Spiegelberg was born into a Jewish family in Hamburg, Germany, in 1897 and earned his doctorate at the University of Tübingen in 1922. He went on to earn a theological degree from the German Lutheran Church. He studied with theologians Rudolf Otto and Paul Tillich, the philosopher Martin Heidegger, and the psychologist Carl Jung. He participated in Jung's Eranossymposia and lectured at Jung's institute in Zurich. In 1933, Spiegelberg took over Tillich's position at the University of Dresden, but only four years later he was fired from his position and he and his wife, Rosalie, fled Hitler¹s Germany with the aid of Tillich. In the United States, Spiegelberg taught at Columbia University, the University of Rochester, the University of California, Union Theological Seminary and the Pacific School of Religion. He joined Stanford as a lecturer in religion in 1941 and retired in 1962 as professor of Indian civilization in the Department of Asiatic and Slavic Studies. He became an expert in Asian religions with a classical comparative focus. He was known for his command of languages, including Sanskrit, Pali, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German and French. He was considered an exceptional lecturer, winning student awards and the admiration of peers. In 1950, Spiegelberg invited Indian professor of philosophy Haridas Chaudhuri, who had done his dissertation on the Integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, to join the staff of the newly formed American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, the first accredited U.S. graduate school devoted exclusively to the study of Asiatic lands and peoples. This school was closed and replaced in 1968 by the California Institute of Asian Studies founded by Haridas Chaudhuri where Spiegelberg served as president from 1976 to 1978. In 1960, Spiegelberg and Chaudhuri published a commemorative volume on Sri Aurobindo. Spiegelberg was also involved in founding the Esalen Institute with former student Michael Murphy and Dick Price. In 2007, religion scholar Jeffrey Kripal summarized Spiegelberg's approach to religion as follows: Spiegelberg died in 1994 of complications from abdominal surgery. He was survived by a daughter, Corinne Wilkinson, as well as two children from an earlier marriage: a son, Valentin Spiegelberg, and a daughter, Dorothea Florian.
