News of the ‘miracle' spread around the world with lightning speed. A Jewish fish cutter in New York was busily slaughtering a batch of carp when one of them started shouting apocalyptic warnings to him in Hebrew.

"The fish shouted that everyone needed to account for themselves because the end is near," says Zalmen Rosen, the fish cutter.

The fish then commanded Mr Rosen to start praying and begin studying the Torah before identifying itself as the soul of a local man who had died the previous year.

After a moment of stunned silence all hell broke loose. Mr Rosen's co-worker Louis Nivelo became convinced that the talking fish was the work of Satan and ran around screaming: "It's the devil! The devil is here!" before finally collapsing into a pile of packing crates.

Mr Rosen then began to panic and tried to kill the fish with a machete-sized knife. But the carp bucked so wildly that Mr Rosen succeeded only in slicing a huge gash in his own thumb and had to be rushed to hospital. After an exhaustive struggle, the fish flopped off the counter - still muttering in Hebrew -  and was finally butchered by Mr Nivelo.

Word quickly spread that a ‘miracle' had occurred in New York and it sparked a heated debate around the world. Was it a genuine miracle or just the ramblings of a fevered imagination? After all, to those brought up with biblical tales of Moses parting the Red Sea and Jesus feeding the 5,000, the story of a talking fish hardly counts as a miracle.

Would God really reveal His presence and deliver His prophesies through a fish destined for the freezer? It seems unlikely but many now think that God is choosing to reveal His presence with increasingly surreal miracles tailored specifically for the media age.

"I believe that in a cynical and sceptical world, signposts for the human spirit must be luminous and unmistakable," says the renowned psychic Uri Geller.

"Subtle hints to the soul go unnoticed. If we are to sit up and take notice, the message has to be delivered in DayGlo capitals and bellowed through a megaphone.

"So if messages through a fish seem an eccentric way for God to communicate, it is important to remember that the Higher Intelligence has been attempting to communicate with us for thousands of years through more conventional and low-key means, such as books. So a fish makes an excellent loudspeaker for a Torah reading."

And author Irene Thompson, whose book It's a Miracle, is published this month, believes that they are becoming increasingly tailored to the needs of ordinary people.

"They aren't just rare, dramatic, biblical and life-changing experiences," she says. "They are more likely to happen to ordinary people going about their daily lives.

"There is usually no logical explanation for why a miracle has happened, why a life was saved or a patient cured. Even if an explanation can be attributed to natural phenomena, the timing and combination of factors influencing the miracle suggest the intervention of God or a higher power."

The past decade has seen an increase in the number of claimed miracles. Some, admittedly, stretch credulity, sometimes to breaking point. Religious inscriptions and symbols have apparently been found inside freshly sliced aubergines in Bolton and tomatoes in Bradford. Then there's the miracle of the milk-drinking Hindu statues. This, you may recall, involved the statues of the Hindu God Ganesh apparently imbibing spoonfuls of fresh milk in temples across the UK and India.

Dozens of ‘miraculous' sightings of the Virgin Mary have been reported, perhaps the most well-known being at Medjugorje in Bosnia. It was here that the Holy Mother was repeatedly seen by numerous local teenagers. Mind you, she has also been seen in a Mexican puddle, plastered across a Florida skyscraper, and even in a pork scratching found in a pub in Hull.
 
Although many so called miracles can be reasonably dismissed as delusions, hoaxes or mere coincidences, does this mean that all of them can be written off? Absolutely not. And for one simple reason: there remains a hard core of mysteries that simply cannot be explained by any conventional means.

One of the strangest and most inexplicable of these was reported in the respected British Medical Journal in 1997 and was uncovered by the esteemed consultant psychiatrist Dr Ikechukwu Azuonye. At that time he practiced at Lambeth Hospital, lectured at the University of London, and worked for the research unit of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

The story begins in 1984 when a married woman in her 40s was referred to him apparently suffering from a psychiatric illness. Her ‘symptoms' first appeared when she was at home in London quietly reading a book when a distinct voice appeared in her head.
 
"Please don't be afraid," the voice said in a firm but soothing tone. "I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, and we would like to help you."

