Miracle working entails the use of PRAYER. "Prayer is the medium of miracles." "Through prayer love is received. Through miracles love is expressed."

Miracles are NOT a shift in perception. The only way perception is involved is that perception must be loving (as close to true perception as possible), and fear must be suspended. "Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles." Wholeness of perception is not a shift. It is miracle mindedness, resting on forgiveness, which sees with MAXIMAL love.

Miracles, in a course in miracles, are expressive acts of power which can heal others. And they are performed through PRAYER. However, this doesn’t mean you have to pray using words. God does not understand words. Prayers are requests made in your HEART, in awareness of LOVE. Love is essential for miracle working. Your heart requests and receives and experiences, in certainty and decisiveness.

Some parts of ACIM speak specifically to "how to perform miracles." Here is one of them:

21. What Is the Role of Words in Healing?

M-21.1. Strictly speaking, words play no part at all in healing. 2 The motivating factor is prayer, or asking. 3 What you ask for you receive. 4 But this refers to the prayer of the heart, not to the words you use in praying. 5 Sometimes the words and the prayer are contradictory; sometimes they agree. 6 It does not matter. 7 God does not understand words, for they were made by separated minds to keep them in the illusion of separation. 8 Words can be helpful, particularly for the beginner, in helping concentration and facilitating the exclusion, or at least the control, of extraneous thoughts. 9 Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. 10 They are thus twice removed from reality.

M-21.2. As symbols, words have quite specific references. 2 Even when they seem most abstract, the picture that comes to mind is apt to be very concrete. 3 Unless a specific referent does occur to the mind in conjunction with the word, the word has little or no practical meaning, and thus cannot help the healing process. 4 The prayer of the heart does not really ask for concrete things. 5 It always requests some kind of experience, the specific things asked for being the bringers of the desired experience in the opinion of the asker. 6 The words, then, are symbols for the things asked for, but the things themselves but stand for the experiences that are hoped for.

M-21.3. The prayer for things of this world will bring experiences of this world. 2 If the prayer of the heart asks for this, this will be given because this will be received. 3 It is impossible that the prayer of the heart remain unanswered in the perception of the one who asks. 4 If he asks for the impossible, if he wants what does not exist or seeks for illusions in his heart, all this becomes his own. 5 The power of his decision offers it to him as he requests. 6 Herein lie hell and Heaven. 7 The sleeping Son of God has but this power left to him. 8 It is enough. 9 His words do not matter. 10 Only the Word of God has any meaning, because it symbolizes that which has no human symbols at all. 11 The Holy Spirit alone understands what this Word stands for. 12 And this, too, is enough.

M-21.4. Is the teacher of God, then, to avoid the use of words in his teaching? 2 No, indeed! 3 There are many who must be reached through words, being as yet unable to hear in silence. 4 The teacher of God must, however, learn to use words in a new way. 5 Gradually, he learns how to let his words be chosen for him by ceasing to decide for himself what he will say. 6 This process is merely a special case of the lesson in the workbook that says, "I will step back and let Him lead the way." 7 The teacher of God accepts the words which are offered him, and gives as he receives. 8 He does not control the direction of his speaking. 9 He listens and hears and speaks.

M-21.5. A major hindrance in this aspect of his learning is the teacher of God's fear about the validity of what he hears. 2 And what he hears may indeed be quite startling. 3 It may also seem to be quite irrelevant to the presented problem as he perceives it, and may, in fact, confront the teacher with a situation that appears to be very embarrassing to him. 4 All these are judgments that have no value. 5 They are his own, coming from a shabby self-perception which he would leave behind. 6 Judge not the words that come to you, but offer them in confidence. 7 They are far wiser than your own. 8 God's teachers have God's Word behind their symbols. 9 And He Himself gives to the words they use the power of His Spirit, raising them from meaningless symbols to the Call of Heaven itself.

You get what you ask for and nothing else.

How you "ask", is a state of prayer.

"Prayer is the medium of miracles."

Another way to describe asking, is INVITATION.

If you INVITE GOD, by showing up in a role of miracle-worker, trusting God to support and work through you to move mountains, God WILL COME.

Your act of faith of trusting God to show up to support you, without you relying on your own self, and therefore being free of FEAR, is you "asking" for miraculous results. God results.

