Shut Down and Open Up: A Biconical Extravaganza (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781722879310)

John (James) O'Loughlin was born in Galway, the Republic of Ireland, of mixed Irish and British parents in 1952. Following a parental split due in part to ethnic incompatibilities, he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who had initially returned to Ireland with intent to stay) in the mid-50s and subsequently attended schools in Aldershot, Hampshire 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. Upon lelaving in 1970 with an assortment of CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCEs (General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved 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 WC1, where he eventually became responsible for booking examination venues throughout the British Isles. After a brief flirtation with Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, where he had enrolled to take English and History A' Levels, he returned to his former job in the West End but quit the ABRSM in 1976 due to a combination of factors, including ill-health, and began to dedicate himself to a literary vocation which, despite a brief spell as a computer tutor at Hornsey Management Agency (affiliated to the local YMCA) in the late '80s and early '90s, he has continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), Cross-Purposes (1979), Thwarted Ambitions (1980), Sublimated Relations (1981), and Deceptive Motives (1982). Since the mid-80s Mr O'Loughlin has dedicated himself exclusively to philosophy, his true literary vocation, and has penned more than ninety 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). John O'Loughlin is a bachelor who lives alone in Haringey, north London.