It would seem that John O'Loughlin adds ten poems to each new volume of poetry; for this collection has some fifty-four poems, dating from 1985, which carry on, both stylistically and thematically, from approximately where those in 'The Modern Death' (1984) leave off, with, if anything, a slightly deeper metaphysical and ideological bias. The title derives, as usual, from one of the poems, and has to be read to be believed

Comprising thirty-three biographical sketches of some of the twentieth-century's most influential and powerful people in both politics and the arts, including Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, de Valera, Mussolini, de Gaulle, Ben-Gurian, Andre Malraux, Bertrand Russell, Salvador Dali, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Aldous Huxley, Portraits (1985) seeks to provoke as well as to praise, and should prove of interest to those who are curious to learn how various exceptional men - and one exceptional woman - measure up to a Social Transcendentalist analysis or, more correctly, to the scrutiny of...

Although arguably a relatively minor work in itself, this volume of essayistic aphorisms and/or aphoristic notes by John O'Loughlin is nevertheless significant inasmuch as it signifies his first real attempt to approach and develop Truth, or metaphysical knowledge, from a consistently aphoristic, not to say, ideological angle, and may be regarded as a harbinger of those so-called 'supernotational' projects which, with a certain aphoristic flair, were to preoccupy him during the years 1985-93. Divided into two parts, both of which are largely concerned with evaluating and re-evaluating various...

Originally intended to be John O'Loughlin's last and ultimate work, this project, dealing with distinctions between the Devil and God, embraces over 250 'supernotes', his definition of which is something between an essay and an aphorism, not generally as long as the former or as short as the latter. In fact, it is the indeterminacy of this genre which most characterizes 'Devil and God', since one can proceed straight from a two-line entry to one that is several pages in length. Also significant of his definition of supernotes is the fact that they are anything but scrappy or off-the-cuff, as...

Akin in structure to 'Devil and God - The Omega Book', the first of a succession of 'supernotational', or loosely aphoristic, volumes stemming from the mid-eighties, this 1986 project combines nearly 250 'supernotes' in its investigation of a variety of subjects, with particular reference to the relationships between materialism, naturalism, realism, and idealism in what is conceived to be an evolutionary framework. Hence the title 'From Materialism to Idealism', in which a fourfold view of history, as of the world, is systematically developed.

Carrying on from where 'From Materialism to Idealism' (1986) leaves off, this volume of supernotes, or loosely aphoristic material, is more intensely philosophical than its predecessor, as it introduces to the fourfold structures already established the concept of devolutionary/evolutionary antitheses into historical development, coupling this to an investigation of certain key historico-ontological philosophers, including Schopenhauer, and contrasting his noumenal-phenomenal approach to philosophy with what John O'Loughlin has called a superphenomenal-supernoumenal one intended to illustrate...

Dating from 1988-9, this work investigates the significance of the four basic elements, viz. air, fire, water and earth, with regard to a variety of different disciplinary contexts, including science, politics, economics and religion, and then seeks 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...

Although not a critique in the strictly analytical sense, this 1989-91 title is nonetheless sufficiently methodical and wide-ranging in its comprehensive treatment of a variety of interrelated subjects as to warrant serious consideration as a vehicle for the advancement, on a Social Transcendentalist basis, of post-dialectical idealism (truth) in a world too long torn between the conflicting claims of realism and materialism. Of especial significance here are the T-like diagrammatic structures which enabled John O'Loughlin to flesh-out, in fairly comprehensive vein, the various components of...