Karl Blacher

Professor Karl Blacher - graduate of the Riga Polytechnic and professor of chemistry of the Polytechnic Institute of Riga, the Polytechnic Institute of Iwanowo –Wosnessensk in Russia and the Latvian University of Riga Karl Blacher (1867 – 1939). Professor Blacher as well as his activities in these universities has often been described, but his teachings in (practice) chemical engineering and his interest in parapsychology has so far not been investigated.

K. Blacher has gone on several business trips abroad to get familiar with the chemical industry and the technical and pedagogy-related issues. Based on the work of Latvian universities and his foreign experience, he wrote articles and books about chemistry, pedagogy and parapsychology in Russian and German, he was the editor of the journal „Seelenprobleme” (Problems of Psyche) which was printed in Riga.

He was active in the “Naturforscherverein of Riga” (Association for Natural Sciences in Riga), of the Riga Technical Society, the Latvian Society of Chemistry, German Liberal Club, the Corporation of German Students „Rubonia” and other organisations.

He was the founder of the "Mental Research Association of Latvia” and its chairman for many years.

Professor K.Blachers acquaintances were both world recognized scientists, although not as known as he was, and even as quite contradictory personalities as the Riga Clairvoyant Eugene Fincke and others.

Professor Blachers son Carl Heinrich Blacher studied chemistry, but his son Ernst Wilhelm Blacher - mechanics.

After the Hitler – Stalin Pact Members of the family of Professor Blacher were repatriated in 1939 to Germany.

by Alida Zigmunde, Saulcerite Neilande