Healing on a spiritual path

For John and Martine Kohlenberger, their meeting not only led to

marriage, but to a mutual spiritual journey, their eventual

ordination as ministers in the Mystical Spiritualist Church and a

shared, spiritually focused business.

In the early 1990s, both were single.

John Kohlenberger was involved with a singles discussion group for

which he was occasionally a featured speaker. A friend who helped run

the group enticed Martine to visit.

“I was speaking on love at that meeting,” John Kohlenberger

recalled. “And when she came back a month later, I was a speaker that

month, as well. The title of my [talk] was ‘Open Heart Surgery,’

about how as a single you have to open your heart if you are going to

have that relationship, that love, you are looking for.”

The two began to date. It was Martine Kohlenberger, who had been

raised in France without any particular training or influence from

her parents, who first suggested they look for a church to attend

together.

After visiting a few churches in Orange County, the couple found

the Mystical United Spiritualist Church in Anaheim headed by Jack and

Ethel Rowe. They decided it was where they belonged.

They stayed for a decade, until Jack Rowe died in 2001. Ethel Rowe

had died some time earlier.

“Jack got me started doing spiritual healings, and I decided if I

was serious about it, I needed to go to school and get some

training,” John Kohlenberger said.

Today, he is the head pastor of the Mystical Spiritualist Church

in Costa Mesa. The Kohlenbergers are ordained ministers and work with

four other ministers at the local church.

The couple’s business, Therapeutic Dimensions, is also an

expression of their spiritual beliefs and practices. They are

licensed massage therapists who provide holistic healing remedies --

deep tissue, Swedish and sport as well as shiatsu, tuina,

reflexology, herbal wraps, energy balance, inspirational and

intuitive healing.

John Kohlenberger said he first thought about becoming a healer

when he was 2 years old.

“My father was an MD, my mother was a nurse, and I wanted to help

people feel better,” he said. “With a lot of years in between, this

is it.”

In July 2001, the Kohlenbergers, with three other former members

of the Rowe’s Anaheim church, incorporated the Mystical Spiritualist

Church in Orange County.

Spiritualism traces its beginnings to the United States in the

19thcentury, though it was more popular in England, where it spread.

It embraces the idea that the personality survives death -- death is

merely a doorway opening unto a new, larger experience of everlasting

life.

“We believe we are spirits having a human experience and that what

most churches call spirit is real and ever present, even today,” John

Kohlenberger explained. “Thus, miracles and magic did not die 2,000

years ago [because] those who have passed on before us only dropped

their body. The spirit within, or the soul, continues to live.”

The Costa Mesa church is committed to Ethel Rowe’s vision of

bringing Spiritualism into the 21st century. On Sunday mornings, a

dozen to two dozen members ranging from young, career adults to

seniors who are single, married or in families, meet for an hour-long

service.

A half-hour before the service, the church’s ministers offer

spiritual healings while some members focus on inner communion and

spiritual centering. During the service they share prayer and

meditation, inspirational messages, a sermon, music, spirit readings

and angel messages.

“Spiritualism is a way of life [that combines] philosophy,

science, and religion,” John Kohlenberger said. “Though we’re

incorporated as a church, our vision is directed more toward being a

personal growth center [to assist] each other in the progression and

growth of our hearts, minds and souls.”

In addition to its weekly services, the church offers classes on

meditation, healing, spiritual awareness and psychic development. It

sponsors “channelings” that are open to the public once or twice each

year and hosts dinners at each solstice and equinox.

This week, as the country steadied itself in the face of war, John

Kohlenberger said, “From this day forward we will light a candle for

peace at each of our services, the light of which will celebrate the

love and light that exists in all humanity and in every soul.”

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at michele@soulfoodfiles.com.