According to mainstream science, “miracle” talk is a rhetorical device, a term expressing wonder and astonishment, a spasm of imagination, no more. But if you actually investigate cases of alleged miraculous phenomena, you will find matter of great interest. It’s easy to imagine that real miracles are strictly from olden times or in more backward corners of the world. Not true.
Before we go on, a quick definition of “miracle.” Beside the subjective reaction of astonishment is a more crucial criterion: we call it a miracle if we cannot physically explain it. Miracles are usually pretty self-declarative. When Pierre de Rudder was instantly healed of 8-years of a broken suppurating leg and walked back home, totally restored, it was to everybody an obvious miracle. When the great 17th century levitator Joseph of Copertino flew over the heads of a visiting Spanish ambassador and his pushy wife, they were speechless in awe. Obviously, a miracle.
In more modern times, we have events witnessed by large numbers of people that qualify as miraculous, challenging our idea of what is possible in nature. In the mid nineties, we find what Hindu spokespeople called the miracle of the millennium. In this case, I had two students who witnessed this particular mind-blowing miracle of dematerialization. People brought milk for a statue of Ganesh to drink which disappeared. I witnessed it being proven by a BBC reporter.
In short, there are miraculous phenomena taking place today. Let me give you one example reported recently this year. There is a phenomenon in cases of spiritually evolved persons (found in different traditions) called incorruption. When these folks die their bodies to not decay.
Sister Wilhelmina, OSB, a Benedictine nun, in Gower, Missouri, died May 29, 2019. Her body was exhumed on April 28, 2023, almost four year’s later. The wooden casket she occupied had deteriorated, but instead of a skeleton they found her body, habit and clothing perfectly intact. The medical experts concluded that her body showed none of the natural signs of decay, despite not being embalmed or treated in any special way. Thousands from all over came to visit and contemplate the incorrupt nun’s body, perceived as a miraculous sign.
As it turns out, there is a long history of documented cases of this phenomenon. See, for example, Herbert Thurston’s factual study of The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism. What is clear from this classic study is that people given to certain types of altered states of consciousness seem able to change physical reality in shockingly dramatic ways.
Our mainstream science and culture is very slowly coming to grips with confronting the mysterious powers of consciousness. Mainstream scientists have uniformly been compelled to admit that the obvious fact of consciousness is a persistent mystery. We know a lot about the brain, but nobody has a clue as to how you get from the brain to something radically unlike anything physical such as consciousness, dreams, feelings, memories, artistic and intellectual creative states. If you are a rigid materialist you will feel driven to deny Sister Wilhelmina’s incorruption.
If, however, you are an authentic scientist, or just an open-minded curious human being, you might feel the excitement of an explorer reacting to hints of something that promises a new dimension of adventure. For an overview of the world of miracles, see my book, Smile of the Universe: Miracles in an Age of Disbelief.
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