Dating from 1988-89, this seminal work investigates the significance of the basic elements, viz. air, fire, water and earth, with regard to a variety of different disciplinary contexts, including science, politics, economics and religion, before seeking to draw ideological and moral lessons from the apperceived correlations. Of additional significance in relation to the Elements are the relationships between being and doing, awareness and emotion, mind and brain, nature and artifice, individualism and collectivism. There is also, within Elemental Spectra, a critique of Arthur Koestler's tripartite theories, as developed in books like The Act of Creation and Janus - A Summing Up, as well as a refutation of his psychological pessimism concerning the dichotomous relationship between what he calls the 'old brain' and the 'new brain', roughly corresponding to the cerebellum and the cerebrum. In fact, Koestler is no less the principal philosophical target of this work than Schopenhauer was of the previous one(Towards the Supernoumenon, and although Mr O’Loughlin acknowledges his debt to Koestler as an influence on his thought, he was able to move beyond him at this point and accordingly dispense with a number of his theories. - A Centretruths editorial.
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