What does one mean by the miraculous and the supernatural?

People interpret, for instance, political and weather phenomena and coincidences as the activity of God. Many religious people believe in a personal God intervening in world events, inspiring sacred texts, and influencing events in supernatural ways. To this end, the supernatural and the miraculous must be defined. A miracle could be conceived as a wonder of the universe. It is a miracle in itself that we are here on this rock hurtling through space at an amazing speed.

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."  Albert Einstein. 

And by this definition, a miracle is a natural event. A miracle could be an atom, a cell, or consciousness, which are complex and wondrous phenomena. The development of a human embryo in a cell could be called a miracle, even though the specific process by which this occurs is known. In most cases, however, a miracle is not a natural phenomenon that can be studied and understood.

First, the supernatural presupposes transcendence. The supernatural refers to (hypothetical) beings who are "super" - above or beyond the physical world; they are not subject to the laws of nature, as we know them. They do not decay and do not require physical subsistence. Gods, demons, and spirits are not only immortal but also thought to be capable of moving through matter and time without being constrained by natural laws. However, they are also causally connected to the lawful world and are able to influence events in that world. They interact with the world; they can appear to people, move objects, and answer prayers. How is this causality possible? Through consciousness. In order to influence the world, they must be able to observe it and be aware of what is happening. It is consciousness that makes the supernatural - supernatural. The supernatural, then, is the conscious and intentional influence of a transcendent agent on the natural world. One might call supernatural entities "disembodied minds" - minds that operate independently of a physical body.

A supernatural act may in itself be either "good" or "bad", "benevolent" or "malevolent". A malevolent form of the supernatural would be for example a demonic possession or a haunting. A miracle, however, is always something benevolent, something that the person experiencing the miracle would want to happen - for example, the answering of a prayer. A miracle could be defined as a fortunate event brought about in the natural world by the intervention of a conscious, transcendent agent.

However, this is only a definition; it does not mean anything supernatural or miraculous actually exists. 

In various religious traditions there are reports of the supernatural that could be interpreted as examples of extrasensory perception (ESP) or psychokinesis (PK), often referred to as PSI phenomena. Some religious stories involve telepathic communication between individuals or between humans and divine beings. There are religious traditions of miraculous healings attributed to divine intervention. While these healings are often interpreted as acts of faith, they could also be seen as instances of psychokinesis, where a person's mind influences physical matter to produce a healing effect. Some saints in the Christian tradition are said to have been able to be in two places at once. This phenomenon could be interpreted as a form of astral projection or ESP, where people can project their consciousness to different places. In various religious traditions, there are reports of the instantaneous appearance or disappearance of objects or people, which could be interpreted as instances of psychokinesis. There are stories of saints manifesting food out of thin air, or disappearing from one location and reappearing in another. Within Hinduism, there are reports of gurus and yogis demonstrating remarkable abilities such as telepathy, levitation, and materialization through meditation and spiritual practice. In the Sufi tradition, there are stories of mystics who have attained spiritual enlightenment and demonstrated supernatural abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance and miraculous healing. These stories abound in religious literature. See the article on Miracle Workers on this website.