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She was bowled over by somebody named Mark.

In a nutshell, that's how Jonette Crowley came to be sitting in her living room with 14 hushed guests, intoning the words, "Feel the energy of the starting place . . ."

So begins the night's travels with Mark, a spirit channeled through the body of Crowley, 44, a petite, pretty spit of energy in a white cable sweater and jeans.

"You have access to any part of the universe you need," Mark reassures a group of nine women and five men, who range from an airline reservations clerk to a psychotherapist.

As Mark - or through Mark, as Crowley might prefer - her relaxed, youthful demeanor alters slightly. As the group quiets, her tone becomes clipped and formal. An imperious smile plays across her face. Here is Mark.

Each session is different. One time, says someone, Mark led the group to the Milky Way.

Tonight, alas, the theme is more prosaic, as Mark counsels everyone to depart, spiritwise, to practice teamwork in trouble spots such as Bosnia and Israel. The benevolent lesson is perhaps why, as Crowley once reassured her mother, channeling Mark is sometimes "like interviewing a bishop."

A soothing, hypnotic throb of New Age harps and chimes spills from a boombox. Candles flicker in the posh Englewood living room. After speaking 20 minutes, Mark invites questions.

"Mark, this is Sue," says Sue Burch, a landscape designer. "As I called on the higher guides, I drifted off and became an observer. Is this what happens when we touch and leave?"

"Your perception is as an observer, but in the new millennium we are forever connected," Mark replies, sweetening the lesson with a small smile.

Crowley's openness to passing on such other-worldly advice was the reason Mark chose her as his human conduit, she explained earlier. "I was willing to teach stuff I don't know," she laughed.

Adventuring, both spiritual and geographic, caught the Denver native early. While living in Australia, she was meditating - a technique she learned in a personal growth class - when she met her first spirit, White Eagle.

One day, while studying under White Eagle, whom Crowley still considers her personal guide, "this huge energy came in and almost knocked me over. "That, she says, was Mark, a teacher spirit who offered to help Crowley "teach others how to live beyond the veils."

All this was rather harrowing for her Catholic family, which now practices a puzzled acceptance. