A KNOWLEDGEABLE APPROACH TO TRUTH & A TRUTHFUL APPROACH TO KNOWLEDGE

Welcome to the COLLECTED ESSAYS (1979-84) of

A KNOWLEDGEABLE APPROACH TO TRUTH

A TRUTHFUL APPROACH TO KNOWLEDGE

by John O'Loughlin of Centretruths Digital Media

Links to the files of which follow the brief introduction below:-

This collection of essays is taken from a variety of projects, including (besides essays) volumes composed of dialogues, aphorisms and/or maxims which I wrote between 1979 and 1984, and is representative of a comparatively early phase of my philosophical development, when my struggle towards truth was still in the shadow, as it were, of knowledge and hence of a massive if not voluminous presentation. The subject-matter ranges widely between mostly cultural, social, and political subjects, but gradually narrows down towards a specific ideological stance which I have equated with Social Transcendentalism and thus with a kind of ultimate politico-religious orientation which is less concerned with man than with his hypothetical future transmutation towards what has been called the post-Human Millennium, a period in time or, rather, eternity when man is superseded and effectively transcended by that which stands closer to the godly if not, in a profounder sense, to God per se and therefore to a higher and more radical order of godliness than anything that has obtained before. Such, in a nutshell, is the drift of this chronological collection of essays, which set me on the road towards my post-essayistic writings and to the eventual aphoristic apotheosis of my development as a writer of philosophical-cum-theosophical works. - John O'Loughlin.

CONTENTS

CLASSIC AND DECADENT LITERATURE

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN WORLD

AN OUTLINE OF TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION

PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE

URBAN STERILITY AND THE MODERN SOUL

THE FALL OF LOVE

THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE

THE ESSENTIAL GOAL

MEANS BEFORE ENDS

POST-EGOCENTRIC ART

NATURAL SEX AND ARTIFICIAL SEX

CONFESSIONS OF AN ATHEIST

THE LITERARY REVOLUTION

MUSIC IN AN AGE OF TRANSITION

HISTORICAL ANALOGIES

THE WAY OF EVOLUTION

FUTURE TRANSFORMATIONS

IRISH AND ENGLISH

A TEASING PARADOX

MILLENNIAL THOUGHTS

POST-DUALISTIC SEXUALITY

TOWARDS A TRUE EQUALITY

CONCERNING TRANSCENDENTALISM

MUSICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

SAFEGUARDING FREEDOM

PROTONS AND ELECTRONS

TWO KINDS OF DEPENDENCE

MATERIALISTS AND SPIRITUALISTS

LITERARY DEVELOPMENTS

TRANSITIONAL LITERATURES

A SECOND COMING

TRUE MESSIAHS AND FALSE MESSIAHS

ANTITHETICAL EQUIVALENTS

WITHERING OF THE STATE

CHRISTIAN PAGANS

TRANSVALUATIONS

FUTURE RELIGIOUS PROGRESS

THE EVOLUTION OF ART

HUMAN EXTREMES

POST-ATOMIC PROGRESS

TWO APPROACHES TO SALVATION

AN ABSOLUTE ASPIRATION

CONCERNING SWEARERS

THE FUTURE ABSOLUTE

TWO TYPES OF CRITICISM

BETWEEN TWO GRAVITIES

UNDERSTANDING JAZZ

PHILOSOPHY - GENUINE AND PSEUDO

THE ULTIMATE MUSIC

A FEUDAL PROTOTYPE

SEXUAL EVOLUTION

A ZIGGZAGGING PROGRESSION

FROM THE BARBAROUS TO THE CIVILIZED

TOWARDS AN ABSOLUTELY FREE-ELECTRON LITERATURE

TOWARDS AN ABSOLUTE ARCHITECTURE

EVOLUTIONARY SPECTRA

NEW BEGINNINGS - OLD ENDINGS

THE RISE OF THEOCRATIC CENTRISM

John James O’Loughlin was born in Salthill, Galway, the Republic of Ireland, of mixed Irish- and British-born parents in 1952. Following a parental split due to ethnic and other incompatibilities (they called her 'Mary Aldershot'), he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who had initially returned to Ireland with intent to stay following the death of her British-based husband) in the mid-50s and subsequently attended schools in Aldershot, Oakham, and, following the death and repatriation of his grandmother, Carshalton Beeches, Surrey, where, despite an enforced change of denomination from Catholic to Protestant in consequence of having been put into care by his mother, he attended a state school. Graduating in 1970 with an assortment of CSE’s (Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCE’s (General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved the comparatively short distance up to London and went on, via two short-lived jobs, to work at the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford Square, where he eventually became responsible for booking examination venues. After a brief flirtation with Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, he returned to his former job in the West End but retired from the ABRSM in 1976 due to a combination of factors, including ill-health, and proceeded to dedicate himself to a literary vocation which, despite a brief spell as a computer tutor at Hornsey YMCA in the late '80s and early '90s, he has effectively continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), Cross-Purposes (1979), Thwarted Ambitions (1980), Sublimated Relations (1981), and Deceptive Motives (1982). From the mid-80s Mr O'Loughlin dedicated himself exclusively to philosophy, his true literary vocation, and has penned more than sixty titles of a philosophical nature, including Devil and God – The Omega Book (1985-6), Towards the Supernoumenon (1987), Elemental Spectra (1988-9), and Philosophical Truth (1991-2), and, more recently, The Centre of Truth (2009). John O’Loughlin is a bachelor who lives alone in Hornsey, north London.