When you are trusting in your own strength, relying on your ego knowledge, and only acting based on what you feel certain of yourself - separate from and not including God or not being based on God's truth, you will be in FEAR.

And being in fear, you will lack faith, and will not see miracles, because you are not flowing them, you are not INVITING them, because you are not ASKING for them.

You ask for miracles by being miracle-minded, which means letting God work through you and TRUSTING God to do so, simply showing up empty-handed with a WILLINGNESS for God to work through you, instead of relying on your ego whatsoever.

In fear, you are not asking for God to come, because you are not showing an invitation, because you are not willing to let Him be the source of the miracle. Instead, you are trying to be the source, which is the authority problem, which is a block to awareness. This means you are then "praying for nothing", and you will receive nothing, and something has gone wrong - so you will not see a miracle.

You will then seem to get what you did not want, because you asked IN fear, and so are afraid OF what you get.

So either invite the ego by being a channel/vessel for your ego and trusting your separate self, OR you invite God by being a channel/vessel for God and trusting HIM and his support.

We are always praying, as laid out in the "Song of Prayer" pamphlet. We're always asking. If we ask with the ego we'll get ego. If we show up in an ego, self-reliant way, we'll get what we do not want. But if we show up to be of service to God, to let Him work through us, and to trust Him to take care of everything for us, miracles will happen.

Prayer as the medium for miracles, also means prayer is an ACTIVE STATE OF MIRACLE WORKING, not something you just done once in a while in private.

Here is an interesting teaching.

In its natural state, the body is a communication medium. The mind is supposed to flow through it and extend BEYOND it outwards. The body itself is not supposed to be part of the message as such.

But when the mind starts to STOP at the body, or to be blocked by the body, or runs up against the body, it prevents it from extending PAST the body. The communication medium can no longer communicate because the flow is blocked. This is what blocks to love do. They make you fixate on form and be blinded by illusion, which get in the way of seeing Christ.

When there are blocks to love, mind cannot extend through and past and overlook the body, and so fixates ON the body. This causes you to perceive that the body is what is there, in the mind, rather than looking PAST it. The body becomes what you are looking AT, rather than that you are looking at Christ PAST the body.

Making perception stop AT the body and blocking the flow of love, basically cuts that flow off and stops it from moving outward. That means it has become stifled, and now there is a kind of "separation" which has been introduced between the body and the outside. Or a gap, where extension of love was supposed to fill it externally, but is now left empty due to the blocked expression.

This blocking of extension makes the body SICK, because it focuses the mind ON the body and AT the body, instead of PAST the body. The body then becomes attacked by the mind as though "colliding with it" instead of flowing naturally through it and past it and onward in communication. Kind of like a dirty camera lens, or a blocked toilet, or a bunch of boarded up windows made to block the light. Another example would be a "blocked artery", making the blood flow impeded, and resulting in death.

So the blocks to love have to be removed so that the "surface" of the communication medium doesn't turn into the "message" and so that love can flow and extend, which means love is radiated and increased, which means HEALING comes through the body and the body is MADE WHOLE because it is COMMUNICATING WHOLENESS. When the mind is sane and flowing fully and freely THROUGH the body, the body is HEALED as the love passes through it making it essentially immortal, incapable of sickness or death.

Here is how Jesus says it:

"The removal of blocks, then, is the ONLY way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working through the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its GOAL, it WILL distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it, will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else.

To use a medium of communication as a medium of ATTACK is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer? Perception of the body can be unified only by ONE PURPOSE. This releases the mind from the temptation to see it in many lights, and gives it over ENTIRELY to the One Light in which it can be really understood at all."

The body is supposed to be used as a communication device. This is much misundestood. What it means is that the body is to be used in a way that reflects our function of extension in heaven. We (mind/soul) are a MEDIUM or "communication channel" of extension, through which God is hosted and extends. We are to pass on what we receive. And this produces a continuous outward expansion and increase of creation. This is also communication - the outward expression of love.

"Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating His Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will." That means, the body is supposed to, from a higher repurposing perspective, be used solely to extend and join and communicate, like a medium that you express THROUGH and BEYOND. Whereby you use it solely like a tool to give to others, placing no focus ON the body itself, or on the bodies of others. Because bodies become a LIMIT on communication if you make them real. They turn into brick walls.

