When Hatem met with executives at Spyglass, he brought with him a "good luck charm," the book "The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism" by Herbert Thurston, which Hatem said "Miracles" later "evolved into." Thurston was an Anglican minister who investigated spiritual phenomena during the 1920s and 1930s, when, according to Hatem, "spiritualism (the contacting of the dead through séances and mediums) was still popular in America." The book examined which phenomena were signs from God, and which were "something else." After discussing this with Megan Wolpert and Suzanne Patmore, executives at Spyglass, Hatem said "what expected would be a 20-minute meeting turned into a three hour meeting, where ideas were flowing back and forth." Hatem claimed the show was born "that day, in that room" in March 2001. Hatem, Wolpert, and Patmore liked the idea that a character (Paul Callan) who came from a strict religious background and was raised to believe that any strange occurrence was either a sign from God or a sign from the devil, was suddenly thrust into a world where various phenomena "crossed those boundaries" and could not be classified as "good or bad" because they had elements of both. Hatem believes this is the element that "creates the drama," and makes the show "fun and scary."