Bestselling author Michael Murphy (b. 1930) has been called the father of the human potential movement, one of the most influential movements in twentieth-century American culture. His bestselling book Golf in the Kingdom (1972) inspired the creation of the Shivas Irons Society, a nonprofit group dedicated to finding beauty and discovery through the game of golf, and has recently been adapted into a movie starring Malcolm McDowell (2010). His other books include Jacob Atabet (1977), An End to Ordinary History (1982), In the Zone (1995), and The Kingdom of Shivas Irons (1997). He lives in California.
Rhea A. White (b. 1931) is a prominent American parapsychologist. Born in Utica, New York, she graduated from the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in 1953, and served as a research fellow at the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University, a research assistant at the Integral Foundation, a research and editorial associate at the American Society for Psychical Research, a key member of the Parapsychological Association, and more. In 1981, White founded the Parapsychology Sources of Information Center with the first computerized database of literature on psychical research and parapsychology. The writer and editor of a variety of articles, her best-known works include Parapsychology: New Sources of Information and In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports, which she coauthored with Michael Murphy.