OPERA D’OEUVRE 2
THE COLLECTED LITERATURE 1973–2014 OF JOHN O'LOUGHLIN
With
an Introduction by the author
Copyright
© 2014 John O’Loughlin
____________
INTRODUCTION
To anyone who can only
conceive of literary work in the context of books, or possibly even
audio-cassettes and/or audio CDs, this major compilation of assorted electronic
texts originally intended for CD-Rom but now also available over the Internet
may seem a trifle bizarre; but, to me, it signifies the culmination of a
process of creative and ideological evolution that began several decades ago
and that, frankly, would not be served to best advantage on anything short of the
chosen medium.
For the Internet is the ideal choice, it seems to me, for anyone
who not only has a large oeuvre - spanning well over a quarter of a century
- to present to the critical judgement of others, but who believes, moreover,
that it is a highly appropriate medium, given its universality, in which to
publish or, rather, freely disseminate works of a truly philosophical and
therefore truth-loving order.
Such works, it must be said, can only be aphoristic, or of a
notational brevity that defies prolixity, and it is because the greater and
most significant part of my literary oeuvre happens to be such, that I have
taken the trouble of putting it on the Internet, so that its true stature as
something germane to a higher and more subjective order of literature, not to
say civilization, than that pertaining to books (with their printerly,
rectilinear, voluminous, structural, and other limitations owing more to
worldly criteria than to what is genuinely otherworldly in the synthetic
artificiality of its urban universality), is granted due recognition.
Obviously there were stages to my becoming the radical
philosopher that the above comments might indicate, and such stages are
arguably more apparent in the earlier parts of my oeuvre, when I had
yet to exclusively dedicate myself to philosophy but was still endeavouring to
pursue a more conventional literary path based around both poetry and, in
particular, fiction.
At that time, back in the 1970s and early '80s, I had no idea
that one day I would unequivocally transcend these more conventional genres in
the interests of a consistently methodical pursuit of moral or rational truth; though I always knew, deep down, that
I was more truth-orientated than, say, beauty- or knowledge-orientated, even if
I had yet to discover that an enhanced sense of and commitment to higher
knowledge, to what should, in genuinely religious terms, be called truth per se, or Truth
(with a capital 'T'), could only be upheld on the basis of a sort of aphoristic
purism that would both confirm and enhance one's entitlement to effectively
consider oneself - over and above pedantic concessions to academic convention -
a true philosopher, as opposed, for instance, to a poet or a novelist who
occasionally dabbles, essayistically or otherwise, in
philosophy.
All things take time, and my growth as a writer in the process
of becoming ever more intensely philosophical, and thus effectively Messianic,
was no exception! I am only glad that I
kept at it, and thus discovered my true vocation, the sphere of creativity
where I would peak and eventually achieve something close to if not actually
constitutive of literary perfection.
In that respect, my slow rise to literary enlightenment could be
said to resemble the gradual progress of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim' towards the '
No, one cannot get to the Truth overnight, and if I have got to
it, that is to say, to an accommodation with a species of higher knowledge
which, on account of its sensibly metaphysical orientation, I can logically
call true, then that is only because of the initial and intermediate stages of
literary creativity which, whilst falling demonstrably short of the Truth (as,
incidentally, they had every right to do) kept me on track for the goal that
destiny was seemingly preparing for me all the while - a goal of consummate
philosophical fulfilment such that made it possible for me to declare my
pursuit of Truth to have effectively reached its culmination and for me to take
upon myself certain Messianic presumptions and responsibilities, whereby it
might reasonably be inferred by anyone who becomes sufficiently well-acquainted
with my works that, through what I advocate, I am the resurrection of the 'dead
in life' to the 'Life Eternal', and that no-one - but no-one - can enter the
heaven of 'Kingdom Come' (as explained in rather more contemporary terms in my
later texts) except through me, which is to say, through a careful study and,
ultimately, acceptance and, more importantly, implementation of my mature
teachings, whether with my assistance - as would seem more logical - or
otherwise.
However, such teachings would not be all that accessible without
a painstaking progress, as chronologically as possible, through my entire oeuvre; for to fully
understand the terminological implications of a later work it helps to have
ploughed through an earlier one, to have climbed from a lower rung, as it were,
of the literary ladder to a higher rung, no matter how erroneous or mistaken
some of its earlier contentions or assumptions may happen to be or prove, in
retrospect, to have been, and thus gradually come to an understanding of the
way my mind works and how, inevitably, things only develop and improve
gradually ... as the fruit of unremitting effort carried on over an extended
period of methodical time, given the immense complexities of the task before
one.
Clearly, this possibility of chronologically progressing through
a large oeuvre
would not materialize without the help of a medium like the Internet, which can
accommodate far more material than a book and thereby enable the reader to
climb, ladder-like, from work to work, opus to opus (the product, in part, of a
musical bias and background, though the 'opera' of the overall title is
strictly a plural of 'opus'), and thus
acquire a deeper insight into the development of a complex philosophy
than would otherwise be possible.
Then, too, no-one can point a finger at such and such a work, or
particular aspect thereof, and say: "That is surely wrong; therefore he is
a waste of time," when they are only at the half-way stage or
three-quarters of the way through the oeuvre rather than at or near its end,
where (even if I had been 'wrong' before, as I for one would be only too ready
to concede) the conclusions about metaphysical truth, and lesser though related
concerns, are often so radical and contrary to what convention or tradition
might have led one to expect ... that one would never be able to take them
seriously without having had the benefit of formative or inconclusive
philosophical developments - some of which one might, on the contrary, have
erroneously believed to be true - en route
to that definitive destination.
For then one will be in a better position both to understand and,
hopefully, relate to them!
