Following the foundation of the Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene e.V. (IGPP, Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and mental health) in 1950, the city of Freiburg was soon regarded as the “Mecca of Parapsychology” or – as the journalist Albert Sellner put it in 1986 – the “Locus Occultus”. While this more recent development is well known, not least due to the continued existence of IGPP, little is known about the state and spread of scientific and popular occultism in Freiburg in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Although the spread of occult institutions, publishers and associations and the number of practising occultists during this period (i.e. around 1850 to 1950) was probably nowhere near as dense and extensive as in the urban occult strongholds of Berlin, Munich and Leipzig, the sources nevertheless contain a whole series of relevant references to special institutions, interesting individual events and people in Freiburg who were intensively involved in the subject.

In a local history research project, these clues were investigated and a further search for clues was undertaken. The relevant archive and library holdings of IGPP, corresponding records in Freiburg’s municipal and regional archives and, above all, contemporary press reports serve as the primary source basis.