DUALISM

John O’Loughlin was born in Salthill, Galway, the Republic of Ireland, of mixed Irish- and British-born parents in 1952. Following a parental split he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who had initially returned to Ireland with her daughter upon the death of her Aldershot-based husband) in the mid-50s and subsequently attended schools in Aldershot and, upon the death and repatriation of his Irish-born grandmother, Carshalton, 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 state schools. Upon leaving high school in pre-GCSE era 1970 with an assortment of CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCEs (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 Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford Square, where he eventually became responsible for booking examination venues throughout the British & Irish Isles. After a brief flirtation with further education at Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, he returned to his former job in the West End but, due to a combination of factors, left the Associated Board in 1976 in order to pursue a literary vocation which, despite a brief spell as a computer-cum-office-skills tutor at Hornsey YMCA in the late '80s and early '90s, he has steadfastly continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), An Interview Reviewed (1979), Secret Exchanges (1980), Sublimated Relations (1981), and Deceptive Motives (1981). Since the mid-80s Mr O'Loughlin has exclusively dedicated himself to philosophy, his true literary vocation, and penned several titles of a philosophical nature, including Devil and God (1985–6), Towards the Supernoumenon (1987), Elemental Spectra (1988–9), Philosophical Truth (1991–2) and, more recently, The Best of All Possible Worlds (2008), The Centre of Truth (2009), Insane but not Mad (2011) and Philosophic Flights of Poetic Fancy (2012).