However, Krausism became very popular and influential in Restoration Spain not as a complete, comprehensive philosophical system per se, but as a broad cultural movement.

Karl's father Johann was a teacher at the lyceum in Eisenberg, and in 1795 became a Lutheran pastor and hymn collector in Nobitz.

[5] He also attended lectures by theologians Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745-1812), Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus (1761-1851), Karl David Ilgen (1763-1834), and Johann Adolf Jacobi (1769-1847), and lectures by professors in various departments of science and mathematics, including A. J. G. C. Batsch, F. F. Bretschneider, J. F. A. Göttling, J. C. F. Graumüller, J. G. Lenz, J. F. C. von Loder, K. D. M. Stahl, L. J. D. Suckow, and J. H. Voigt.

He, therefore, proceeded to Dresden (where he taught Arthur Schopenhauer), and afterwards to Munich, where he died of apoplexy at the very moment when the influence of Franz von Baader had at last obtained a position for him.

Therefore, although Krause's philosophy is accurately described as being "panentheistic", Krausism as a whole is better categorized as an Identitätsphilosophie which features panentheism as one of its primary fundamental components.

However, according to evidence provided by Philip Clayton,[10] the German idealist philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) had already used this term (albeit in a slightly different form - in the form of the phrase "pan + en + theism"), and also had discussed numerous concepts and issues related to it, in his Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände (1809) (Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and Matters Connected Therewith).

In his published works, Krause first used the term "panentheism" (in its German-language form "panentheismus") in Vorlesungen über das System der Philosophie (Göttingen: 1828).

[12] The term "panentheismus" next appears in his Vorlesungen über die Grundwahrheiten der Wissenschaft, zugleich in ihrer Beziehung zu dem Leben.

[8] Ideal society results from the widening of the organic operation of this principle from the individual man to small groups of men, and finally to mankind as a whole.

The differences disappear as the inherent identity of structure predominates in an ever-increasing degree, and in the final unity Man is merged in God.

The spirit of his thought is mystical and by no means easy to follow, and this problem is accentuated, even for German readers, by his use of artificial and/or invented terminology.

He left behind at his death a mass of unpublished notes, some of which have been collected and published by his disciples K. D. A. Röder,[16] J. H. Ahrens,[17] F. W. T. Schliephake,[18] H. K. von Leonhardi[19] (Krause's son-in-law), Guillaume Tiberghien,[20] and others.

[8] Krausism became particularly influential in Spain in the 19th century, where Krause's ideas were introduced and promoted by Julián Sanz del Río[21] (1814-1869), an academic based in Madrid.

As a cultural movement, it emphasised scientific rationalism, combined with Christian spirituality, a liberal commitment to individual freedom, and opposition to privilege and arbitrary power.