D. Patrick Miller > Quotes

“If you go back to that psychological document we call the New Testament, you'll find that it says the devil is 'the father of lies." Now the shadow never lies; it's the ego that lies about its real motives. That's why successful psychotherapy, and any genuine religious conversion, requires absolute honesty about oneself.”
― D. Patrick Miller, Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature

“In every multiple personality case, you can always clearly identify the shadow. It's not always evil — it's just different than the ego. Jung said the truth of the matter is that the shadow is ninety percent pure gold. Whatever has been repressed holds a tremendous amount of energy, with a great positive potential. So the shadow, no matter how troublesome it may be. is not intrinsically evil. The ego, in its refusal of insight and its refusal to accept the entire personality, contributes much more to evil than the shadow.”
― D. Patrick Miller, Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature

“[T]he secret is that the ego is the devil — not the shadow... there is evil beyond the ego — an archetypal evil — but for most people, it's the ego that's really the problem.”
― D. Patrick Miller, Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature