Alexander J. (Alexander James) McIvor-Tyndall

Born in England in 1860, Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall later became active in the United States as a hypnotist, mentalist, lecturer, and writer. He was also known by the name Ali Nomad, and his public life brought together performance, popular psychology, and spiritual speculation.

He gave theosophical lectures in Canada, worked as the theosophical editor of the Denver Sunday Post, and edited The Swastika: A Magazine of Triumph, an occult magazine published in the early 1900s. He also founded the International New Thought Fellowship, showing how closely his writing was tied to the wider New Thought and metaphysical movements of his time.

Today, he is remembered less as a mainstream literary figure than as a vivid personality from an era fascinated by clairvoyance, suggestion, and the hidden powers of the mind. That background gives his books an unusual character: part spiritual writing, part self-development, and part window into a distinctive corner of turn-of-the-century culture.