Christopher McIntosh is a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Earlier in his life he worked in publishing in London and subsequently for the United Nations Development Programme in New York and UNESCO in Hamburg, and has travelled throughout the world. He was for several years on the faculty of the Centre for the Study of Esotericism at Exeter University. His books include The Astrologers and their Creed (1969); Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival (1972); The Rosicrucians (latest edition 1997); The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason (1992), based on his D.Phil. dissertation; The Swan King: Ludwig II of Bavaria (latest edition 2003); and Gardens of the Gods (2005). Apart from the present book, his fictional work includes the occult novel Return of the Tetrad (Oxford: Mandrake, 2013) and two volumes of short stories: Master of the Starlit Grove (2014) and The Wyrde Garden (2015). He also has a long-standing interest in nature-oriented belief systems. His home is in northern Germany.