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Contact Us Table of Contents Search Site Google listing of all pages on this website Site Map Toby Johnson's Facebook page Toby Johnson's YouTube channel Toby Johnson on Wikipedia Toby Johnson Amazon Author Page  Secure site at https://tobyjohnson.com  Also on this website: Toby Johnson's books: Toby's books are available as ebooks from smashwords.com, the Apple iBookstore, etc. 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
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
Gay ConsciousnessQ&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"? Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality What the Bible Says about Homosexuality Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men Waves of Gay Liberation Activity 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
Enlightenment
Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara You're Not A WaveJoseph 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 Gay
Spirituality
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The Jesus We Never Knew The
Kairos: A NovelBy Paul E. Hartman 320 pages, paperback $12.50 978-0615495095 Available from www.CarpeKairos.com Also available from amazon.com Reviewed by Toby Johnson, author of The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell The Kairos is a modern day suspense-thriller set in Jerusalem, then the Seattle Washington area, then deep Alaska. The book description on the back half-jokingly (I think) calls it "Religious Horror" for Christian Fundamentalists. Whatever the horror, it is certainly a thriller. The action keeps moving and the story moves right along with it. The novel's a page turner and an enjoyable fast read. But the hero isn't a government spy, but a religious one, that is, a seeker after truth and a biblical exegete trying to understand and tell the truth about the "real" Jesus Christ. And it's a Jesus we didn't know about. Kairos is a Greek word meaning an opportune time, a time when God breaks into history. The discovery of new information about the life of Jesus, for instance, could result in a kairos moment when everything everybody thought has to change, and comes to have a new and greater meaning in present time. That's how it is used in this book. Kairos is also reminiscent of two other Greek words, Kyrios and kouros; the former means Lord (as in the prayer Kyrie Eleison -- Lord, have mercy), the latter means a standing youth (as in early Greek sculpture). The puns are both surprisingly appropriate. For the history-changing moment the main character of the story hopes to bring about involves just who Jesus, as Lord, was as a young man. The protagonist, Dr. Lute Jonson, has been keeping a secret for years. In his study of the dead Sea Scrolls, he came across references to the life of Jesus as a teenager. The texts reveal he lived in the Qumran community, where the Essenes, the mystical sect of Judaism, are thought to have had a sort of monastery, and that he was thought of as divine because of his ability to work miracles, but he was also a rebel who challenged Jewish sexual taboos by carrying on a same-sex relationship with the boy who'd later be the Apostle John. As the novel opens, Dr Jonson is leaving Jerusalem--with the hidden texts--to announce their content to the world. Why and how he never quite makes it is the adventure of the story. For obviously the "power that be" are not going to allow such a revelation. The book then is about the stranglehold the institutionalized Church keeps over the real truth of Jesus's teachings. It's a good novel with a fascinating idea: how would the Christian--and non-Christian--world react to the news that Jesus had a sex life, and that it wasn't quite kosher. In the effects in the lives of a couple of characters, readers are shown hints: a devout Christian woman is horrified at the idea of Jesus as not virginal, a sexually repressed scholar is elated, but confused and frightened by the revelation. The shocking climax of the story is unfortunately realistic and believable, but in ending the book as he does, Paul Hartman avoids having to deal with the worldwide reaction. (I won't spoil the plot by explaining this.) Since this is a novel and since the premise of Jesus's sexuality is probably possible, but not likely to ever be revealed, there's no need to address that worldwide reaction. And the author turns the plot inward to offer a kind of spiritual, mystical message about the nature of religion. Throughout the story, Lute Jonson keeps reminding himself that a fundamental message of all faith must be: Fear not. And that's the message the book ultimately conveys: Fear not. It wouldn't matter in the life of an individual or in the history of the world if things changed radically, i.e., if there were a kairos moment in our day -- because, in faith, there really is nothing to fear. That we understand that is itself a kind of kairos. Link to an interesting interview on a Seattle website for authors and writers with Paul Hartman  Wrestling
with JesusBy D.K. Maylor 465 pages, paperback $18.95 978-1461087489 Available from WrestlingWithJesus.net Also available from amazon.com Reviewed by Toby Johnson, author of The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell Wrestling with Jesus offers an imaginary and whimsical dialogue with a new age Jesus who shows up in response to the author's writing a long complaint letter to Jesus regarding Christian teaching and interpretation of the Bible. In the spirit of Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God, D.K. Maylor's book allows Jesus to restate his teachings for modern times. And Maylor's Jesus has quite a sense of humor. A lot of the book reads like a standup comedy duo, with Jesus making outrageous, mostly silly and funny, but occasionally profoundly meaningful puns and jokes. For all its whimsy and lightheartedness, the book demonstrates the author's extensive study of Christian and pre-Christian history. An ongoing theme is that the story of Jesus as it has come down through history seems a confabulation of myths and Mystery religions in the Roman-Hellenistic empire of New Testament times. Jesus Christ, the God of Christianity, was as much Osiris or Mithras as he was the Nazarene teacher. Maylor and his buddy Jesus have a field day--and a revelation of spiritual meaning--deconstructing the traditional Christian doctrine of Jesus as the sacrificial scapegoat who saves mankind by appeasing Yahweh's wrath with his crucifixion. And, of course, the analysis makes great sense AND offers a much better interpretation of "salvation." Jesus quotes A Course in Miracles, rails against the multiple and egregious abuses down through Church history, reexplains the Bible and the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, incorporates Hindu and Buddhist ideas of spirit and consciousness, reinterprets the meaning of afterlife, and cites Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. The message of this real meaning of Christianity rings true. For all the times the Jesus in this book cracks jokes and makes bad puns, his explication of spirituality is logical and appealing and inspiring. The book is some 450 pages long, but it reads fast and it's hard to put down because there are just so many good ideas rushing by. If there's a flaw in the presentation, it's that the whimsical dialogue setup allows for sudden changes of topic and some ideas get raised that aren't fully followed through on--but that's a minor complaint. There is so much material in this book, it calls for several readings. Maylor's Jesus espouses a kind of modern, Buddhistic, mystical transformation of consciousness to discover that self and ego--the things that seem so important to modern day Americans--are really illusory constructions of the mind. What we human beings really are is fields of consciousness conjuring up a world that seems a nightmare vision because we shirk our responsibility to wake up and take charge of our lives, instead choosing to live in the past or the future in regrets and dreams rather than in the true power of the present moment. The skepticism and ridicule of conventional religion then results in a rich spiritual teaching, appropriate to the 21st Century. This is a marvelous book. Maylor's Jesus avoids talking about what are called in American politics "social issues." The question of Jesus's sexuality (or homosexuality) never comes up. Jesus doesn't address abortion or contraception or same-sex marriage or prayer in schools or teaching Intelligent Design--though it isn't hard to see that this modernized Jesus would address such issues with loving kindness and no stiff-necked hard-heartedness. I loved this book and want to recommend it. It stirred up so many wonderful feelings and insights for me. Both of these books offer reinterpretations of the Jesus story and discover new meaning and richness in doing so. That we can even think such thoughts is evidence of the ongoing evolution of consciousness and the transformation of religion and myth as human beings mature. Modern science and historical awareness have changed how we understand religion. Recreating religion as a carrier of wisdom frees us all from the horrors of the past and, ironically, saves religion by recasting it as a high culture art form with a deep and important message about how to live intensely and awarely in the present moment. |
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.
Two
Spirits is available as an
audiobook narrated by Arthur Raymond. 