Patricia Ferris McGinn is a licensed professional counselor and former executive director of the Illinois Mental Health Counselors Association. She teaches in the art therapy program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is active in political advocacy for counselors on the state and national level.

Bernard McGinn is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor emeritus at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, where he taught for thirty-four years before retiring in 2003. McGinn has written extensively on the history of apocalyptic traditions, and especially on spirituality and mysticism. His major project is the multi-volume history of Western Christian mysticism under the general title of The Presence of God. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a Fellow of the Medieval Academy. McGinn has also served as President of a number of learned societies, such as the Medieval Academy and the American Society of Church History.