There are many wonderful things that we could classify as miracles: the capacity for love, the beauty of a sunny morning, dew on roses, the ability to paint or compose a masterpiece, and many other natural wonders.

Many Pagans believe in healing energies and such; but we tend to regard them as supplementary to conventional medicine—not a replacement for it. We also believe that they are within Nature, and that one day science will be able to explain them.

However, having a belief in the possibility of supernatural miracles is not a good thing. Here, I’m defining miracle as something that cannot be explained by rational or empirical means.

There have been many cases where people have died because they thought they had been supernaturally and miraculously healed, so they threw their medication away. In one particular case, where a family thought their son had been healed from diabetes, it took their child three days to die from lack of medication. There are numerous similar cases where people have died in this way.

Dying because of a belief in miracles is pretty extreme, but there are many other deleterious effects of this belief.

One bad effect is that by holding out for a miraculous cure for an incurable illness, people are prevented from coming to terms with the illness. They then suffer grief for longer. This is true whether the illness is affecting them or a loved one.

Believing in supernatural miracles also leaves you vulnerable to believing other unlikely things.

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I wrote about this topic in my book, Changing Paths, so if you found this post helpful, check out the book.