She was understandably shocked but was initially able to dismiss the voice. But it refused to go away and claimed that she was physically ill and would soon need help.

The voice realised that he was causing her a lot of distress and tried to reassure her: "To help you see that we are sincere, we would like you to check out the following- " the voice said.
 
The voice then gave her three separate mundane pieces of information, which she did not possess at the time. She checked them out, and they proved to be true, but this failed to help because she had already decided that she'd "gone mad." In a state of panic, she went to see her doctor, who immediately referred her to the mental health unit of the Royal Free Hospital in London.

Dr Azuonye came to the conclusion that she was indeed suffering from a mental illness and prescribed a course of anti-psychotic drugs. The voice soon disappeared and she felt able to go on holiday with her husband. Whilst there, the voice returned but this time it was more insistent than ever. And to make matters even worse, it had also brought along a medical colleague from the spirit world.

They told her to return to England immediately as she now needed urgent medical treatment. They then gave her an address to report to. When she arrived, it turned out to be the brain scan department of the Royal Free Hospital.

"The voices then told her to go in and ask to have a brain scan," says Dr Azuonye. "This was apparently for two reasons. She had a tumour in her brain and her brain stem was inflamed. Because the voices had told her things in the past that had turned out to be true, she believed them when they said that she had a tumour.

"So in order to reassure her, I requested a brain scan," he says.

It turned out that the diagnosis made by the voices was indeed correct. Interestingly, says Dr Azuonye, there were no clinical signs that would have alerted anyone - including the patient - to the tumour.

The surgeon then suggested an immediate operation to remove the tumour, a decision the voices were in agreement with. They did, however, have one caveat says Dr Azuonye.

"They said they would have preferred the operation to be done at Queen's Square Hospital because they specialised in neurological diseases. But as she was already at the Royal Free Hospital they told her to have the procedure done there as it was urgent," he says.

After the operation, and when she'd recovered consciousness, the voices returned one last time to bid her farewell.

"We are pleased to have helped you," they said before bidding her goodbye.

"It is a true miracle," says Dr Azuonye. "The patient regards herself as being helped by a guardian angel."

Remarkable though this story is, it could be dismissed as a one-off were it not for similarly miraculous cases that have come to light since the paper was published in the British Medical Journal. Dr Azuonye was subsequently contacted by numerous other psychiatrists who had treated patients with similarly miraculous experiences. These doctors feared for their careers if they went public with cases that defied all conventional medical explanation.

"Can you imagine what would happen if they told their clinical team that a patient had been possessed by 'demons'?" says Dr Azuonye. "They'd be laughed out of court."

One of the few types of miracle that can be investigated by science is the effect of prayer. And amazing as it sounds, prayer might just help heal the sick. In a paper published in the scientific journal Annals of Internal Medicine in 2000, researchers reported on 23 studies on various distant healing techniques, including prayer. Thirteen of the 23 studies indicated a positive impact, nine found no benefit and one revealed a modest negative effect. The US National Institutes of Health, the equivalent of the UK's Medical Research Council, is now funding a huge trial to try and discover whether prayer does indeed work.

Dr Mary Self from Cardiff is in no doubt that prayer can miraculously heal the sick. In 1999 she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer when she was just 34.

‘‘I was devastated," she says. "I was told that there was no treatment that would cure it and that my illness was terminal. The bottom fell out of my world.''

Mary is a devout Christian and the congregation of her Baptist church began praying for her. But her condition continued to worsen. For five long months her health became increasingly parlous and she was forced to begin planning her own funeral. She even wrote letters to her two children to be opened after her death.

Day by day hope evaporated for her but more and more people joined her congregation in praying for a cure. Word of her struggle spread worldwide but still Mary's condition continued to worsen. Her doctor finally gave her three weeks to live but then a miracle seemed to happen. A routine scan revealed that the tumour had begun to shrink. Within three weeks it had disappeared completely.

Robert Grimer, her surgeon at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham, was stunned by the turn of events and asked Mary how she thought it could have happened.

"I believe it is possible for God to heal people, and the only explanation I have is that it's a miracle," she told him.
 
