I bring up the subject of Gumby and the spiritual claims surrounding him because I am often asked in class about the verdicality of certain metaphysical claims that abound in religious mythologies. My usual rejoinder is that we don’t want to enter into “Gumby Land” when doing philosophy since most of these kinds of questions (how many angels can sit atop an empty coke top?) are literally non-sense (in the precise definition of that term as first coined in the 17th century).

This small book explores the strange story of how Gumby’s creator, Art Clokey, went to India to see the infamous guru, Sathya Sai Baba, and how some worship Gumby as an incarnation of spiritual love. The overall thrust of this text is to show that humans tend to believe in anything and because of this lack certain key critical thinking skills.