people see you. The Clear Light is what shows you your own
Shadow. (Read more at Understanding the Clear Light.)
Yet another way to think of the Clear Light without the mystical hoo-ha
is as the light by which you see things clearly. Some things are just
obvious; some truths self-evident. Seeing clearly means not being
caught up in your opinions and likes and dislikes. Again, referencing
The Shadow, seeing clearly is escaping the blinders of your "shadow,"
your neurosis, the part of you you don't want to see about yourself.
* I wrote Joseph Campbell long, thoughtful letters off and on for about
10 years. He always replied, and always wrote that he was happy to hear
from me. Most of his letters back to me were briefer than mine to him.
But they were still thoughtful and responsive.
About my first book, the original The Myth of the Great Secret: A Search for Spiritual Meaning in the Face of Emptiness, he wrote:
The Myth of the Great Secret
is a jewel of a book. I have read it with deep fascination, enchanted
not only by the graceful style… but also by the skill of your
presentation, giving us your message at the start, in a prologue, and
then illustrating it with increasing force, to the end, in a sort of
narrative-and-expositional crescendo. And, of course, it was with very
great pleasure for me to learn of my own contribution to your
dark-forest adventure. The episode of the blank slide that time at the
Mann Ranch! And I think the way you have put together all that we have
all been learning from each other in those meetings and encounters, up
and down the state of California, is really wonderful. The book is the
definitive chronicle of our ‘Queste del Saint Graal’ of the seventies.
I think the honorific “definitive chronicle of our ‘Queste del Saint
Graal’ of the seventies,” actually belongs to Jeffrey Kripal’s Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion. But my little book certainly was a chronicle of my quest, and I was honored to be able to share with Joe his role in that.
One of the issues that concerned Campbell more and more in the 70s and
80s was the question of “the new myth.” His audiences began to ask him
what would replace conventional theism now that science had undercut so
many of its foundations. He always replied that one could no more
predict a future myth than one could predict tonight’s dream.
Yet it seemed to me quite obvious what Campbell’s own thought predicted
would be the new myth. And it’s seemed quite obvious that the
popularity of his thought has borne this out: Comparative religion is
the new myth. That he didn’t realize the implication of his own work
seemed to be a blind spot in his understanding—a blind spot, by the
way, indicative of the message in the episode of the blank slide…
This story is also told on this website with a longer discussion of the Clear Light and the nature of Afterlife at The Clear Light.
* * *
Synchronistically, I suppose, as I was entering the text above into a page
on this website, the image below came through in a share on Facebook.
It is such a perfect example of "seeing things differently."
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