The entire problem comes when you begin to focus ON the body, making it an idol, worshipping it, mistaking it for a THING in its own right, considering it an entity, dwelling on its form and function, and identifying with it as if it is your self. This converts the "channel" from being a channel, to being a roadblock in the channel. It turns the body into a blockage of separation instead of extension.

All of the minds attention is put ON the MEDIUM ITSELF, as if the medium itself is important. This separates the mind off because it now stops at the body's limits and does not go past it to join with other minds beyond their bodies. This increases the rift in the mind and induces all forms of sickness including death. It's a mis-use of the body - trying to use what's supposed to be a PIPE, as though it's a brick wall.

This is also why holy relationship is important because you're supposed to USE the body to relate BEYOND the body. It's only supposed to be used temporarily as a device for this purpose, and is not supposed to be used to exalt itself or to act as a prison or barrier. When you become body focused, you literally "lose sight" of your brother and yourself. It means we're turning a device for learning into the FOCUS of learning, as if trying to make the body BE something in its own right, which it isn't. The body is used for communication when the body ITSELF becomes NOTHING and invisible in the equasion.

"Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not IN it. If the mind believes the body is its GOAL, it WILL distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot BUT foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else."

"To confuse a learning device with a curriculum GOAL is a fundamental confusion. Learning can hardly be meaningfully arrested at its own aids, and hope to understand them OR its real purpose. Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY."

"The Holy Spirit's purpose lies safe in your RELATIONSHIP, and NOT your bodies. You have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the BODY cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set HIS temple there."

"You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit's temple, and it will NEVER be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love's CONDEMNATION. For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept APART from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return."

"The Holy Spirit's temple is NOT a body, but a RELATIONSHIP. The body is an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spot of senseless mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet hiding nothing. Here, the unholy relationship escapes reality, and seeks for crumbs to keep itself alive. Here it would drag its brothers, holding them here in its idolatry. Here it is "safe," for here love CANNOT enter. The Holy Spirit does not build His temples where love can never be. Would He Who SEES the face of Christ choose as His home the only place in all the universe where it can NOT be seen?"

You want to perform miracles? You need to learn how to pray. It's right here in the miracle principles:

"11 Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed." - ACIM

You enter prayer to experience and receive God's love and to thank Him for providing it, and then you fill up with that love, and then you overflow that love to others, which is an extension of love - a miracle. If you can't pray/commune with God and receive His love, then you cannot work miracles, because all miracles come from God.

Again, if you want to work miracles, you need to learn to pray. Miracles aren't just shifts in perception or changes or mind. They are what flows to HEAL mind when love is allowed, and their extension extends that healing to others.

If you are working with ACIM purely on a level of fixing thoughts and changing perceptions so that YOU are more at peace in ISOLATION, you are missing the point of what a miracle is, and the power that is being offered for you to share. You are working on healing so that you can become a medium for miracles to flow through communion/prayer with God, not just so you can float around the world in isolation being a bit more happy or less reactive. The purpose here is to learn to share in God's love and to extend its miraculous power to everyone.

"Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the Created with the Creator. Through prayer, love is received, and through miracles love is expressed."

Ok so... we talk about GIVING something in a miracle - expressing love. But there is another half to this - the RECEIVING of love. We are actually all quite averse to RECEIVING FROM GOD because we denied that God is our father, threw away our inheritance, and tried NOT TO RECEIVE in the separation. And the only reason we are all so miserable and suffering is because we are not willing to RECEIVE AND EXTEND. God's gift is to simply "give what you have been given."

This is really about the higher level of prayer. In lower prayer, you see yourself or others as lacking and in need, and so you make the need real and then ask for its removal. You pray "God, please take this away" or "God, please help them stop being so whatever."

But these are requests based on a belief that something is wrong. And believing something is wrong with ANYONE is the same as believing they are guilty and dysfunctional. "God, please help my enemy stop being such an asshole." Or, "God, please help my team to win the match." Or, "God, that person is so defective, please heal them."

This isn't miracle working. Miracles operate at the much higher level of true prayer. Real prayer is not based on believing that something is wrong and then asking that it be fixed. It is an acknowledgement and a recognition that NOTHING is wrong, God has ALREADY GIVEN what is needed, and NOTHING is lacking.

This high state of prayer is a willingness to RECEIVE LOVE from God, to acknowledge he is the cause of you, that you have received effect from him, and is a reclaiming of your inheritance.