Truth does not reveal itself to people who have not placed
themselves cautiously and diligently at its metaphysical feet, having come to
it by whatever circuitous or rambling paths.
It took me, I repeat, over three decades of painstaking endeavour,
during which, for a variety of reasons, I was obliged to modify my approach to
philosophy time and time again. Now
although it may not take any prospective pilgrim through my literary works
anywhere near as long to get to the end of this particular intellectual
journey, still he will be 'on the path' longer than a few months before he
begins to understand even a fraction of the complexities involved!
Nevertheless progress can and, I hope, will be made; for at the
end of the 'journey' it is the reader who should confirm me in my endeavour,
thereby deciding whether or not the promise of sensible deliverance from
worldly vices it contains will be realized by the (phenomenal) Many rather than
simply continue to be hogged - and then imperfectly - by the (noumenal)
Few.
For the philosophy I have
developed, under the rubric of Social
Theocracy, is an ideological philosophy, a philosophy with social
implications,
and it appeals to those whom I have specifically earmarked, or
'chosen', to
consider well the potential for radical change it promises and to act,
democratically and responsibly, to help bring about such change in due
course,
so that the dream may be turned into reality and the reality bear all
the
hallmarks of the transmutation of this ideological philosophy into a
sort of psychological
theosophy - in short, of theory into practice.
I am, in a way, the judge of metaphysical truth, but I must also
be
judged, or recognized and acknowledged, in my limitations as a theorist and the distinction that must still exist, at the end of the day, between theory, no matter how 'true', and practice, else it will not bring to pass
something approximating to that which has been anticipated and expected
for so very long and which the Church has made it its responsibility to
uphold faith in - namely the establishment and furtherance, under
messianic auspices, of 'Kingdom Come', a sort of federal union of all
the countries that become involved with it, which, if my theories are
true, should eventually encompass the entire world, making global
civilization a unified reality ultimately capable of space-centre
apotheosis in what must approximate the 'Celestial City' of eschatological and theological hope.
A word of warning: Do not take me or my work for God. Being pro-godly or, more correctly, pro-Heaven through writings such as these is not the same as actually experiencing heavenly joy. There is no God in the person, nor in the 'book', the text, but only, at best, what is in favour of a society in which godliness, as a concomitant of Heaven, can exist, compliments of a metaphysical disposition that, whilst not shared by everyone, will nevertheless typify the leading principle of that more enlightened society which, as the product of an enlightened elite beholden to a messianic leader or mentor, can only be identified with 'Kingdom Come'. Finally a word or two about the text. I have purposely chosen to present my works in an italic writing style (French MT) because to my mind italics signify the ethereal, or noumenal, realm in which the greater part of my philosophy, being metaphysical, operates, and a writing style is necessarily a subjective approach to text proper to a wavicle as opposed to particle disposition commensurate, in this monochrome instance, with metaphysical criteria. The preference for white text on a black ground (except in the case of my second level eScrolls which I have chosen to present in a comparatively 'regressive' style) has also to do with metaphysics as requiring a kind of Nietzschean 'transvaluation of all values', though in this case the values being repudiated through transvaluation, namely black text or a white ground, coupled to a printed type of textual presentation, are those characterizing one of a number of non-metaphysical approaches to literature and are therefore largely, though in the case of my earlier works like novels and poems not entirely, irrelevant to my preponderating approach to philosophy which, being metaphysical, has been served, through the use of white-on-black italic writing or (as I prefer to think of it)
writerly text, in a manner befitting it, so that there is little or no lacuna between the subject matter and the way it is presented. If this is not true of my early writings, it is nevertheless so of the bulk of them, and with that in mind I have overridden pedantic considerations about the relevance of a given type of font to a given genre in the interests of a fairly uniform presentation of text that one would expect, I think, from any 'collected works', or attempt at synthesizing a large number of disparate works in such uniform textual and sometimes stylistic fashion that it should be easier to progress from one to another in some kind of chronological order, the basic requirement for better understanding of the way in which my writings, and hence overall approach to philosophy, have developed over the course of several decades. Besides, any works that purport to be metaphysically concerned with subjects like God and Heaven and the relationship between the two can only be enhanced by a style of presentation that is commensurate, within the language used (in this case English), with such subjects, so that they are granted the textual fremework they deserve, irrespective of whether this makes them inaccessible to the generality of persons accustomed, through the corporeal medium of print, to a more conventional mode of textual presentation. If so then, quite apart from the 'regressive' eScrolls alluded to above, there aer several black-on-white print-based options also available in the form of eBooks, so that what is freely available metaphysically 'On High', as if in relation to Heaven, can also be purchased 'down below' in the relatively more earthly guise of the eBook medium, and purchased, moreover, in a variety of formats on several different platforms. Not the ideal textural presentation for my philosophy, no; but nonetheless one that is surely better than nothing and, for all its corporeal limitations, no less thematically enlightening than the best of the works gathered together here under the enigmatic title 'Opera D'Oeuvre', to which I have latterly appended a subtitle designed to highlight the antithetical parallels, so to speak, between the alpha-most of my opuses and the omega-most in relation to the first and last titles of my overall oeuvre.
John O'Loughlin,
London 2009 (Revised and extended 2014)
NB.
Some common acronyms frequently occurring in the texts include:
CD(s)
- Compact Disc(s);
CND
- Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament;
CNS
- Central Nervous System;
CPU
- Central Processing Unit;
DVD(s)
- Digital Versatile Disc(s);
ESP
- Extra-Sensory Perception;
IUD
- Intra-Uterine Device;
LP(s)
- Long Player(s);
LSD
- Lysergic Acid Diethylamide;
PVC
- Polyvinyl Chloride;
VDU - Visual Display Unit.
