New Thought and Old ...new age/old age

Date:   12/26/2005 6:05:41 PM ( 19 y ago)

When the Spirit Moves Us
In the search for divinity along nontraditional paths, San Diego seems to draw diversity

By Deirdre O’Shea

THE HOSPITALITY SEEMS SINCERE when the Reverend Mary Kay Ducey bounds from her desk to greet an unknown visitor with a shout. It’s a cold, overcast, cheerless afternoon, but the basement offices of the Midtown Church of Religious Science feel like a cozy kitchen.

The nondescript building sits on the Hillcrest border, behind a small parking lot and a chain-link fence. Ducey, the youth and community outreach minister, says she found Religious Science at a time of personal upheaval.

“I had created this world of success and business success,” she says. “But there wasn’t any meaning. What I was yearning for was a connection to the Divine. I reached a point where all the structures created for me, and by me, fell away. I was going through a divorce. It was a dismantling of everything I’d known. I wondered, ‘How can I express spirituality in my world?’ ”

She’s not alone in that quest.

San Diego may have sprung up as a Catholic outpost in the 1700s, but the city has a long history of religious diversity. In 1900, as interest in spiritualism was spreading around the world, the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society moved to Point Loma, where Point Loma Nazarene University stands today. (The headquarters later moved to Pasadena.) “They were trying to establish a utopian community,” says Rebecca Moore, an associate professor in the department of religious studies at San Diego State University. “In California, we have this big history of utopian communities. The Theosophists were committed to education and its reform. They felt children could realize their full potential if they studied music, art, dance and drama.

“San Diego should also be understood within the history of religion in California,” she says. “The West Coast is the most unchurched part of the U.S.—California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington have the lowest formal church attendance.”



Rebecca Moore Religious Science (not to be confused with Christian Science or Scientology) is part of the New Thought spiritual movement, one of the more prominent “alternative spirituality” philosophies in America—and one that’s powerfully represented in San Diego. The Reverend Kevin Bucy founded the Midtown Church of Religious Science four years ago and is its senior minister.

“The idea of New Thought comes from the idea that God is within us,” says Bucy, who once studied to be a priest at a Roman Catholic seminary. “There’s nothing to be baptized into or saved from, i.e., original sin. The idea of sinners doesn’t work for us. We are all born as expressions of God.” Rebecca Moore

THE UMBRELLA TERM “alternative spirituality” has a very large canopy, but most adherents share a belief that the major world religions don’t address their thoughts and concerns. “I hold the traditional churches somewhat responsible for the need that people have to look for alternative religions,” says Reverend Scott Eric Richardson, dean of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Midtown San Diego. “But I would have a hard time rooting myself in some of [them]. It’s boring .. . when people are going through the motions but are not attached to the deepest edge of the Jesus tradition.”



Terry Cole-Whittaker In the 1980s, Religious Science in San Diego got a boost from a charismatic leader, Terry Cole-Whittaker, who became the pastor of the La Jolla Church of Religious Science, then with 50 members. As the best-selling author of several books—including What You Think of Me Is None of My Business and How To Have More in a Have- Not World —Cole-Whittaker had a mind-over-matter approach to success that appealed to privileged San Diegans at a time when “greed was good” and many people were turning to self-help gurus like Del Mar– based Anthony Robbins.

In no time, attendance at Cole-Whittaker’s church grew by an order of magnitude.

“It was quite something,” says Steve Hays, publisher of the local New Age guide The Light Connection, “because she’d draw 800 to 1,000 people.” Hays produced events for Whittaker, who hosted a TV ministry and began speaking up and down the coast, selling out venues like the L.A. Civic Center.

The yuppie priestess was even roasted by local celebrities at a charity event. Clark Anthony, then a news anchor at KGTV, was on the panel. “I attended one of her services once,” he quipped. “And I was really impressed. It was the first time I ever saw the congregation send back the wine for a better year.”

In 1985, amid a small scandal over church finances, Whittaker held her last service at Easter. “People filled Golden Hall, which holds more than 4,000,” Hays says.

In retrospect, Whittaker’s church was a training ground for many of today’s local Religious Science leaders. “Terry was like the pod that scattered the seeds,” says the Reverend Kathy Hearn, who joined the church in 1980. “She was a very good teacher of Science of Mind—sound and principle-based. Those were the days of high heels and silk dresses and fancy cars, but Science of Mind has been around for a long time, at a deeper level than the self-help movement. That’s the outermost expression, which has to do with taking responsibility for your consciousness and your life.

“The God is living its life through us,” she says. “It’s really about our oneness, or spirit, coming into alignment with that entire process.”

Hearn, who was seen as Whittaker’s successor, founded the Pacific Church of Religious Science, in Mission Valley, and was senior minister there until 2000. Now she’s the “community spiritual leader” of the United Church of Religious Science, a network of 200 member churches or communities.

Reverend Wendy Craig-Purcell is another New Thought powerhouse who began a ministry in the 1980s; her 1,500- member Church of Today, part of the Unity movement, is in the Miramar area.

She is also on the leadership council of the influential Association of Global New Thought, “an organization dedicated to planetary transformation,” where she rubs shoulders with Michael Beckwith, nationally known minister to the stars. Beckwith’s church, the Agape InternationalSpiritual Center in Culver City, is something of a phenomenon, attracting 7,000 followers.

IT WAS ONLY NATURAL that San Diego, with its near-perfect weather and public beaches, would be a magnet for such nontraditional spiritual folks as Deepak Chopra, sage of alternative medicine, and Louise Hay, founder of the New Age publishing company Hay House.