The ego would say, in order to give something you have to lose it, and so giving is not receiving, and if you give love you will use up your love and run out. That in order to heal another, you have to sacrifice and lose what you have, and they better be grateful for transferring their lack to you.

But in this there is no receiving and no inclusion in what is being received. The golden rule says what you give you receive and all you give is given to yourself. But it also means, you have to be willing to RECEIVE LOVE FROM GOD, in order to HAVE LOVE TO GIVE.

So you cannot work miracles without first receiving God for yourself, because you then have to EXTEND what you have received and GIVE GOD in order to perform a miracle for another. That means a recognition, acknowledgement, and gratitude, that God HAS GIVEN EVERYTHING ALREADY.

Everything was given you in your creation. It is your natural inheritance. You threw that inheritance away by denying it when you bought into the mad idea and adopted an authority problem. The authority problem has to be undone so that you recognize 1) God is your creator 2) You are not God's creator, and therefore 3) God has given something to you.

Recognizing that everything has been given to you should inspire natural gratitude to God, and where there is gratitude there is love. To THANK GOD for what God HAS ALREADY given, and is giving now, is to RECEIVE LOVE. And THAT is what the highest form of prayer really means.

It is more aligned with an experience of a COMMUNION with God in which you are sharing with God, receiving from God, and giving what you receive. It is your natural state. In this state, you are open to BOTH GIVE AND RECEIVE, not just to give.

In this state of what we're calling prayer you are not really asking for something that you DON'T have, or that another LACKS. You are looking to the light and recognizing IT IS THERE already, because God has put it there already. He has fore-given (given ahead of the need) in order to prevent a state of need.

So you be grateful to God and thank God for having already given perfect love to you, and you open to RECEIVE that love and LET yourself BE loved. And then you receive that love from God, which heals your mind in a way like nothing else can. And then you GIVE that love as a miracle.

Once you have love, expressing yourself is miraculous. Every way that you then express the love you have received and shared with God, is a way of EXTENDING and SHARING that love. God is given, and is allowed to extend THROUGH you to another. This also entails recognizing that the light and love that is IN another IS ALREADY THERE, and IS NOT MISSING.

You receive God within yourself, acknowledge and be grateful that God HAS GIVEN IT ALREADY, and so you are blessed with it. And then you recognize that it is ALREADY IN ANOTHER - seeing past all sense of lack and damage and brokenness and sickness as UNREAL and NOT TRUE, seeing past it (which is forgiveness - to overlook), to the light. To see the Holy Spirit IN THE OTHER ALREADY, because God ALREADY PUT IT THERE.

Then you continually extend God from the prayerful awareness of having been given God within you, as love and light and power, and you extend it (unconditionally give it with no strings attached) to the other who HAS IT, in order to amplify the awareness that it is ALREADY IN THEM. And so the light in them intensifies as you strengthen the idea of the Holy Spirit in them, and their mind becomes healed also.

The completed sequence then is simply: "A miracle is a Universal Blessing from God (received in prayer) through Me (extended by me) to all My Brothers (acknowledging they already have it also)." This is achieved through higher prayer, which is now a MEDIUM through which God is extended, in recognition of a pre-existing perfection that overrides any notion that something is wrong.

"The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Its EFFECTS assure him IT IS THERE."

"I give the miracles I have received." "God is but love, and therefore, so am I."

"However, we also noted that prayer is the medium of miracles, and also the natural communication of the Creator and the Created. Prayer is always an affirmation of knowledge, not of accurate perception."

"Prayer is a way of asking for something. When we said that prayer is the medium of miracles, we also said that the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven HAVE everything. Once forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly without meaning. Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to recognize something we already have."

"Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers."

This describes the whole miracle-working system.

All power is of God. God is therefore the source of miracles.

"Miracles mean life, and God is the giver of life."

God is the one who actually blesses by giving/supplying life.

"There is no love but God's". "Miracles are expressions of love." Therefore God is the one supplying the love.

He blesses you, but he also blesses THROUGH you. The power that is in you, the power to work miracles, is God's.

"The power of God, and not of you, engenders miracles. The miracle itself is but the witness that you have the power of God in you."

So here's how it's set up. God created you, giving Himself to you. You are host to God. God's LIFE is in you. His power is in you.

"To recognize that all power is of God is to gain all power."

