What is a Miracle?

I have always believed we must consider life and everything associated with it a miracle or consider nothing is a miracle, and I’ve used this philosophy in my life and in my medical practice. What I mean is that we really cannot explain the origin of life and its evolution. In a sense everything came from nothing. But because I believe life evolved from intelligent, loving, conscious energy, the “nothing” is something, even if it is indescribable. Only after creation could we begin to talk about something. Creation is one miracle, and it is a miracle whether we know how it happened or not.

Another miracle is that we and all living things were created to survive. Even bacteria alter themselves genetically and resist antibiotics that have been designed to destroy them. Viruses resist vaccines. We recover from illnesses and heal wounds. There is an inherent inner intelligence to provide these mechanisms. In a recent article a botanist discussed a plant that has a genetic defect that leads to its buds not opening. If this happened to all the plants of this species it would become extinct. The botanist observed that some of the plants spontaneously started to open their buds again. He called it a spontaneous reversion to a healthy, normal state. He believes the RNA makes changes, which repair the DNA defects and lead to a reversal of the abnormal pattern.

When I read those words I couldn’t help but think of the term we use for cancer patients: spontaneous remission. Doctors use these words to describe an unexplained disappearance of a person’s disease but from my experience it is the same mechanism as in the plant. The will and intention to live and the quality of life created can lead to changes within the genetic makeup of the person and alter their cancer cells. These alterations may be harder for people due to our complex lives and minds, but they are still possible. This phenomenon has been reported in concentration camps where people sought life and health when disease and the inability to work meant execution. In the other extreme, I’ve seen cases where one’s mortality starts the patient off truly living. I call it being born again. When people accept their mortality and start a new life they can love.

Water, a symbol of being reborn in many religions, is also a miracle. It comes in three forms: gas, liquid, and solid. Water defies the laws of physics, which no other liquid does, by becoming lighter and less dense as ice. This quality of water helps preserve life on earth.
The potential for miracles is built into us all by the nature of life and creation. The term “spontaneous”, maybe even “miraculous,” should be eliminated from how we talk about these experience. Instead, our perspective should be that healing and reversion to health and survival be seen as self induced, not spontaneous. After all, what would be the point of creation if what was created could not survive life’s difficulties? The potential for miracles comes with the nature of creation. I love the words of Ernest Holmes, the founder of Science of Mind, “What if Jesus was the only normal person who ever lived?” Now if we accept that life creates healing and survival, Holmes suggests that we have the same abilities and potential as Jesus.

Today even scientists are becoming more open-minded and willing to explore and research things that were unacceptable decades ago. I know of diseases, including cancer, being cured by energy conducted through the hands of the healer. I have had that experience personally with an injury. I have also learned to accept what I experience and not close my mind to the fact that miracles are a part of life. There are mechanisms within us that allow these “miracles” to happen but the fact that they are built into us is what is miraculous.

Some might call it miraculous that Carl Jung diagnosed a brain tumor from a patient’s dream. How is the body able to speak through images? We may not know how, but we know it does. Dreams and drawings can reveal the future since the future is prepared unconsciously and can be revealed through symbols and images. I know this from my work with patients’ drawings. I have a drawing, done by a child, which reveals the operating room she has never been in but was about to enter. I’ve seen many times how powerful the mind can be in eliminating disease when it is deceived into thinking it is receiving treatment.

I also know the benefit of traveling to Lourdes or leaving your troubles to God in curing disease. Can we say that these are not self-induced miracles? I could go on to describe the physiology involved and make it scientific by showing how immune function and stress hormone levels are altered but the fact that it is a part of our potential is miraculous. I know that how we act and feel alters our body chemistry. For example, I have drawn blood from actors while they perform in a tragedy or comedy and there are differences in what I observed. More heart attacks occur on Monday morning, as do strokes, suicides, and other illnesses. Is that a reverse or destructive miracle related to how we are feeling and our body trying to help us find freedom from a painful life? I think so.

Accept the fact that we are all living miracles and that we are here to learn and become complete as other forms of life are. When you stop to appreciate the miracle, life becomes more interesting and offers much greater potential. I hope some day we will be as interested in exploring our inner space and not just outer space because we are all part of creation. We are all part of the same system. We don’t have to go far to understand how and why.

Based on the book A Book of Miracles. Copyright © 2011 by Bernie S. Siegel. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com or 800/972-6657 ext. 52.