Creating Miracles: Understanding the Experience of Divine Intervention [Paperback]

Carolyn Miller (Author), Nancy Carleton (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1995

What if miracles were available for the asking? What if by applying an ancient spiritual formula, we could access divine intervention in ordinary reality, even in times of serious emergency? What if it were not even necessary to believe in God to attract a miracle?

Dr. Carolyn Miller, a research scientist, investigates miracles through the exceptional stories of ordinary people who emerged unscathed from dangerous situations. The first scientific look at miracles, it includes a method for attracting miraculous experiences into your own life. Dr. Miller takes an unsentimental look at the stories of miracle workers who have survived accidents and assaults by entering into a serene, detached, and loving state of consciousness. In the face of grave danger, these people report a remarkable absence of fear even when they believe they are going to die, a peaceful acceptance of the inevitable, and an unusual expansion of time. The result of this state of consciousness is deliverance from danger. A student of metaphysics as well as a scientist, Miller explores the evidence for miracles, drawing on these amazing experiences.

Dr. Miller is not trying to stretch our credulity to the breaking point. After noting dozens of awe-inspiring stores, she takes a rigorous look at the case for miracles from a scientific point of view. Her conclusions will startle believers and skeptics alike: Miracles are real, and accessing them requires only that we follow some clear and simple steps. No one can prove that miracles do not happen, and by looking at the phenomenon through the window of the most advanced scientific thinking today, they are easily explained. Part Two of Creating Miracles gives helpful ideas as to how we might consciously create miracles in our own lives.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Creating Miracles is a powerful book. It expands our sense of the miraculous in everyday life. -- Marianne Williamson, Author, A Return to Love

Creating Miracles is an inspiring, well-written book for the open-minded. Having lived some of the content personally and professionally, I was moved by it and heartily recommend it for everyone. One does not have to accept all the premises to enjoy and learn from Creating Miracles. -- Bernie Siegel, M.D., Author, Love, Medicine and Miracles

Carolyn Miller uses her extensive educational training, as well as life experience, to write a very enlightening, thought-provoking book. Creating Miracles hits the mark as the author uses examples of diverse experiences that seem to have involved divine guidance. The divine guidance described by the author directs people to behave in a manner they would not normally have considered, and when people follow the guidance, the results are outcomes that could be considered miraculous. Carolyn Miller goes on to explore what we might do to open ourselves to divine guidance and intervention. I found Creating Miracles fascinating and would gladly display it as a Book of the Month in my store. The cover is beautiful and will entice customers to pick up the book. I hope to see this book on the best-sellers list. Creating Miracles is suitable for all readers as no specific religion is espoused. -- Reviewed by Cheryl Holland, The Lion and Flamingo, Dallas, GA, for New Age Retailer, September 1995

In over 50 accounts of real experiences, Dr. Miller describes how ordinary people spontaneously entered altered states of consciousness and positively affected sometimes life-threatening events. Calling on her scientific background as an experimental psychologist, she analyzes the common patterns in these situations as well as the skepticism with which the stories might be received. After demonstrating her conclusion that these coincidences are really miracles, Miller addresses several chapters to learning how to access this powerful spiritual force. This book is easy to read and enlightening as well. -- NAPRA ReVIEW, Summer 1995

Miller became interested in the phenomenon of miracles after she experienced one. She began collecting stories from people and analyzing them for some kind of commonality. This, in turn, led her to explore whether it was possible to perform miracles consciously. Creating Miracles is the result of her research.

No matter what the circumstances, whether the situation was an attack, accident, or natural catastrophe, Miller isolated surrender as being key to the successful operation of a miracle. If one is preoccupied with blame or fear, Miller believes, then one is placed beyond the reach of miracles. It is only by surrendering to the moment and uniting our own will with that of our higher power, that miracles are possible. When people are able to remove their ego from the event, then something else is able to step in and events change in often a remarkable fashion.

Miller also talks about why miracles come to some and not to others. She sees this as a result of the difference between operating out of ego and operating out of nonjudgement. The self-righteous and vindictive are on their own. They have not properly invited divine intervention, writes Miller. Invitation, then, is another key to miracles.

