Last October, NBC took a daring plunge into the New Age. In addition to airing Angels II, Beyond the Light, they launched a one-hour daytime show called The Other Side. The program is a response to what producers perceive to be the powerful American fascination with extraordinary events that science cannot always explain. It explores everything from alternative medicine, dreams, self-hypnosis, and near-death experiences to angelic visitations and alien abductions. It's fast-paced, fascinating and sometimes phenomenal. Invited guests, subject experts and the studio audience participate in a lively discussion on the featured topic, assisted by the mediation of host Dr. Will Miller, a professed skeptic who deliberately plays the devil's advocate, then leaves conclusions to the individual viewer.

Miller, otherwise known as Dr. Will (the character he created for Nickelodeon's Why We Watch on Nick at Night), is what investors are banking on. A licensed psychotherapist, ordained minister, professional stand up comedian, and Ph.D. educator, he is the best bet they have for making a paranormal product palatable to the general public. The popularity of Dr. Will's tongue-in-cheek analysis of such programs as Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island and Lassie provides a track record that makes the stakes less scary. As Miller puts it, Who better than a Therapist/Minister/Comedian to host a show like this? The therapist side of me lets them know I'd be empathetic with people, my ministerial training and my education told them I could handle the subject matter and the comedy background assured them I could do the talk show part. Reticent at first ("It's very important to me to preserve my image as a legitimate professional), Miller is now thrilled to be using all of his talents in one endeavor and sharing them with people all over the country. And people all over the country are enthusiastic about The Other Side. Ratings have been good enough to generate a loyal following, even outside California.

Miller's easygoing manner, boyish good looks and contagious smile appeal to a wide audience; his expressive face conveys empathy, level-headedness and humor. He's funny, warm, intelligent and diplomatic, and seems to sincerely respect interpretations of faith and experiences outside Judeo-Christian norms. He comments, As a minister, I have beliefs that science can't explain and as a therapist, I could never demean anyone's experience. Sometimes visibly moved, he often puts his arm around an audience member during emotional moments, such as the time a young black man stood in the audience with tears streaming down his face as a medium communicated a message from his deceased grandmother. Miller admits that the charm and relaxed manner haven't always been so polished. As the host of a show, I've had to learn to be more expressively tolerant. People hear what I say and it has added value because I'm not just another guest on the program. Sometimes people will say things that are really intolerant and I have an inclination to want to lash back at them; I have to find ways of confronting that won't turn off people who may agree with them; that's been something of a high-wire act.

Describing his personality as peppery, Miller says, I know I come across with some warmth, but I am a New Yorker and I've been a comedian in the clubs there, and that's a very aggressive art form. The humor is innate; born in Brooklyn, NY, Miller was second of seven in a family where everyone was funny except my father. He didn't taunt siblings with his talent, though, and doesn't use it indiscriminately today. I've been very lucky, because I'm not one of those comedians who has to be on all the time. I've always felt very confident that my humor doesn't put anybody down. I use it appropriately and allow it to be organically present, I don't force it; it comes up when it comes up. Fortunately, it surfaces at least once during every show and, if NBC has its way, we'll be seeing more of the comedian and less of the therapist.

Miller's zigzag between academic and comedic paths prompted the LA Times and People Magazine to call the show a sitcom for The Jung and the Restless. Yet it's his ministerial calling that Miller is most tuned in to.

A devout Christian, he attended Union Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1989. Realizing he wanted to minister through counseling, he obtained a master's degree in Clinical Psychology, then worked in a mental health clinic daytimes, did comedy at night and served his church on weekends. The mental health work established a baseline for what he does today. I'm really grateful I spent a few years working with people who were very severely impaired, because I got a really close-up look at people who were suffering; I saw the range of fantasy and distortion the human mind can create in that context. That gave me a primer for working with people who are healthier but who are utilizing fantasy to help them cope.

Fantasy and myth are contexts Miller uses to interpret the phenomena he's inundated with every weekday. I'm never really shocked about anything in particular, but am continually reminded of what Carl Jung said about the interior of the human mind. Here is someone who lived in the glorious Alps in Switzerland and was aware of the great expanse of the exterior universe, yet he said the interior landscape of the human mind is equally rich in expanse. People have a rich reservoir of meaning inside them. Miller sees The Other Side as a forum in which to explore that reservoir. Responding to less than enthusiastic reviews by Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal (they lambasted us), he states, They're missing the point. What we're dealing with is cultural myth, with how people are finding meaning. We are giving exposure to what hasn't been given much exposure and that is the array of expression that people are finding to give meaning to and anchor their context for human living. I think that's very powerful, even if it comes across or is interpreted as trivial, and even if the viewing audience doesn't understand it on a conscious level. To be sure, the show's subject matter is often out there (one show featured guests who claim to have had love affairs with ghosts), yet The Other Side is probably the only daytime talk show where no one screams, argues or bares sleazy family skeletons, and where a thoughtful, articulate audience asks interesting, probing questions. Miller expresses surprise at the interest shown by professional friends and people from my church. He figures that people feel society is deteriorating and are scrambling for something to give them hope. They're not finding it in traditional institutions like organized religion and are increasingly turning to new or esoteric spiritual forms.