“Because people have come to the West from all over,” SDSU’s Moore says, “we see people either losing their religious connections or being distanced from their religious background, and seeking new avenues of the religious expression.” From bookstores like Lady of the Lake in Vista, which hosts psychic readings, to the Clairvoyance School in Escondido to the mystical artwork for sale from the Triskelion Crafters in North Park, New Age businesses do well here. Recently, two independent films dealing with alternative spirituality, What The Bleep Do We Know? and Indigo, have made a splash in San Diego, with extended runs and soldout dates.

“What the Bleep Do We Know? is exactly who we are,” says Bucy, referring to New Thought churches. “It’s about quantum physics,” he explains. “Everything is energy. Our thoughts are energy. If we have certain thoughts, there is a physical change that can then happen out in the world because of our thoughts. Our thoughts create our reality.”

The healing power of one’s thoughts is integral to alternative spirituality. “The emphasis on Science of Mind is always on healing,” says Hearn. “The spiritual basis is that we believe there is an innate wholeness in everybody that is part of our divine identity.” Adverse circumstances—financial problems, relationship issues, and illness —cloud the wholeness, she says, but never destroy it. “Licensed practitioners do healing prayer. They help people remember that who they are is greater than what they are going through.”

“God’s involvement in the healing process has always been integral to Christian thought,” say Reverend Ed Chapman, associate pastor of the San Diego First Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church. “In the Old Testament, God is seen as not only the creator and sustainer but also as the God who heals. In the New Testament, episodes of Jesus Christ restoring physical, mental or spiritual health are prevalent.”

Spiritualist churches emphasize healing through “metaphysical arts.” On a busy corner in City Heights, the First Spiritualist Church ministers to a small group of followers from a quaint beige stucco building with painted rocks around the front door.

“Our church is a church where you can find angels,” says acting pastor Reverend Doris K. Horvath, who has been with the church since 1981. (Angels are significant

beings in the New Age and spirituality movements; they’re believed to have healing powers and the ability to rearrange the molecules in human bodies.) “We work a lot with the archangels,” she says. “We believe in the continuation of life after death and reincarnation and communication with spirits and all the metaphysical arts.”

The church has classes in spiritual healing law, astrology, tarot and psychic development, among other topics.

“Each Sunday,” says Horvath, “we have meditation, then beautiful background music for aura healing. This is a blessing and healing of all the chakras of the body —it’s not hands-on healing.” Worship follows, with lectures by well-known metaphysical teachers, including the Reverend Rosemarie Kerr, a psychic detective. “She’s put a lot of murderers behind bars,” Horvath says. “She sees through the eyes of the victim.”

Horvath also has a cable TV show in San Diego called Psychic Experience. In her readings, Horvath uses tarot, astrology and spiritual automatic writing. Angels, she believes, can write letters through a human who surrenders his mind and hands to the angel for a message.



Meditation Gardens at the Self-Realization Fellowship Retreat, Encinitas, CA
COURTESY OF SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP, LOS ANGELES “The Harmony Grove Spiritualist Church, headed by Reverend Coy Johnston in Escondido, is like a sister church to us,” says Horvath. Both are part of the Harmony Grove Spiritualist Association, which has been around since 1896.

“THERE ARE ALL THESE LITTLE PLACES in your neighborhood,” says SDSU’s Moore.

“If you’re living in Pacific Beach, Hare Krishna is there . . . There’s the Sweetwater Zen Center in National City. You might see a Buddhist nun in purple robes in Hillcrest. You might see a Hindu swami on Upas Street. San Diego is a fabulous place to study religion, and it’s a great place to be exposed to everybody from Mormons to Muslims.”

The spirit of inclusion that permeates most alternative religions also moves them to be active in their communities. In Encinitas, a draw for New Age culture, the monks and nuns of the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF)—its familiar temple tower rising above the white wall along Highway 101 near Swami’s Park—have been good neighbors for more than 60 years.

In 1937, followers of Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian guru, built the SRF’s Hermitage for him in Encinitas while he was in India. “He had liked to stop and picnic on this point on his way to L.A., where he’d founded the SRF in the ’20s,” says Brother Anilananda, who is the minister in charge of a second SRF Temple, in Bankers Hill. At the Hermitage, Yogananda wrote Autobiography of a Yogi, an introduction to kriya yoga as well as the story of his extraordinary life. He taught the underlying unity of the world’s great religions and methods for achieving a direct personal experience of God.

“The SRF teaches techniques of concentration and meditation to help us be still—to feel the soul within and feel its relationship with God, and learn to love God,” Anilananda says. “Based on that relationship, we can go out and love others.”

Outside of Encinitas, few San Diegans realize they can visit behind the white wall. “When I came here as a young monk in 1965,” Anilananda recalls, “the wall was 18 inches high at Highway 101. The streets through the compound were open to the public.” Eventually the SRF gave land to the city for Swami’s Park (and approved the name), the white wall was raised, and the streets closed for privacy. The Hermitage (which is kept as a shrine) and a tranquil meditation garden with a view of the ocean have public hours. “I saw a police car there once,” says Anilananda. “I walked in to look around and asked if everything was okay. The policeman said, ‘Oh, yes. I just needed a little quiet time.’ ”

In addition to the temple (at which services are open to the public) and Hermitage, the SRF has an ashram center, living quarters for its 35 monks and 10 nuns. There’s also a large playing field. “We used to have Halloween parties there in the early ’80s,” says Anilananda.

“The church members would put on skits. It just got bigger and bigger. At the end it was drawing 10,000 people.” The event eventually got too large, and the SRF passed the baton to the Downtown Encinitas Main Street Association.

“This whole area feels very spiritual,” says Anilananda. “Encinitas has been understanding and respectful of the SRF.

The guru was very respectful of others. He taught that there are many paths to God.”


© 2005 San Diego Magazine


 

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