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Published on April 19, 2008

bob kimmins

If a winner landed the jackpot without ever buying a lottery ticket - then that would be a miracle.

Miracles are phenomena that defy the laws of science and nature. They are seen to be impossible beyond the realms of the supernatural or without assistance from divine intervention.

Moses parting the sea, Jesus changing water to wine and the feeding of the five thousand are recognised miracles, although difficult to believe, and even some devout Christians dismiss such stories as fictional parables that helped understanding among the uneducated.

An end to miracles was declared in the book of Zechariah 13:1-2, 1, but no matter what the Bible says, modern-day miracles are still in abundance. Stigmata is the word used to describe the mysterious appearance of bodily marks which correspond to those Jesus suffered on the cross. Saint Francis of Assisi was the first to experience this in 1224, and since then almost 1,000 further cases have been recorded, many of which have involved non-religious people.

Up until now, there have been numerous reports of religious statues that weep, and change colour and facial expression. And in 1992 at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Lake Ridge, Virginia, a host of people witnessed hundreds of statues, crucifixes and pictures, weeping.

Miracles today are being taken seriously. A Gallup poll released in 2001 found that 54 per cent of Americans believe in faith healing; 41 percent acknowledge possession by the devil; 50 per cent accept extrasensory perception; 32 per cent believe in prophecy; and 38 per cent agree that ghosts exist.

See for yourself

Miracles have a tendency to happen spontaneously, so very few people actually get to witness one. However, a permanent wonder exists at the Temple of the Azure Cloud on the island of Penang in Malaysia.

The entrance to the temple is shrouded in a fog of scented smoke from an incense burner placed just outside the doorway. As the mist clears inside the main prayer hall, the black-faced statue of Chor Soo Kong slowly materialises, and with him, the internal structure and surrounding ornamentations, all draped with living snakes.

Chor Soo Kong - a Buddhist monk and faith healer - arrived in Penang from China during the early 1800s and made his mark by healing British resident, David Brown, of an incurable disease. Brown went on to donate land for a temple built in Chor Soo Kong's honour.

Legend has it that the monk who brought Chor Soo Kong's statue to Penang from China gave shelter to the snakes that mysteriously moved into the temple. In return for their safety, these venomous reptiles became guardians of the sanctuary, which became better known as the Snake Temple.

Today, the place is crawling with poisonous pit vipers that have miraculously never bitten anyone. Some say they've been de-venomised, others swear they haven't. Whatever the truth, many trusting tourists have had their photos taken, with serpents wrapped around their necks.

Strange reflections

The 15th-century temple of Wat Phra That Lampang Luang is located 20 kilometres south of Lampang city and remains one of the main attractions for Buddhist worshippers and tourists in the area.

Most of the renovations here have stuck rigidly to the original design, with wooden structures, an open-sided wihan, and sand still put down in the courtyard. In one corner, by a large chedi, a small mondob building contains a footprint of the Buddha's and a strange apparition.

A small hole in the door of the mondob allows a shaft of light to reflect an image of the chedi outside onto a white sheet hanging inside. The startling mystery that surrounds this image is the chedi on the sheet appears upside down.

Women are not allowed into the mondob at Wat Phra That Lampang Luang, but travel six kilometres down the road to Wat Phra That Chom Ping and everyone is welcome to see the same phenomenon in the ubosot there.

Here, a man named Na Tan takes great pains to show how no trick is played in making the chedi appear upside down and many visitors are given to believe the reflection is a religious miracle.

Enter the sceptics, who will point to the principles of the pinhole camera, to explain why the chedi appears upside down. Meanwhile, a 1998 study by Edward Harrison found that most marks of stigmata are self-inflicted by accident or religious conviction. And it's now thought that the non-biting vipers in the Snake Temple are drugged to the eyeballs by the burning incense.

But when it comes to the tears, and changing colours and expressions on weeping statues, and water seeping from pictures and crucifixes, we continue to wait for an earthly explanation.