After acquiring a law degree at Hull University in 1964, John Paul (J. Paul) Greenaway worked in the Civil Service and areas of education. The latter included 27 months of residential work in the mid-1970s in educational bodies based on approaches pioneered by Rudolf Steiner, these being the Camphill Organisation and Peredur School, East Grinstead, an approved school for pupils up to age 16. Subsequently, he returned to educational work in London.

For three years, from 1988 to the end of 1990, he was a residential working member in Tibetan Buddhist centres with a monastic base, and a support worker at a 'halfway' hostel under a Tibetan director. Then, he spent two years with a New Age-based educational body with a connection with the Findhorn Foundation, though not part of it. Subsequently, he wrote a critical account of the Findhorn Foundation and its particular version of the New Age, alias 'New Spirituality'. He later worked as a support worker in Aberdeen.

His interests now are country walking, early Christian history drawing on contextual approaches, and Mahayana Buddhism, including its links to early Christianity.  

He is the author of In the Shadow of the New Age: Decoding the Findhorn Foundation (£9).