In a flashback we see a young boy bringing back a completely burned man back from the dead. Although it goes right for him there, his luck is about to change.

Back to the present, Mulder and Scully come in to investigate a travelling group called the Miracle Ministry whose main star is Samuel, the once little boy but now young man. It seems that the last two people who Samuel has tried to heal have died under suspicious circumstances. M & S visit the Ministry but when they try to watch a performance, Samuel has disappeared. Mulder does catch an unexpected vision of his younger sister though.

They are able to locate him in a bar having just almost punched someone to death and he is convinced that his 'gift has been corrupted'. Mulder tries to ask him about his visions of his long lost sister but he is arrested. While in court at Samuel's trial the room is filled with millions of locusts and Sam thinks that this is a sign from God that his going to prison is a bad sign. He is able to leave without being charged and he is back in action. Now confident and convinced that his power's have come back, Samuel tries to heal a woman in a wheelchair but she quickly goes into a seizure and dies.

After an autopsy is conducted of the dead woman, they find that she has been poisoned by cyanide and they also find that the locusts in the courtroom had been let in through an air vent in the ceiling, pieces of potatoes having been lined up outside as bait.

The local sheriff is convinced that Samuel is evil so he orders two thugs to beat him to death while in his cell. But it seems a case of mistaken identity when the two agents discover that Leonard Vance (the man that Samuel first saved ten years ago) had poisoned the victims and been responsible for the locusts. He seems to want to take revenge over Samuel because he looks like a complete freak and he would rather be dead.

Vance kills himself though later at night after he sees a vision of Samuel by indigesting poison. Meanwhile, a nurse at a hospital claims to have seen Samuel just get up and leave. Mulder leaves us with the words "I think people are looking hard for miracles, so hard that they make themselves see what they want to see" as he sees another vision of his sister, Samantha.