Edwin Muir CBE (15 May 1887 – 3 January 1959) was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. Born on a farm in Deerness, a parish of Orkney, Scotland, he is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry written in plain language and with few stylistic preoccupations.
Raël (born Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon, 30 September 1946) is a French journalist who founded and leads the Raëlian Movement, an international UFO religion.
Before becoming a religious leader, Raël, then known as Claude Vorilhon, worked as a sports-car journalist and test driver for his car-racing magazine, Autopop. Following a purported extraterrestrial encounter in December 1973, he formed the Raëlian Movement and changed his name to Raël. He later published several books, which detail the encounter with a being called Yahweh in 1973. He traveled the world to promote his books for over 30 years.
Neale Donald Walsch (born September 10, 1943) is an American author of the series Conversations with God. He is also an actor, screenwriter, and speaker.
Elizabeth Clare Prophet (née: Wulf, a.k.a. Guru Ma) (April 8, 1939 – October 15, 2009) was an American spiritual leader, author, orator, and writer. In 1963 she married Mark L. Prophet (after ending her first marriage), who had founded The Summit Lighthouse in 1958. Mark and Elizabeth had four children. Elizabeth, after her second husband's death on February 26, 1973, assumed control of The Summit Lighthouse.In 1975, Prophet founded Church Universal and Triumphant, which became the umbrella organization for the movement, and which she expanded worldwide. She also founded Summit University and Summit University Press. In the late 1980s Prophet controversially called on her members to prepare for the possibility of nuclear war at the turn of the decade, encouraging them to construct fallout shelters. In 1996, Prophet handed day-to-day operational control of her organization to a president and board of directors. She maintained her role as spiritual leader until her retirement due to health reasons in 1999.During the 1980s and 1990s, Prophet appeared on Larry King Live, Donahue and Nightline, among other television programs. Earlier media appearances included a feature in 1977 in "The Man Who Would Not Die," an episode of In Search of... She was also featured in 1994 on NBC's Ancient Prophecies.
Brad Steiger (February 19, 1936 – May 6, 2018) was an American writer of fiction and non-fiction works on the paranormal, spirituality, UFOs, true crime and biographies. His books sold well to the public but were widely criticized by academics and skeptics for making far-fetched claims without scientific evidence.
Carlos Castañeda (December 25, 1925 – April 27, 1998) was an American writer. Starting in 1968, Castaneda published a series of books that describe a training in shamanism that he received under the tutelage of a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named don Juan Matus. While Castaneda's work was accepted as factual by many when the books were first published, the training he described is now generally considered to be fictional.The first three books—The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, A Separate Reality, and Journey to Ixtlan—were written while he was an anthropology student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Castaneda was awarded his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles based on the work he described in these books.At the time of his death in 1998, Castaneda's books had sold more than eight million copies and had been published in 17 languages.
Ken Keyes Jr. (January 19, 1921 – December 20, 1995) was an American personal growth author and lecturer, and the creator of the Living Love method, a self-help system. Keyes wrote fifteen books on personal growth and social consciousness issues, representing about four million copies distributed overall.
Jacques Jean Lhermitte (English: ) (20 January 1877 – 24 January 1959) was a French neurologist and neuropsychiatrist.
Hans Bender (5 February 1907 – 7 May 1991) was a German lecturer on the subject of parapsychology, who was also responsible for establishing the parapsychological institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg. For many years his pipe smoking, contemplative figure was synonymous with German parapsychology. He was an investigator of 'unusual human experience', e.g. poltergeists and clairvoyants. One of his most famous cases was the Rosenheim Poltergeist.
