Letter to the Editor:Letter to the Editor:
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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.
Two
Spirits is available as an
audiobook narrated by Arthur Raymond. 
In
a Letter to the Editor in the July-August issue, Michael Bedwell tells
of a 1949 literary gathering for novelist E.M. Forster (shown right at
about age 35) who was visiting America, hosted by New York socialites,
publisher Monroe Wheeler and his lover Glenway Wescott whose 1971 NY
Times article is the source of this information. Photographer George
Platt Lynes, with his mother Adelaide, came for cocktails to meet
Forster and his “friend of long standing” Bob Buckingham and arrange to
photograph them later in the week. At the dinner party after the
Lyneses left were the two hosts; Forster (age 70) and Buckingham; and
two more, perhaps incongruous, guests: sexologist Alfred C. Kinsey and
comparative religions scholar Joseph Campbell (age 45 -- the photo
below looks mid-40s).
I
was intrigued that Campbell had been invited. The reason, of course,
was the subject matter: Forster was the celebrated author of A Passage
to India and Campbell an Indiologist and Sanskrit scholar. This dinner
sounds like a fairly gay event. I am always happy to learn evidence of
Campbell’s open-mindedness in this regard—and at a time (1949) when
open-mindedness wouldn’t have been the norm. Campbell himself was not
gay; his first real girlfriend, btw, was Adelle Davis, later the health
food maven and inventor of tiger’s milk, and he was famously married to
Broadway choreographer Jean Erdman. 
Gracious
and open-minded—that’s how I experienced Joseph Campbell. In 1971 I was
a young, ex-monk, hippie, grad student in comparative religions, and
budding, outspoken gay activist—and a work-scholar at a
Jungian-oriented seminar center north of San Francisco, which is how I
met and befriended Joe. I continued on the team that put on his
appearances in Northern California and carried on a personal
correspondence with him through the 70s. 
MONROE
WHEELER, American curator, born (d: 1988); Poet and author Glenway
Wescott and Monroe Wheeler were an extraordinary couple. The two met
for the first time in 1919, and it was, it seems, a classic case of
love at first sight. At the time, Wescott was still in his teens and
Wheeler just 20. (Wescott's photo below) Seemingly inured to the social
mores of the time and inconstancies of youth, the two embarked on a
relationship that can be called nothing short of a marriage, for the
next 68 years, until Wescott's death in 1987.
The
young couple traveled the world, stopping in on Gertrude Stein's Paris
Salon and crossing paths with Jean Cocteau on the Riviera, while
Wescott developed his poetry and later fiction (he authored The
Grandmothers and The Pilgrim Hawk, among other bestsellers of his day)
and Wheeler found his path. Eventually he would become the director of
exhibitions and publications at the Museum of Modern Art.
The
two moved with equal ease through the literary and artistic circles of
London and the continent as well as their families' Midwestern homes.
That their relationship thrived is notable enough. But 1927 brought a
new challenge to their pairing. High-school student George Platt Lynes
fell passionately in love with the strikingly good-looking Wheeler. And
Wheeler, for his part, was entranced by Lyne’s 'full, luscious mouth
and his wasp-like waist'. Instead of driving a wedge between Wescott
and Wheeler, as might be expected, Lynes soon became part of their
shared life. When, after some casting about, he hit upon photography,
the two nurtured his career and used their considerable connections to
get him both work and gallery shows.