Creating Miracles pulls together hundreds of testimonies regarding all kinds of miracles and weaves them together with graceful, organized narrative into a coherent tapestry of faith. Miller honestly addresses the questions the skeptical or rational mind might have. Every time she seems to have pushed the limit of her philosophy, she raises the very question an objective reader would ask and then proceeds to demonstrate her case with another testimony. Creating Miracles is a well-done piece of research and thought and a joy to read. -- New Age Retailer, March/April 1996

Miller posits that altered states of consciousness can either affect circumstances (illness, accidents) to create miracles, or open the path for divine intervention. In story after story illustrating her thesis, the author describes people facing danger and death who suddenly attain a peaceful, even bemused or compassionate, state of mindand who survive when survival seems unlikely or impossible. Miller also takes a scientific approach to miracles and demonstrates not only that no one can prove they dont happen, but that advanced scientific thinking does in fact make room for their existence. Yet it is some of Millers anecdotal evidence that lingers in the mind, like the man who visualizes the cell-by-cell cleaning of his diseased liver until one day his doctors announce that something is wrong: the healthy liver he suddenly has could not be his! A readable and encouraging book, Millers suggestions for altering negative thinking seem a good practice to try in our daily lives. -- Body Mind Spirit magazine, July 1995

The guardian angel phenomenon, spontaneous remission, remarkable healings, inner knowing, and the wisdom of intuition are all put in a single comprehensive and easily understood context in Creating Miracles. . . . I have a feeling that if I had run across this book a few decades earlier, it might well have changed my life. -- Willis Harmon, Ph.D., President, Institute of Noetic Sciences

From the Publisher

To our readers: The books we publish are our contribution to an emerging world based on cooperation rather than on competition, on affirmation of the human spirit rather than on self-doubt, and on the certainty that all humanity is connected. Our goal is to touch as many lives as possible with a message of hope for a better world. Hal and Linda Kramer, Publishers

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Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: H.J. Kramer; 1St Edition edition (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915811626
• ISBN-13: 978-0915811625
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #461,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book, July 2, 2006

By 

Diana "Di" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating Miracles: A Practical Guide to Divine Intervention (Paperback)

I happened to be in a local Chapters bookstore one day and stumbled across this book, "Creating Miracles - A Practical Guide to Divine Intervention" by Carolyn Miller. When I first noticed it I thought that it would be simply another run-of-the-mill book filled with 'new-age' fodder and fluff. However, after leafing through the pages for a couple of moments, I became intrigued and purchased it.

What I found did not disappoint me. The author tackles the subject of miracles - what they are, how they are created, and why some never seem to have them happen - with the objectivity of both a psychologist and believer of 'faith' combined. She manages to analyze and explain just how the inner workings of miracles come about, how to recognize them, and how to work upon bringing more miracles into one's own life. Filled with anecdotes and documented cases, along with a great sense of humor and humility, "Creating Miracles" is a book I would highly recommend. Interestingly, after reading one chapter that addressed a commonality among those who have experienced miracles in their lives, Miller noted that one thing all cases she related in her book had one thing in common...they all came to a point of surrender just before the miracle happened. She noted that a sense of peace came over each individual, despite the sometimes horrific events that were taking place at that moment. And as I read this I was taken back to a day in 1979 when, a week before my wedding, I almost drowned. I had been in a boat with my fiance and a friend at dusk, on a deserted lake. No lifejackets, not another soul around for miles, and our boat began to take on water at a steady rate. I couldn't swim a stroke, and at first panic set in as the two men tried to keep the boat from going under. The water was flooding in much too fast however, and within moments it had gone under. And I recall that at the moment the water had reached my chin, a sense of inner peace enveloped me. I didn't struggle, didn't panic...didn't even attempt to save myself...I just 'let go' and waited, almost as though I was an observer watching the event unfold. As soon as this sense of inner peace took over, something miraculous happened. Despite there being no visibility (as the sun had gone down), one of the men suddenly grabbed me and threw me into a dinghy that we had been towing. It seemed so effortless, and so 'right', yet the odds of him finding me as I sunk below the surface, the water pitch black and not able to see within a foot around us, would have been incredibly low. I hadn't called out, hadn't made a sound in the water...yet he was guided to me and he managed to save me nevertheless. I believe this is exactly what Carolyn Miller talks about in her book; this is how so many have experienced miracles in their lives...unexpected, sometimes life-threatening events that suddenly grasp us and in those few moments, we have the free will to decide (either consciously or subconsciously) how to act.

I highly recommend this book, as it may open your eyes to ways in which to invite miracles into your own lives, or even to recognize when miracles have indeed, taken place.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Roll Your Own Miracles (?), July 1, 2000

By 

Bruce Boatner (Eagle, Idaho USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creating Miracles: Understanding the Experience of Divine Intervention (Paperback)

Quick - what's the first thing that comes to mind when you find yourself in a bind? The frantic search for someone to blame? The feeling of victimhood? The lengths to which we are willing to stretch reason in order to find someone else responsible for our woes is nearly comical.

