Margot Adler
Margot Adler in 2004
Born	(1946-04-16)April 16, 1946 Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.
Died	July 28, 2014(2014-07-28) (aged 68) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Author; Journalist; Lecturer; Wiccan Priestess[1]
Awards	Lord Ruthven Award (2015)

Margot Susanna Adler (April 16, 1946 – July 28, 2014) was an American author, journalist, and lecturer. She worked as a correspondent for National Public Radio for 35 years, became bureau chief of the New York office, and could be heard frequently on nationally syndicated All Things Considered and Morning Edition on National Public Radio (NPR).^[2] A self-described Wiccan High Priestess,^[1] she authored Drawing Down the Moon,^[3] a seminal work on neo-paganism in America.

Early life

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, she was the only child of Dr. Kurt Adler,^[4] and the only grandchild of renowned psychologist Alfred Adler, a contemporary and associate of Sigmund Freud’s and Carl Jung’s in Vienna before the Second World War. She was also the only child of her mother Freyda Nacque Adler (nee Pasternack) who was the daughter of uneducated immigrants, both of whom were dead by the time Margot was born. Freyda was charismatic--Margot likened her to Auntie Mame, beautiful, and a renowned political activist, and beloved mother to Margot. Both parents were Jewish although neither practiced the religion nor honored its religious holidays.^[5]

In her autobiographical account of growing up in the 60s, Heretic's Heart, she branded herself, “an alien in America (p.27).” Her paternal grandfather had been a personal friend of Leon Trotsky’s. Trotsky was ruthlessly hunted and ultimately assassinated by Stalin and his henchmen. Her grandfather had brought his family to the United States to avoid persecution by Stalinist, anti-Trotsky factions in Austria. But he was unable to save his oldest daughter, Valentine, who was imprisoned in Russia. Albert Einstein, a friend of the family interceded on the Alders’ behalf and learned that Valentine and her husband had died in a gulag in 1942 (Heretic's Heart, p. 40).

Margot describes herself as “raised by left-wing parents,” (Heretic's Heart, p. 29) a red diaper baby, in the height of the McCarthy era. Her father, like her grandfather, was a psychiatrist, who remained a cipher to Margot. He devoted his life’s work to analyzing his father’s theories of human psychology and drawing parallels to those of Karl Marx’s theories of economic socialism, although this work remained incomplete at the time of his death. Perhaps Margot described it best when she wrote, “The only thing that was beaten in my head was the Adlerian notion of ‘social interest,’ which, while never clearly defined in my youth, seemed to have something to do with being cooperative and merging your individual desires with the needs of society—rather like socialism” (Heretic's Heart, p. 39).

Margot grew up in Manhattan where she attended the famously liberal City and Country School in Greenwich Village, “my utopia, and the place that remained whole and intact and vibrant, even when my own family fell apart” (Heretic's Heart, p. 55). It was here that she fell in love with the stories of the gods and goddesses of myth that were later foundational in her decision to become a Wiccan priestess. There she also discovered her love of singing and performance which would influence her to go to the High School of Music & Art^[6] (later joined with the High School of Performing Arts to become the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts) in New York City.^[7]

It was her mother Freyda to whom she was closest and with whom she lived after her parents’ divorce. Her mother retained the family apartment on Manhattan’s West Side overlooking Central Park, which Margot inherited when it was still a rent-controlled apartment and which she and her husband subsequently purchased when the units became condominiums. Margot referred to the apartment as her bit of heaven on earth, high up on the western edge of Central Park with a view of the city. It came with all of the family mementos stored there since Margot’s childhood, including the letters that formed the basis of Heretic’s Heart.^[6]

Education

Adler received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York in 1970. She was a Nieman Fellow^[8] at Harvard University in 1982.^[9]

Journalism and radio

At the headquarters of NPR in Washington, DC, Margot Adler is honored with a memorial bench.

During the mid-1960s, Adler worked as a volunteer reporter for KPFA-FM, the Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley, California. After returning to New York City, she worked at its sister station, WBAI-FM, where, in 1972, she created the talk show Hour of the Wolf (still on the air as hosted by Jim Freund), and later another talk show, called Unstuck in Time.

Adler joined NPR in 1979 as a general assignment reporter, after spending a year as an NPR freelance reporter covering New York City, and subsequently worked on a great many pieces dealing with subjects as diverse as the death penalty, the right to die movement, the response to the war in Kosovo, computer gaming, the drug ecstasy, geek culture, children and technology and Pokémon. After 9/11, she focused much of her work on stories exploring the human factors in New York City, from the loss of loved ones, homes and jobs, to work in the relief effort. She was the host of Justice Talking up until the show ceased production on July 3, 2008. She was a regular voice on Morning Edition and All Things Considered.^[9] She was also co-producer of an award-winning radio drama, War Day.^[2]

Neopaganism

Adler wrote Drawing Down the Moon,^[3] a 1979 book about Neopaganism which was revised in 2006.^[10] The book is considered by some a watershed in American Neopagan circles, as it provided the first comprehensive look at modern nature-based religions in the US. For many years it was the only introductory work about American Neopagan communities.

Her second book, Heretic's Heart: A Journey Through Spirit and Revolution, was published by Beacon Press in 1997. Adler was a Wiccan priestess, an elder in the Covenant of the Goddess,^[1] and she also participated in the Unitarian Universalist faith community.^[1]

Death

In early 2011, Adler was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, which metastasized over the following three years. Adler died on July 28, 2014, at the age of 68. She remained virtually symptom-free until mid-2014. Adler was cared for in her final months by her son.^[11]

Bibliography

• 1979 – Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today^[3] ISBN 0-14-019536-X
• 1997 – Heretic's Heart: A Journey Through Spirit and Revolution (Beacon Press)ISBN 0-8070-7098-X
• 2000 – Our Way to the Stars by Margot Adler & John Gliedman  – Motorbooks Intl ISBN 0-7603-0753-9, ISBN 978-0-7603-0753-3
• 2013 – Out for Blood Kindle Single
• 2014 – Vampires Are Us (Weiser Books) ISBN 1-5786-3560-8, ISBN 978-1-5786-3560-3

Discography

• 1986 – From Witch to Witch-Doctor: Healers, Therapists and Shamans ACE – Lecture on cassette
• 1986 – The Magickal Movement: Present and Future (with Isaac Bonewits, Selena Fox, and Robert Anton Wilson) ACE – Panel discussion on cassette

See also

• Maggie Shayne
• Murry Hope

Notes

References

• Vale, V. and John Sulak (2001). Modern Pagans. San Francisco: Re/Search Publications. ISBN 1-889307-10-6

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Margot Adler.

• Margot Adler at IMDb
• Appearances on C-SPAN