He was born on 3 April 1839 in Landshut, Bavaria (Germany). Baron Carl Du Prel was an outstanding philosopher and one of the greatest modern thinkers, as well as one of the most subtle researchers in the field of the mind.

As an army officer and doctor of philosophy at the University of Tübingen, he participated alongside Lombroso, Schiaparelli, Chiaia, Brofferio, Ermacora, Richet and Aksakof in the famous mediumistic experiments conducted in Milan in 1892. He joined the army to comply with his father's wishes. After his promotion to lieutenant, he took part in several battles in Bavaria. He commanded the concentration camp in Nemburg. Later, in 1872, he gave up his military career with the rank of captain.

He spent the rest of his life in Munich, initially devoting himself to the study of philosophy and aesthetics, with a particular interest in the study of spiritualist phenomena. Influenced by Kant's philosophy, he tended, under Hartmann's guidance, towards a rapprochement between Schopenhauer and Darwinism.

The first German edition of Alexandre Aksakof's work ‘Animism and Spiritism’, in which he refutes the work of Dr Hartmann, was published under the title ‘The Hypothesis of Spirits and their Ghosts’. Apparently, this controversy led to Du Prel's conversion to spiritualism, for as soon as Aksakof was forced to end the controversy for health reasons, Du Prel took over the task of continuing it against his former teacher. Carl Du Prel's bibliographical work was considerable (it comprises more than two dozen works). Among them, ‘Spiritism,’ ‘Clarity and Remote Action,’ ‘The Discovery of the Soul through the Occult Sciences,’ etc. are particularly noteworthy.

In one of his works, he wrote: "As long as man remains in doubt as to whether he is a physical and mortal being or a metaphysical, immortal being, he has no right to boast of his personal consciousness or to limit himself to viewing death as a leap into darkness. This is especially not the place of a philosopher, whose first duty, according to Socrates, is to know himself." Carl Du Prel died in 1899 in Heiligkreuz (Tyrol).