“Real miracles are brought about by attracting the laws of a higher world to act in a lower world.” Maurice Nicoll

Miracles as Divine-Human Collaboration

“Miracles are fruits of the union of the whole, concentrated human being with cosmic truth, beauty and goodness—with God.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p210.

“Miracles require two united wills! They are not manifestations of an all-powerful will ordaining, but are due to a new power which is born whenever there is unity between divine will and human will!” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p56.

“Miracles are not proofs of divine omnipotence, but rather of the omnipotence of the alliance of divine will and human will.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p572-573.

Miracles and Open vs. Closed Systems

“In a world which is a closed circle, whose matter and energy are a constant quantity, there are no miracles. Because the cosmic notion of a ‘miracle’ entails inconstancy of the quantity of matter and energy in the world. A miracle takes place when the energy of the world undergoes either an increase or a diminution. This presupposes an opening in the circle of the world. For a miracle to be possible, the world must be an open circle, the world must be a spiral, i.e. it must have an ‘uncreated’ sphere or a ‘sabbath’.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p243.

“Allow me, dear Unknown Friend, to say something concerning the miracle that I believe to be of the highest significance, of which every Christian Hermeticist and every Cabbalist should take account: it is that there is no freedom outside of the miraculous and that man is man only free in so far as he lives from the miracle, through the miracle and for the miracle.

“All that is not mechanical—physical, psychic and intellectual—is miraculous, and all that is not miraculous is only mechanical—physical, psychic and intellectual. Freedom is a miracle and man is only free in so far as he is not a machine—physical, psychic and intellectual. We have no other choice than between the machine and slavery, on the one hand, and the miracle and freedom, on the other hand.” Meditations on the Tarot, p349.

The Reversal of Truth and Good in Miracles

“Jesus takes the place of the angel stirring the water of Truth and making it living Truth. Jesus always represents, in miracles, the power of Good acting on Truth and making it living. A man can only make Truth alive by seeing its Good, and if he perceives the Good of the Truth taught him, he acts spontaneously from his will. A man is internally both his Truth and his will. A man as Truth only acts slowly from Truth. But if he sees the Good of his Truth, he acts instantly from his will because his will passes instantly into what he perceives as Good, and only reluctantly into what he sees merely as Truth. The whole man is his Truth and his will passing into his Good.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man, p71.

“The miracle is about this deep question of first and second and its reversal. And the reversal makes Good first and Truth second. Then the man is made whole because the wholeness of Truth lies in the realization of its Good. The miracle means supremely that a man, however much Truth he knows, cannot act from it with his will unless he sees its Good, and this is the last stage of Truth called the Sabbath, where Good comes first.” New Man, p75.

Higher Order Causality

“Maurice Nichol, in his book, The New Man, that wonderful book on Christ, understood from the esoteric position, saying, a miracle is simply the laws of that higher order of causality bleeding into this world. [Miracle of the Pool of Bethesda, Maurice Nicoll, New Man, end of p2 ] When Jesus heals the epileptic and the disciples can’t, it’s not because Jesus has some special powers. It’s because he was able to abide by and, in some sense, draw on a different order of causality. And the disciples were too confused and too second-guessing to mediate it. Faith healing has really got that as its core principle. But the idea is that the Imaginal universe, if you see it out there, certainly in the Sufi scriptures, is utterly real, swifter, and more efficacious than this realm.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Imaginal Wisdom School 8-2020, 55:36 0816 IWS Sunday Evening Teaching.

“Every word used in a parable in the Gospels, or in a description of a miracle, has a special meaning, belonging to this language which connects the visible things of the world with the understanding of the mind of the Higher Emotional Center. A parable is only alive when it is based on this language for then it has connection with higher levels. Everything literal that is constructed rightly in terms of this language conducts force from higher levels and so has life in it. This is the basis of real miracles, for a miracle is brought about by attracting the laws of a higher world to act in a lower world.” Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, p60.

The Miracle of Being Called Back

“I’ve had this complete reversal in my perspective in spiritual practice that I used to think that my responsibility was to stay awake so that, you know, so that God wouldn’t sneak out when I was sleeping. That the spiritual journey was about staying awake. Well, maybe that’s because that’s the only message I’d ever heard. But what I’ve begun to see is that spiritual journey is about gradually seeing through all the times that you fall asleep and something nudges you back that something or someone is working with you and for you intensely for you. That, for me, the real miracle is the being called back when you’ve fallen asleep.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2012 Gurdjieff for Christian Contemplatives, 28:19 12 Thursday Evening Q & A.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Logion 77
Yeshua says…
I am the light shining upon all things.
I am the sum of everything,
for everything has come forth from me,
and towards me everything unfolds.
Split a piece of wood, and there I am.
Pick up a stone
and you will find me there.

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Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985

Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)

Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man refer to Martino Fine Books, Eastford CT, 2019

Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The Mark refer to Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, 1954

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.