Carl Albrecht — physician / psychologist / philosopher with roots in the Russian Empire
Carl Eduard Albrecht, born in 1902, was the great-grandson of Baron Ludwig Knoop and the son of the Bremen cotton merchant Carl Albrecht. He did not continue in the family trade. He trained as a physician and worked as a psychologist and philosopher, and is remembered for an unusual body of research into mystical states of consciousness.
His method involved inducing and then systematically recording states of deep meditation, which he approached as an object of clinical and phenomenological study rather than of religious devotion. The resulting work occupies an uncommon position between psychology, philosophy and theology, and found an audience among theologians and researchers on contemplative practice.
He married Adda Berg. Their sons were Ernst Albrecht, the economist and politician, and George Alexander Albrecht, the conductor — the generation in which the family's commercial past gave way entirely to public and artistic life. He died in 1965.
His is the generation at which the Russian chapter of the family history becomes purely ancestral. He was born five years before the events that ended the Knoop enterprises and never had any connection to them beyond descent.
Tracing the roots — Moscow (Russia)
The generation in which the family's Russian commercial past gave way entirely to German professional life.
Carl Eduard Albrecht (1902-1965), physician, psychologist and philosopher, great-grandson of Baron Ludwig Knoop. Known for developing a method of meditation and for his research into mystical consciousness. Father of Ernst Albrecht and George Alexander Albrecht.
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Moscow (Russia). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.