Of all the provocative, disturbing and awe-inspiring subjects he has hosted, Dr. Miller cites three areas that have blown me away. One, he says, is the power that comes when a person combines the best traditional medicine with mobilizing the psychological and spiritual resources that are inside them to combat illness or people who radically vest themselves in diet, prayer, meditation and the like while following their doctor's recommendations. Perhaps the most dramatic example of such a person is Dr. Paul Pearsall, whose battle with a rare form of cancer is documented in his book, Making Miracles. Another thing Miller finds inspiring is seeing people who have faced some crisis or the death of a loved one, their own near-death experience or have utilized it to completely turn their lives around and now have the perspective of peace. I wish we could all grab that perspective without having to go through a crisis. That's available to you and me today, we can grab that position now.

And he's always been knocked out by some of the really strange stuff. Like James Van Praagh, a medium who claims to be able to speak with the spirits of the dead and whose intermittent appearances have become the main sizzle of the show. How he's doing it, I don't know. He's either an extremely gifted mentalist or...I just don't know. But what interests me is the reality or non-reality of this. As a therapist, what I find curious is that the people who surrender to him and just believe that they have really had contact with someone on the other side have positive changes that seem to hold. Miller seems to wear his therapist's hat and ministerial robes as an invisible uniform. He links his experience with Gestalt therapy to his musings about the medium. The chair exercise (where you imagine whomever you have intense feelings about sitting in the chair opposite you and then tell them everything you feel; then move into their chair and respond to what you've heard from yourself) is incredibly powerful. We all know the voices of our mother and father inside of us, no matter how disconnected we are; I wonder if that's not what James Van Praagh is doing for people...providing a cathartic experience with an impact similar to gestalt. So whether or not he's actually contacting someone's deceased relative may not matter.

Other subjects have left him dubious. I've not been persuaded by channeling or past life regression, because they don't demonstrate well. It winds up looking silly and is demeaning to what I know is a very profound experience. Also, the whole very strange concept of alien abductions didn't come across well. (One rural viewer commented that Dr. Miller and the audience on that particular show appeared to take marked adversarial positions to the guests describing their experiences, and that he didn't feel the subject was adequately discussed.) Indeed, sometimes the pace of the show precludes an in-depth discussion about very hot topics that might be better served by a two-hour special such as the Nielsen levitator, Ancient Prophecies. Then, too, there was the WICCA (the organization for Witchcraft) show. That was the worst show I ever did. The only criticism I've ever gotten was on that show. I sort of got offended; I was not patient. The presentation of the moral base of Wicca was not effectively demonstrated; it came across as very odd to me; I couldn't access it. For the most part, though, Miller is able to put his personal beliefs aside and recognize the validity of a variety of paranormal phenomena. Not bad for a Baptist minister who says he's grounded in science.

Miller has, for the time being, taken off his educator's hat. With a Ph.D. in Urban and a Master's in Special Education, he's leaving the formal teaching to his wife, Sally, a high school principal. Parents of two children (he got her daughter, Tamara and son, Tommy in time for adolescent rebellion and college tuition), they lead an active prayer life and envision the world a better place through community development. Miller feels passionately that the media puts too much emphasis on the one or two heated relationships we may have and grossly underestimates the need for extended family, neighbors and others. We're getting sicker as a culture because we've lost community. What ails our society is that too many people have too few relationships. I really believe that the human being flourishes within the broad array of many relationships. We're trying to grow healthy human beings in very depleted soil. The other side to their vision for a more positive world lies in family participation in the educational process. Miller, whose own mother left housekeeping at 45 to earn her Masters degree, believes that we have to return to whatever it is that fosters meaning, history and memory as a context for education. Only the family can help a child access his or her own interior.

Miller's personal interior or Other Side experiences have been limited to earthly inspirations from heavenly realms. I've had profound spiritual experiences, always in the context of my religious involvement as a Christian and a minister. The sense of certainty I had about being called to the ministry is inexpressible. Hosting a show such as The Other Side is perhaps the greatest ministry Miller could provide. In a world fraught with religious strife, he offers an example of someone with very definite spiritual beliefs affording others the right to experience God differently. Doing the show has deepened his personal beliefs. Seeing people who experience their spirituality very differently from me has still served to inspire a life of faith. Many Bible-quoting Christians regard reincarnation, hypnosis, astrology and mediums as pagan, blasphemous or downright devilish, but Miller sees it differently. To me, feeling threatened by this material is betraying a lack of faith. God is in charge of the world, not me; my job is to live out my life according to how He has made it clear to me. Are we heading for the Apocalyse? Nah, I'm not worried about that, we have a lot more stuff to do before we get into that. Miller enjoys the support of his American Baptist congregation, and with good reason. I'm rooted in my faith in Jesus Christ and I work hard to embody the Good News of the Gospel. I try not to speak or interpret the Bible, but to do my best in humility to walk the walk of Christ, of Love, to be Jesus to others, to be open. I try to allow God to radiate Divine Love through me. I love the prayer of Saint Francis...( Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace....'). I endeavor to embody the Holy Spirit of God and take that wherever I walk.

Amen.