What is Miracles?

Works that seem supernatural only because they rest on laws higher than the ordinary mind knows. They are done by those who, through realizing their oneness with God, open themselves to those laws. There is no special age of miracles, and the supernatural of today becomes the natural of tomorrow.

In In Tune with the Infinite (1897), Ralph Waldo Trine does not treat the miraculous as something outside the lawful order of the universe. He moves it inward and upward. To him the universe is a single order of law, flowing from one Infinite Spirit of Life and Power that stands behind all things and works through them. Nothing in that order is arbitrary, and nothing is suspended. A work looks like a miracle when it springs from laws that work on a finer and higher plane than the ones ordinary perception is used to.

Law, not exception. Trine holds that the "supernatural" is only the natural that has not yet been understood. As we advance in the process of evolution from the more material to the more spiritual, he writes, the supernatural of yesterday becomes the common and the natural of today. The healings and works of power recorded in scripture did not set law aside. They showed laws whose workings the general mind had not yet come to know.

The condition: realized oneness. Trine's central teaching, which he calls the great central fact in human life, is the conscious, vital realization of our oneness with the Infinite Life. Miracles come from realizing this fact, not from accepting it as an idea. When a person moves from a sense of separateness into a living awareness of oneness, they become an open channel through which the divine power can flow. The works that follow are the natural results of that alignment. Trine points to Jesus as the great example: "He never claimed for himself anything that he did not claim equally for all mankind." Trine also quotes a writer who says Jesus spoke of his mighty works as "the outcome of a state to which all might attain if they chose." Jesus showed what any person can do once they are fully attuned.

No closed age of miracles. Trine flatly rejects the idea that miracles belonged to some past era that has since ended. If the laws are eternal, the works they make possible are always available. What has changed is not the universe but human receptivity. Wherever there is the same realization and the same opening, the same kinds of works appear. This makes the miraculous something ahead of us, not behind us. It marks the growing edge of human understanding, and each generation moves into it a little further.

The God-man. These works, Trine writes, were performed not by those who were more than men, but by those who through the recognition of their oneness with God became God-men, so that the higher forces and powers worked through them. The opening to higher law comes through that recognition, and the miracle is its fruit.

From the Latin miraculum, "an object of wonder," which comes from mirari, "to wonder at," and mirus, "wonderful." The word reached English through Old French miracle and was in use in Middle English by the twelfth century. The root meaning is about the beholder's astonishment, not a breach of law. This suits Trine's view that wonder reflects the limits of present understanding. The Greek New Testament uses three words for these works: dynamis (a work of power), semeion (a sign), and teras (a wonder or portent). Of these, dynamis comes closest to Trine's idea of a power released through attunement.

Trine's teaching asks the student to change their relationship to the miraculous more than to chase marvels.

1. Begin with the central realization. Set aside a regular period of quiet to dwell on your oneness with the Infinite Life. Aim to feel it as a present fact, not just to agree with it as a statement. 2. Remove the sense of separateness. Notice thoughts that cast you as isolated, powerless, or cut off from the Source. Gently replace them with the recognition that the same Life that moves through all things moves through you. 3. Open as a channel. Trine's image is an opened door or an unobstructed channel. Practice inner receptivity: a still, expectant, trusting turn toward the divine inflow, especially in matters of health, guidance, and service. 4. Hold the natural view. When you meet or experience something extraordinary, do not explain it away and do not treat it as superstition. Regard it as a sign of law not yet understood, and ask what that law might be. 5. Set no limits. Any power that is possible to one human soul is possible to another, Trine writes, and the moment one vitally grasps the fact that he can rise, he will rise, with no limitations other than those he sets to himself. 6. Expect the works in your own time. Let go of the belief that miracles belong to scripture or history. Live as one for whom the laws are still fully in force.

That Trine denies miracles. He does not. He affirms the works fully. What he denies is that they break or suspend natural law.

That miracles were confined to a sacred past. Trine explicitly rejects a closed age of miracles. Because the laws are eternal, the possibility is always present.

That only a uniquely divine person can do such works. Trine holds up Jesus as the supreme example and teacher, not as the only possible doer. The same oneness is open to every soul.

That miracle-working is a technique of will or mental force. For Trine the essential condition is realized oneness and receptivity, not straining or forcing. The power is divine, and the individual opens to it rather than producing it.

That "natural" means ordinary or diminished. Calling a miracle natural does not reduce it to the mundane. It raises nature to include the spiritual laws of the highest planes.