"Yes, I'll buy that," he said "There is no other answer."

It is not just Mary Self who claims that prayers have been miraculously answered. Jean Neil was cured of 27 years of paralysis when she attended a Pentecostal rally at the Birmingham NEC in 1988. When the pastor told her to get up and walk she literally ran from her wheelchair towards the stage with tears running down her face. Doctors and surgeons were at a complete loss to explain it.

And then there's the 7,000 who claim to have been healed at Lourdes, 66 of which have been officially declared as miraculous by the Vatican.

Of course, if God really is answering prayers and altering the natural course of events through miracles then it raises a host of questions. Why are some helped but not others? Why do the virtuous suffer whilst the wicked are rewarded? These questions are as old as religion itself and today we are no closer to answering them than philosophers of old.

Perhaps it's wise to heed the soothing words of Albert Einstein: "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."

Does the medium Sally Morgan really talk to the dead?

Comments (15) >>

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written by donkeyrapist, April 10, 2008

bah! bible bashers

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written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , April 06, 2008

A doomed fish spouting Hebrew...sounds awfully "fishy" to me.

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written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , April 06, 2008

A fish spouting Hebrew as it's about to be slaughtered...sounds mighty fishy to me.

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written by Rose, April 06, 2008

Allen - Just curious - where are you getting your statistics of 99.9% of prayers go unanswered. They're wrong, to say the very least. God ALWAYS answers prayers, but the answer is not always what we want to hear. God isn't a puppet that we can just manipulate to get what we want, and if we don't get what we want, when we want it, like a 2 year old, we throw a tantrum. Pretty immature thinking. Try praying for God's will to happen in your life, and I guarantee your prayers will be answered 100% of the time!

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written by Pavel Chichikov, April 06, 2008

Many atheists are highly critical of God because He doesn't live up to their expectations. Why have expectations of an entity you don't believe in? Why should there be mercy, joy and peace in a world you conceive of as meaningless?

Evil and suffering are mysteries, and so is our freedom to reject them as evil, instead of merely inevitable, and to yearn towards mercy, joy and love.

Even nihilists feel that their life has meaning. And it does. God is love. Suffering is a mysterious way of learning our smallness. It prepares us for the revelation of infinite love.

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written by ioweu, April 06, 2008

I have the inside info on the fish incident. The violence and chaos did not errupt until the fish friend reminded, and appologized to Mr Rosen for not paying back the $150 that he owed him. Given the the state the friend found himself in, he'd have to get mixed up in some fishy business to get enough to pay him back

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written by cristian, April 05, 2008

ahaha i'm still laughing about the story.
A fish???? On April!! You Know april's fool day?!!?!?

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written by Mary Theresa , April 05, 2008

I just loved the story! I think the fish did speak in Hebrew, and I still can't stop laughing about the whole scene.That poor fish cutter and helper. They must have been in complete shock. His poor finger,too! Well, whether or not it's true, I'm listening to the message,because that's what's important; to change our lives and live for God, because one day, the end of the world will happen, and we are going to be judged, maybe now, maybe later. My own personal judgement will be here too, and I'm going to meet God,and I'd better be looking good in his eyes. I don't know that day or hour, but I do need to be ready all the time. I'm going to Confession. Thanks for that, neat story.

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written by boaby, April 04, 2008

I wanna hear more about the fish. Sounds like something that would've been great to see, a fish flailing around speaking Hebrew while some fishmonger tries to murder the poor thing. lol

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written by bys, April 04, 2008

Come along then...

Every single statue/picture "miacle" has been proven hoax. I've been to India and saw the "drinkng Ganeshes" -- slight-of-hand, and/or terracotta absorbing the milk, friends.

Anyone ever consider that the "voices" was an auditory halucination brought on by the brain condition?

Also, Mary Self was receiving chemo/radiation when she was sick... do you honestly think if she had solely relied upon prayer that she'd be here today?

Silly grown-ups. Imaginary friends are for kids!

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written by Dwivian, April 04, 2008

Allen -- what is wrong with the answer "no"?