The power of God in you is your inheritance from God. His will is in you. You share his mind.

So God gives YOU the life/light/miracle, and then you PASS IT ON to your brothers. You share it and extend it. This is the fundamental setup.

You, as a miracle worker, in a state of truer perception, a loving perception, allow God's love to flow through you, to others.

You give the miracles you receive.

"Prayer is the medium of miracles. Through prayer love is received, through miracles love is expressed."

So basically you openly commune with God, within your being, and recognize and open to His presence IN you, but what is IN you is given to you FOR you AND FOR your brother. So it must pass THROUGH you to others. And thus you become a miracle worker.

"Miracles are the maximal service you can render another."

So when you are fully EXTENDING, passing on, what you are receiving from God, you are working miracles.

It is God's power that works through you.

And WHO or what is the mechanism by which miracles occur? It's the Holy Spirit.

"The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist."

"The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE."

Essentially, you are like a MEDIUM or channel. You are to allow the Holy Spirit to operate through you. Similarly Jesus is involved in this:

"You will see miracles through your hands through mine."

Which again means you HOST Jesus and allow him to work THROUGH your hands.

Love must be received from God, as a blessing for you, and then you must pass it on for others. Doing so works miracles. The power of God can move through you to move mountains, literally, and to raise the dead.

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world."

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

Receive from God, give to others.

Receive from God, supply to others.

To do this you have to be purified yourself, so that you become a conduit for love, and WILLING and ABLE to express love, so that you can EXTEND the love of God that is in you.

You have to become the light of the world, in order to allow God's light, which is yours, to shine THROUGH you, to illuminate the minds of others.

Miracle working thus is basically just a matter of letting the Holy Spirit operate through you, allowing Gods power to flow through you, and to extend their love and power to your brothers to help them.

This is why miracle working isn't just about you receiving miracles, or you shifting perception. It's about you fulfilling your function in the MACHINERY that God has set up. He has already provided the power and the healing, YOUR ROLE or function is to extend and express it.

This parallels the way that you are a co-creator with God in heaven. God creates you and puts the power and light in you, you USE IT to extend His will and thus co-create with him. You share His love with everyone else. Just as miracles are a form of sharing.

"Miracles unite you with your brother."

Operating in holy relationship with others thus produces miracles naturally because you are functioning the way you were intended to, as a relay station for God's love.

If you think of this in terms of ... God contributes some of the decisions, and you contribute other parts.... then no, this is not how you co-create with God. This is co-creation based in separation/ego.

It is not that God does some portion of creation and you do some other portion. It's also not that God finished doing his portion on a Sunday ;-) and now for the rest of the week you get to do whatever the hell you like without Him. ;-)

However, if you think of co-creation in terms of you NOT being separate from God, in which you are aligned with, one with, a medium for, and a conduit of God, then you effectively create WITH God when you are carrying out God's will.

This means that you do not necessarily have a separate will which can co-create to do things which God would not do. You only get to co-create with God, by being WITH God, and that means extending the creative ideals that God expresses. Love, peace, joy etc.

So yes you are co-creator because you EXTEND the Kingdom. But no, you are not co-creator who is on some kind of 'God team' who goes off by himself and calls the shots.

That said, there is perfect freedom in your union with God, and you are free to create anything with God, using God's power, which he shares with you on purpose to allow you to do this, provided your creations are in service and are aligned with God's laws.

"Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God."

"The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants."

Realize that it is not at the SOUL LEVEL that separation takes place. There is NO EGO at the level of souls. Nothing real can be threatened. Spirit is in a state of grace forever. The SOULS do not experience the separation. The soul does not become part of the separation idea or the tiny mad idea. The soul is OUTSIDE OF the separation at all times.

And that means, the idea of there being MANY SOULS, or MANY SONS OF GOD, has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with egotism, separation, madness, dreaming, or anything to do with "the separation" AT ALL.

The fact that there are many souls (children of God) is actually BEYOND the separation idea. And it is permanent, and real, and NATURAL AND NORMAL. It's not correct to try to say that "many sons of God" or "many souls" is a SEPARATION IDEA. It is not, it's totally beyond the separation because the soul is BEYOND THE MIND. And it's only the MIND, where there is free will, which has dreamed of opposing God's will.

Souls are forever BEYOND the ego and the separation, and their many-ness has absolutely nothing to do with the ego thought system.