Everyone likes a crystal ball now and then. It just seems so darn intriguing...magical...mystical...and hey maybe a chance to defy the gods and part the curtains into our future. This bone-deep curiosity is what keeps shamans, astrologers, horoscopes, mediums, Chinese fortune cookies and high-paid economic forecasters busy.
A first cousin to crystal balls are miracles. Now these are the superstars of the amazing! We are led to believe the uneducated believe in them, the educated dismiss them, and the recipients find it hard to explain them. The respected philosopher George Santayana spoke for the prosecution when he dismissed them this way: "Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood."
Frankly I was more skeptical of miracles until I read his dismissive explanation. Because it is no explanation at all! Too complicated to be readily understood...? Well, yeah professor, that's precisely what both believers and recipients say. If these events were "understandable" they would not be miracles!
Science to the rescue.
Just as the highest authors of humanity were once robed priests and priestesses standing before Egyptian/ Athenian/Medieval altars...now they are jacketed neuro-biologists and cosmologists standing before Bunsen burners/petri dishes/telescopes. Different breeds and different methodologies; but the same cocksure voice of authority. One breed believed in miracles by saying they were too complicated to be understood. Today's breed doesn't believe in miracles by saying the same thing: too complicated to be understood.
Like you, I've been brushed a few times by what I felt was the miraculous. But Mr Santayana is quite correct. These experiences were far far too complicated for anyone else to understand. Actually, for me to completely understand. This much can be said. All miracles are true...and some even happened!
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