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written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , April 04, 2008

Allen,

Where are you getting this 99.9%? You sound angry and I'm sorry to see that. I pray things get better for you.

As for miraculous healing, I believe God made us to heal ourselves. Although I believe that He can heal us with the wave of a finger I also believe He built miricales right into us.

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written by W. Scott, April 04, 2008

I have seen miracles. I've even used what some might call prayer to heal people's illnesses (I call it psychic resonance, but no matter what you call it, it is currently beyond our science to explain.)

But miracles happen to people of all faiths, and "god" apparently speaks to people of all religions. I think we can see it clearer if we get the old, mostly bogus religious doctrines out of the way and look at what's really happening. Humans are receiving information, help, and support from unseen sources. I might also mention that some humans are also being attacked by unseen forces. It would be irresponsible to simply take these "voices" at their word as to who they are and what they represent, as much as it would be irresponsible to believe everything you see in television advertisements.

Sometimes they help, sometimes they cause harm. Sometimes they heal, and sometimes they kill. And they often claim to be representatives of God. Well, historically, God(s) --whichever religion you want to talk about-- are often more malevolent than benevolent, and are responsible for inflicting unimaginable suffering (or simply allowing unimaginable suffering) to befall vast numbers of innocent people. ...While those whose greed provides them with outrageous wealth easily ignore the crushing burden which their opulence creates upon the less fortunate.

I'm willing to accept unseen forces, but to lump everything we don't understand into one "catch-all" explanation such as "that's God" is woefully ignorant. God, the best I can tell, doesn't much care what happens to people. It isn't enough to say that "God's plan is beyond our understanding." What kind of God would be so committed to a secret plan for perfection that includes pain, suffering, agony, poverty, and death for millions of people?

No, God is something else, something much more subtle, and as yet, undescribed by any "worship-based" religion. God does not need worship because God--by definition--doesn't need anything. These "miracles" are a category of the unseen which is more finite, more tangible, and much more interfering than God. They're part of the system too, and just like people, some can be profoundly supportive and encounraging, while others are mischevious, mean-spirited, or insanely destructive.

So, I caution you, if a fish starts reciting the Torah, you should not give it any more particular creedence than if a homeless drunk began reciting the Torah at you. It might be a miracle, and it might be from God, but more likely, it's just something slightly unusual in a universe full of things we still don't quite understand.

If someone comes up to me and says I'm under arrest, I ask them to show me a badge. Likewise, if a burning bush walked up to me and announced that it was the Lord Almighty, I'd ask for unequivocal proof. Heal the sick, reward the righteous, punish the wicked. Until the burning bush does something unequivocally godlike, then it's just another supernatural oddity in a world that's blanketed with them. If you've seen one burning bush or talking fish, you've seen them all. But there's no direct evidence that any given invisible force is necessarily a representative of God. In my experience, they don't really know much more about God than I do.

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written by Allen, April 04, 2008

If it were as simple as "God answers prayer" one must explain why 99.9% of similar and serious prayers go "unanswered."
Oh come on! Virtually everyone who has a serious illness prays asking their god(s) to fix them up and has people close who do that.
So, claiming that prayer is what fixed the problem is as useful as claiming that breathing cured the problem, or using a fork, or drinking water.

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written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , February 14, 2008

hello, I work in the suncoast Healing rooms in Englewood Florida, I have seen some miracles and I believe that God has his own plan for our lives. Some don't get healed because they do not believe even though some do believe and don't get healed, God has his own reason. Remember it is God's WILL not ours to be healed.Sometimes God wull heal a unbeliever to turn him into a believer.sometimes he will not heal a believer because he or she has served there purpose in life. Also it's like you said we really don't understand why God dose things. But then he is the higher power. he is our papa GOD. everything is done for a reason. try praying to God. ask him a question. youwill be surprised by the way he answers you. you might find it in the new paper or a book or even in a show on t.v or a friend might come over and start talking to you and in the conversation it will hit like a ton of bricks ! and you will say oh! I just ask God that question one,two or three day's ago. Honest God does answer ALL prayers, You just have to be open to them. Try it. GOD BLESS YOU

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