McIvor-Tyndall was born in Leicestershire to Dr. Alexander and Agnes Stuart.[1] In 1890, McIvor-Tyndall gave theosophical lectures in Canada. He was theosophical editor of Denver Sunday Post (1906–1907) and edited The Swastika: A Magazine of Triumph (1906–1911) an occult magazine.[1][2] He founded the International New Thought Fellowship and in 1907, Swastika headquarters in the United States.[3] He was the founder of the International Swastika Society.
McIvor-Tyndall wrote under the pseudonyms Ali Nomad and Dr. John Lockwood.[4] In 1913, under the pseudonym Ali Nomad he authored the book Cosmic Consciousness: The Man-God Whom We Await. In the book he promoted
the idea that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was the latest incarnation of God in India.[5]
McIvor-Tyndall married Margaret Logan of Los Angeles on September 3, 1896.[1] He married Laura Hudson Wray on June 13, 1917 in Crown Point, Indiana. In total he married six times.[3][6]
McIvor-Tyndall was notable for performing the blindfold drive. This involved driving a carriage through crowded streets blindfolded whilst reading the thoughts of the man seated beside him.[7][8] In 1893, McIvor-Tyndall requested the St. Louis Republic to appoint a committee to ride with him in a carriage. Theodore Dreiser was present on the committee and authored several articles about McIvor-Tyndall's successful "mind-reading" demonstrations.[9][10][11] However, in 1896 he was arrested in Sacramento, California because he was driving a carriage too fast.[7] He was also known for his "death-trances", it was alleged that he could cheat death and return to life.[12] Skeptics dismissed McIvor-Tyndall as a fakir. His mind-reading demonstrations were similar to the mentalist Washington Irving Bishop.
In the late 1890s, McIvor-Tyndall worked as a palmist, giving lectures and private palm reading sessions.[13][14] In 1902, he performed successful billet reading tests that impressed Eugene Schmitz the mayor of San Francisco and several city officials.[15] In 1908, McIvor-Tyndall became known as a psychic sleuthinLos Angeles. Whilst blindfolded he aimed to direct a posse assembled by Col. E. J. Bell to a murderer. He stated that he had received a vision of the murderer whilst in a trance in Denver.[16] McIvor-Tyndall was involved with other criminal cases, for example years earlier in 1893 he was given permission to hypnotise convicted murderer Jacob Menze. After the hypnotic test, McIvor-Tyndall declared Menze to be innocent.[17]
