Carl du Prel

Magic as Natural Science, Part One: Magical Physics

Web edition, version 1.0, 10 October 2026

Series C6T · 15 parts · 79,371 words · about 5 hr 45 min to read

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The water-stained paper cover of the 1899 printing: Die Magie als Naturwissenschaft in decorative lettering with small stars, then in Fraktur von Dr. Carl du Prel, Erster Teil: Die magische Physik, the Heraclitus motto, the publisher’s device, and Jena, Hermann Costenoble, 1899
The paper cover of the 1899 printing. New York Public Library, by way of the Internet Archive.

Title Page, Translator's Note, Contents, and Preface are free to read. The rest is for Club members: create a free account before January 1, 2027 and confirm your email, and you are a Charter Member, with every part, for good. Join the Club.

Carl du Prel (1839 to 1899), philosopher and writer on mysticism and the occult, published Die Magie als Naturwissenschaft in two parts at Jena in 1899, the year of his death. In this first part, Magical Physics, he argues that every so-called magical phenomenon must rest on forces of nature not yet discovered, and gathers the evidence of a century of magnetizers, somnambulists and mediums to show what those forces might be. This is its first English translation, as far as the press has been able to find.

The edition
Carl du Prel, Die Magie als Naturwissenschaft. Erster Teil: Die magische Physik. Jena: Hermann Costenoble, 1899. 202 pages.
The text
Translated from the page images of the New York Public Library’s copy, digitized by Google, by way of the Internet Archive. Smudged pages were read from a second copy of the 1899 printing, also from the New York Public Library, and one leaf from a third scan; a few words no copy shows are marked […]. The French translation of 1907 has not been compared. See the scanned book.
Rights
Du Prel’s German text is in the public domain. The cover, the publisher’s device and the ornaments are reproduced from the New York Public Library’s copy, by way of the Internet Archive.
Copyright
Translation © 2026 B. C. P. Statema. The Thinking Press, Kenosha, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
Scripture
Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Translator’s Note

Carl du Prel (1839 to 1899) published Die Magie als Naturwissenschaft in two parts at Jena, with Hermann Costenoble, in 1899, the year of his death; his preface is signed at Partenkirchen. This is the first part, Die magische Physik: ten chapters on telepathy, the od of Reichenbach, magnetized water, levitation, table-turning, the stones thrown in haunted houses and the divining rod, which du Prel sets out to explain as natural science not yet known. It runs to 201 pages. The second part, Die magische Psychologie, follows as a separate title.

This translation is made from the page images of the New York Public Library’s copy, digitized by Google and kept on the Internet Archive. Where that copy is smudged or blank, as some thirty of its pages are, the German was read from the page images of a second scan of the same printing, also from the New York Public Library; one leaf missing from that scan and illegible in the first was read from a third, kept on the Internet Archive under Google’s number for it. A few words that no copy shows are marked […]. The scans’ machine-read text was used only to find places.

The English keeps du Prel’s ten chapters, with the subsections of the second and seventh, and his paragraphs as he printed them. Each heading is given in English and then as he printed it. His own footnotes stay beside the paragraph that carries them, numbered as he numbered them page by page; their titles are kept in the languages he cited them in. Words he set in spaced type are in italics. His Latin and French quotations are translated, with the Latin kept beside the English where he quotes it at length. The publisher’s notice inside the cover, the title page and the dedication are translated in their places; the printer’s line is kept at the end; the publisher’s advertisements bound after the book are left out. The page numbers of 1899 are not reproduced.

The text is translated without modern commentary. A few notes, marked with a dagger and a roman numeral and gathered at the end, give the source of the motto and the wording of the Bible verses du Prel quotes or retells, in the King James and the Revised Standard Versions; each says where its information comes from.

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Contents

  1. Title PageFree to readTitelblatt1 min
  2. Translator's NoteFree to read2 min
  3. ContentsFree to readInhalt.1 min
  4. PrefaceFree to readVorrede.5 min
  5. I. The Unknown Natural ScienceMembersI. Die unbekannte Naturwissenschaft.28 min
  6. II. The Magical Deepening of Modern Natural ScienceMembersII. Die magische Vertiefung der modernen Naturwissenschaft.45 min
  7. III. Animal Magnetism as the Key to Magical PhysicsMembersIII. Der animalische Magnetismus als Schlüssel zur magischen Physik.29 min
  8. IV. The Odic Exteriorization of ManMembersIV. Die odische Exteriorisation des Menschen.42 min
  9. V. The Sympathetic Method of CureMembersV. Die sympathetische Kurmethode.31 min
  10. VI. Magnetized WaterMembersVI. Magnetisiertes Wasser.24 min
  11. VII. Gravitation and LevitationMembersVII. Gravitation und Levitation.1 hr 15 min
  12. VIII. Table-Turning as a Problem of PhysicsMembersVIII. Das Tischrücken als physikalisches Problem.19 min
  13. IX. The Mystical MissilesMembersIX. Die mystischen Wurfgeschosse.18 min
  14. X. The Divining RodMembersX. Die Wünschelrute.25 min
  15. NotesMembers2 min

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Revisions

  • 1.0, 10 October 2026. First publication: the whole of the first part, with the publisher’s notice, title page, dedication, preface and ten chapters.