"Miracle" is a general term for any event that transcends the accepted laws of nature. In this loose sense, all true magic, be it black or white, is miraculous, since none of it can be explained by modern physics. Stage magic is not miraculous, although it has been mistaken for miracles, because it merely pretends to transcend natural law but can be explained in ordinary ways.

Events recognized as miracles usually have other qualities in common that narrow the definition. Miracles are frequently associated with religion. They are popularly perceived to be caused by deities, by spiritual agents of deities known as angels, or by human agents of deities such as avatars or saints. Although we are most familiar in the West with miracles associated with the Christian religion, all religions have their history of miracles.

Religious miracles may be divided into two types, spontaneous or induced. In the first case, a wondrous event occurs without warning or petition, to the complete surprise of those who witness it. The second case involves divine intervention deliberately sought by prayers or ritual actions. An example of a spontaneous miracles would be a church statue that suddenly begins to drip with a red fluid that resembles blood. An example of an induced miracle would be the healing of the sick by the laying on of hands.

Holy men and women tend to be the focus for miraculous events - miracles are more often associated with saints than sinners, even when no prayer or action has been taken to induce them. Indeed, holy men are to miracles what adolescent children are to poltergeist activity. They seem to act as facilitators of the wondrous events without conscious intention. This is most obvious in the case of stigmata, the spontaneous appearance of the wounds of Christ on the bodies of devout religious believers. Levitation and the appearance of glories or halos around the head or upper body are also common.

The chronicle of Christian miracles is overwhelming in it number and variety. Only a few brief examples may be cited here. Those interested in the subject should consult the 19th century text A Dictionary of Miracles by the Reverend E. Cobham Brewer, an excellent compendium of Christian wonders that runs to almost six hundred pages of double-column fine print.

In 1380 a merchant was transporting a small wooden statue of the Virgin Mary to Antwerp. When he reached the town of Schiedam the image made itself too heavy to be moved. All the townspeople flocked to see this marvel, and the conclusion was reached that the Virgin wished to remain in Schiedam. They induced the merchant to sell the statue, then set it up in the church of St. John the Baptist.

St. Hugh, the abbot of Cluny (1024-1109) met a leper on the road and went back with the man to his cottage. At one point he threw his cloak over the leper's shoulder to comfort him, whereupon the leper was immediately healed.

When St. Gertrude (626-59), the abbess of Nivelles in Belgium, was at prayer before the altar of St. Sixtus, a globe of fire appeared upon her head. It was witnessed by all the sisters of the abbey. Ten years after her death, the ghost of St. Gertrude "appeared visibly" in the refractory of the college of Nivelles and extinguished a fire that had threatened to destroy the entire college.

The popular opinion among Christian theologians is that miracles can only be caused by God. They make a distinction between the wondrous effects produced by magicians, and the wondrous effects produced by devout believers, saints, and angels. The trouble is, these events are often indistinguishable. To account for this similarity, Christian scholars assert that the changes wrought by God are true and enduring changes, whereas the changes worked by magicians are temporary illusions.

Hence in Christian folklore you read of the glamours of witches, who can make a man believe that his penis has fallen off, or that he has transformed into a beast such as a swine or a donkey, even though these things have not actually taken place. You encounter tales of magicians such as Faust who could transform for a time bits of twigs and stones into the semblance of gold and silver coins, or could make a lavish banquet seem to appear in a twinkling - but eventually the coins became twigs again, and the food of the banquet failed to fill the stomachs of the guests.

This explanation has always struck me as a bit flimsy. Who is to say that the loaves and fishes miraculously multiplied by Jesus to feed his flock (Matthew 14:15-21) were any different in kind than the banquets created by Faust and other famous magicians to feed their dinner guests? When the magician of the Pharaoh of Egypt cast down a staff before Moses and transformed it into a serpent, was this really any less miraculous than the staff cast down and turned into a serpent by Moses himself?

If true changes of essence are the measure of a miracle, then what are we to make of the alchemical act of transforming base metals into gold? According to the view of devout Christians, if the gold is genuine, the alchemist must act with the assistance of God, since they hold the opinion that magic is a deception and incapable of true transformation. Indeed, many alchemists, being good Christians themselves, maintain that no transformation is possible without the help of God. They inflame themselves with prayer and practice austerities in pursuit of their art. Yet Christian theologians cannot accept alchemical change as a holy miracle since alchemy is by them classed as a form of magic, and all magic is condemned as evil by the Church. They must reject the possibility of true alchemical transformation.

