The philosopher and occult writer Carl du Prel was the most prominent German-language theorist of the unconscious self immediately before Sigmund Freud, who once called du Prel “that brilliant mystic.” Revered by artists like R. M. Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint, du Prel’s writings informed the work of renowned psychologists other than Freud, such as William James and Carl Gustav Jung.
Yet, though du Prel was a household name until the early 20th century, shortly after World War II his prominence became eclipsed by Freudian and Jungian psychologies of the unconscious.
In a piece written for the Society for Psychical Research, I provide a short overview of du Prel’s life and ideas. The text also briefly discusses similarities between du Prel’s theories and the now more widely known ideas of British psychical researcher and subliminal psychologist, Frederic W. H. Myers.
You can read the article at https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/carl-du-prel
This was a fantastic article. Thank you. I had no idea who Carl du Prel was, even though he was clearly an influential and fascinating figure. Makes me realize how I know almost nothing about German Spiritualism. I recently read an article from Sphinx translated in a late 19th century issue of Light and there was a running debate involving some photographs of Eglinton that were published in Sphinx and his time in Germany.
Thank you for your feedback! There were quite a few translations of articles by du Prel in Light magazine in the 1880s and 1890s, check them out if you have a chance.