This book is as close as you can get to a "how-to" book for miracles. The exalted "A Course In Miracles" is quoted freely in this work, establishing its secure underpinnings in the metaphysics of higher realities (a.k.a. miracles). The key: miracles are a CHOICE.

If life is a series of lessons, choosing the "path less taken" often means a conscious decision to see a situation in a completely different light. This might entail compassion for the oppressor, awareness of the "big picture" and the wellbeing of all concerned, or simply a complete surrender to a loving Higher Power. (Interestingly, completely "losing it" later on seems to be OK). When this loving attitude is chosen as the response to a crisis, the lesson may be "called off" as it were. You got it. You passed the test. No need to go further.

This is a wonderful book - one that should be read by everybody as an antidote for the "eye for an eye" mentality of the world-mind.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Do You Believe in Miracles?, May 1, 2006

By 

STEPHEN KIERULFF (Los Angeles, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creating Miracles: A Practical Guide to Divine Intervention (Paperback)

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO CREATE MIRACLES?
Armed with a Ph.D. in experimental psychology, Carolyn Godschild Miller tackles some tricky issues in her fine book Creating Miracles: A Practical Guide to Divine Intervention.
The book delivers a heaping plateful of inspiring and astounding true tales - deliverance from deadly dangers and personal attacks; synchronicities; healing by prayer, visualization and distant intention - the stories alone are worth the price of admission. Even if you don't believe in miracles as such, but prefer to view the "miraculous" as an unexplained facet of the natural world (as I do), you will find much in Dr. Miller's book to appreciate, enjoy, and use. An eye-opener as well as a heart-opener, this book shows that amazingly good outcomes are possible in even the most hopeless-looking situations.
Defining a miracle as "an instance in which a supernatural power interferes in the natural world," Miller says, "the actual miracle is not the healed body or the peaceful outcome to a dangerous situation. It is the unconditionally loving state of mind that allows such things to happen." The peaceful, loving, assured state of mind associated with meditation is felt to be the catalyst for miracles. In this, the author follows the spiritual curriculum of A Course in Miracles.
Dr. Miller is an astute writer, fluid and user-friendly, with an intriguing sense of humor. Her engaging accounts of purportedly miraculous events provide a punch that deflates defenses and opens the imagination - wide. Stories and chapters in Creating Miracles brought joyful tears to my eyes, a warm expansion to my heart, and a sense of empowerment and determination to my intellect.
In her review of the scientific literature, Miller tackles chance, coincidence, skepticism, and the 95% confidence level with wit and an insider's knowledge of the vagaries of the experimental method. Her final chapters challenge the reader to fashion personal experiments conjuring up (or meeting) divine guides and test-driving miracle-mindedness.
Credulity is, of course, an issue. Dr. Miller apparently believes that specific "miraculous" things are possible, such as the sudden, perfectly-timed appearance of a life-saving beaver pond where none had ever been seen before. I don't. But if you get too uptight about being credulous, you may miss the plum in the midst of the pie. I'll bet you'll appreciate the body of what Miller has to say and how she says it. I'll bet you're going to want to read every page of this book and share it with friends.
Creating Miracles is sagely organized. Stories in the beginning tantalize the ego; admonitions at the end are soaked with spirit. The book takes you on a delightful journey and by the time you're finished you're not quite the same person who started. Miller's book is gently persuasive. It animated me.
263 pages of mega-brilliance can't be boiled down to a brief review, and a summary can't do justice to the high quality of thought and intention in this book. To get the gift, you'll have to read it yourself. As the subtitle promises, it's practical - it teaches you how to begin to do these marvelous miracles (or facilitate these beneficent mysteries). And it's a fine read.
Carolyn Godschild Miller, Ph.D., Creating Miracles: A Practical Guide to Divine Intervention. An HJ Kramer book, New World Library, Novato, CA. $14.95. Originally published 1995, new edition updated and revised 2006.
Reviewed by Stephen Kierulff, Ph.D., coauthor, with Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., of Becoming Psychic: Spiritual Lessons for Focusing Your Hidden Abilities, 256 pages, $14.99, New Page Books, 2004. Dr. Kierulff offers psychotherapy in Santa Monica and Inglewood in southern California. E-mail - [e-mail]