Dr. Miller received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Bridgewater College in Virginia (1957) and the Bachelor of Divinity degree from Bethany Theological Seminary in Illinois (1960). His Ph.D. degree is in the field of Theology and Culture from Drew University in New Jersey (1963), and his doctoral dissertation was on the comedy of Aristophanes in relation to Greek religion and culture.But his first appointments were as a tennis professional.
From 1955 to 1957 he was the tennis pro at Fountain Head Country Club in Hagerstown, Maryland, serving under Arthur Prochaska who was, at the time, tennis professional at Baltimore Country Club. He then served five years as tennis pro at the Noe Pond Swim and Tennis Club in Chatham Township, New Jersey (1961 to 1966).. And in 1967, he was appointed the tennis professional at Morris County Golf Club in Morristown, New Jersey.
Dr. Miller first went to Syracuse University in 1967, and he was appointed to the Watson-Ledden Chair in 1983. From 1996 to 1999, Dr. Miller held the William P. Tolley Distinguished Teaching Professorship in the Humanities, being the first person ever to be appointed to this three-year administrative post. He retired from Syracuse University and was appointed Emeritus professor in 2001. Before going to Syracuse, Professor Miller had taught in the Departments of Religion, English, and Bible at Drew University, in the Classics Department of Upsala College, and in the Department of Comparative Literature at Rutgers University. He had also taught seminars for trainees at the C.G. Jung Institute in Switzerland during the Winter terms of 1975, 1991, 1994, 1996, and 1998. Dr. Miller participated in an adjunct capacity at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, beginning in 1991, and he served in the Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica as a Core Faculty Person from 1993 until 2004.
Dr. Miller has also been involved in the training of psychotherapists. In addition to teaching in the clinical programs at the Jung Institute in Switzerland and at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California, he has held seminars for trainees at Jung Institutes in Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco, Chicago and New York City. He has served on the examining committee for the InterRegional Society of Jungian Analysts’ training program, and he has taught workshops for trainees in the Kansas City and Pittsburgh seminars of this same group. Also, he has directed case conferences in Kyoto and in Pittsburgh for Jungian analysts and trainees.
Dr. Miller has been a frequent lecturer to civic, religious, and educational groups in the United States. He gave the second annual Loy Witherspoon Lecture in Religion at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte in 1986, the second annual Heinz Westman Lecture in Psychology at Bowdoin College in 1990, the fourth annual James Klee Lecture in Psychology at West Georgia College in 1993, and the tenth annual Morrow-McCombs Memorial Lecture at San Bernardino State University in 1997. From 1975 until 1988 he was a member of the Eranos Circle in Switzerland and he lectured at the Eranos Conference nine times during that period. He has also addressed groups in Europe (Strasbourg, Tübingen, Zurich), Canada (Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver), Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo, Tenri-City). In 1996 and 1998, Dr. Miller gave the keynote addresses at Conferences on Values in Higher Education at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and in 2009 he gave a Tipple-Vosburgh lecture at Drew University Theological School.
In 1989, Dr. Miller completed a fifteen-year project which researched the Greek mythological, psychological and literary expressions of certain archetypal images in Christian theological ideas. The results of this research are published in four books and numerous essays which appeared from 1974 through 1989. Some images examined in this project are: the good shepherd, the holy fool, the drunken teacher, the love triangle, the descent into the underworld, ghosts, and disappearing angels.
The first book in this project, The New Polytheism, was controversial and received attention. Time magazine featured it in the “Religion” section of its March 18, 1974, edition. It was also the subject of articles in Common Boundary (November/December 1992) and The Salt Journal (November/December 1999). The French edition of this work was reviewed in Le Monde (June 5, 1979) and was featured in a major essay in Le Figaro Magazine, contrasting the book’s polytheistic perspective with the monotheistic perspective of the well-known French thinker, Bernard Henri-Lévy (“Monothéisme-Polythéisme: Le Grand Debat,” April28, 1979). The Matin de Paris also reviewed the work (February 27, 1979). The Italian edition of the work was reviewed in the journal Serio and in German in the Neue Züricher Zeitung (January 4, 1979). And the Japanese translation of the book produced a major interview between Dr. Miller and the Zen philosopher, Keiji Nishitanti, which was published in the Kyoto Journal (Fall 1988). Dr. Miller was also interviewed by Michel Cazenave on Radio France (1979) in a two-hour special on pluralistic perspectives.
Dr. Miller was named the first University Scholar-Teacher of the Year by Syracuse University in 1980-81. He also received the Outstanding Teacher Award from the Alumni Society of University College of Syracuse University in 1979-80, the Graduate School Alumni of the Year Award from Drew University in 1990, and the Syracuse University Chancellor’s Citation for Exceptional Academic Achievement in 1994. In 2002, Dr. Miller was elected to be an Affiliate Member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. In 2004 he was made an honorary member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology. And in 2011 he was elected to be a honorary member of The International Sociey for Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority (http://www.ispdi.org).
Dr. Miller is a member of the American Academy of Religion and Phi Beta Kappa. He has served as president of the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture (1992-93), and he has been on the editorial boards of Sphinx (London), The Journal of the American Academy of Religion (Atlanta), L’Esprit jungien (Paris), and Mythosphere (Tuscaloosa). He currently serves on the editorial board of Spring Journal (New Orleans). Dr. Miller has also been the Chairperson of the Publications’ Committee of the American Academy of Religion (1991-93), Chairperson of the Advisory Group on the Study of Myth in Higher Education for the Joseph Campbell Foundation (1992-1994), and a member of the Boards of Directors of Scholars Press (1991-1993), the American Academy of Religion (1991-1993), and the Joseph Campbell Foundation (2004-2015).
Dr. Miller is the author of more than one hundred and ninety articles, tapes, book chapters and book reviews between 1963 and 2018 (see bibliography) , as well as five books . The books include: Gods and Games: Towards a Theology of Play (1970, 1973, 2013 [eBook]); The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses (1974, 1981, also in French, Italian, and Japanese editions); Christs: Archetypal Images in Christian Theology (1981, 2005); Three Faces of God (1986, 2005); and Hells and Holy Ghosts (1989, 2004). Dr. Miller is also the editor of two additional books: Interpretation: The Poetry of Meaning (1967) and Jung and the Interpretation of the Bible (1995).