Oscar Adler

Vocation

Austrian astrologer, the author of "Testament of Astrology" which is composed of 114 lectures, each 25-50 pages long. Amy Shapiro has lobbied for the publication of his material due to this depth of esoteric insight. She corresponded for years with Zdenka Orenstein, the elderly lady in Hawaii who spent ten years translating the lectures as a labor of love. Captivated, Shapiro began researching Adler's life and eventually compiled it all in a biography that is now under consideration with Oxford U. Press. Zdenka transferred legal ownership of the material to Shapiro before she died, to save it from being thrown away or left to languish. Adler fled to London in 1938 with his wife Paula Freud (no relation to Sigmund). Oscar was not related to Alfred Adler, although he was in that circle of Viennese intellectuals and philosophers. His birth date, 6/04/1875, was also that of Thomas Mann. Vol. I of Adler's original German work was sent to Albert Einstein with a request for help bring Adler to America. Einstein was extremely impressed by Adler's thinking, (as documented in two letters that are in the biography) but declined to assist Adler out of fear of tarnishing his reputation by risking being viewed as being sympathetic to astrology. Many faceted, Adler was the first music teacher of the avant garde musician, Arnold Schoenberg, and they remained lifelong friends. Adler was a physician, a dermatologist by profession, and the first violin of the Adler Quartet -- many distinguished musicians played with him, such as Franz Schmidt and Hans Keller. A professor from the U. of Vienna, Alfred Pfabigan, wrote that Dr. Adler seemed to him to be the "Father of modern astrology" because of the influence he had on so many in the years before Hitler. Adler apparently had doctoral degrees in music as well as philosophy and medicine. He died 5/15/1955, London. Oscar Adler's illuminating lecture series, The Testament of Astrology, and Amy Shapiro's fascinating biography, "Dr. Oscar Adler: A Complete Man," are available in early 2002, exclusively through Online College of Astrology. Link to Astrowiki (German)