My own view is that miracles, true miracles, do involve a transcendental spiritual power and draw upon the divine source that underlies the material universe. However, I see no reason why an alchemist or a magician may not access this power just as effectively as a devout religious worshipper. Magic is not something that lies outside the bounds of religion, it is the power that energizes religion and renders possible miraculous events in a religious context. Religious miracles are usually unplanned, even when they are sought by prayer, and the magic involved in inducing the miracle is unconscious magic. However, miracles of equal validity can be achieved by the deliberate, conscious use of ritual magic. The same unseen process occurs in both religious miracles and occult miracles. The heightening of the emotions and the altered state of consciousness present in extreme devotion assists in the creation of miracles, which is why miracles are most common in a religious context. A similar state can be achieved in the rituals of magic, but magicians capable of generating it are few in number.

How are we to understand a miracle to function? Certainly not by seeking its explanation in the ordinary laws of physics. This is a fool's errand, since by definition a miracle transcends such laws. If a miracle can be explained by physics, it is not a miracle. For an event to be miraculous, the cause of the event must transcend the natural universe, in which the ordinary physical laws function. But all existing things are a part of the universe, so nothing that exists can be the source of miracles. Only something that does not exist, something that transcends existence, can produce a miraculous event. And the only thing that transcends the universe is the divine Source of all.

Theologians are correct to assert that all miracles come from God. What they do not accept, but what is equally true, is that all magic of a true kind also comes from God. Magic is a type of miracle. The magician is the embodied agent of the divine each time he works his art. So is the devout saint, the miraculous healer, and even the demonist who uses true magic for acts of evil.

It may seem contradictory that the divine energy that produces miracles can be employed for evil purposes, but this energy is not in itself conscious or purposeful. It can be induced to flow forth both by human beings and by spiritual beings, and can be used for both good and evil, according to the will, conscious or unconscious, of the being who channels it. Oftentimes, the divine energy of miracles is channeled by individuals or groups who have no idea of what they are doing. This results in the occurrence of seemingly spontaneous miracles. These are no different in kind from miracles deliberately sought through prayer or ritual actions, it is only that their acts of induction are not perceived.

The source of miracles is the ultimate Source that lies beyond being, either of substance or of form. It is purposeless, knowing neither good nor evil, and for this reason may be used for either good or evil purposes. The God of the Bible is not this ultimate Source. This much is obvious, since this God has both form and purpose, and manifests to human beings in various ways. However, the God of the Old Testament was able to channel this primal Source of divine energy for his own intentions, and was able to facilitate the use of this divine energy by his worshippers.

Skilled magicians can bypass the gods, the angels and the saints, and can access this primal creative and destructive power directly through their magic. So the priests of Egypt intimated when they wrote in the Hermetic books that man was above the gods, and could command the gods. Every time someone works a ritual of magic successfully without relying on a prayer for aid from a particular deity or spiritual creature, the divine source is directly and independently accessed, and a miracle is produced. These miracles are usually quite small, but they are just as transcendent as the great miracles of biblical lore. They are achieved because the magician has bypassed the boundaries of time and space, of cause and effect.

Miracles are almost impossible to prove because they cannot be explained or replicated. Even when witnessed by hundreds or thousands of individuals, the tendency of rationalists is to dismiss them, and to deny their very possibility. To accept the possibility of miracles, it is necessary to accept the possibility that rationalistic materialism may not offer a total explanation for the functioning of the natural world. It requires an admission that not everything is understood about the way the universe works; more than this, it requires the acknowledgement that not everything can be understood. This admission terrifies scientists and philosophers alike, because they operate on the underlying but largely unexpressed assumption that even though they do not know everything at present, they have the potential to know everything eventually, given enough time for the evolution of the human intellect, and sufficient study and experiment.

The existence of miracles puts the lie to this conceit. Miracles will never be understood. They leap over the boundaries upon which science and philosophy are founded. They mock causality and the experimental method. They can sometimes be induced by devotion, sometimes by magic, but they can never be comprehended. For this reason, they will never be accepted by rationalists, no matter how many eye-witnesses testify to their existence.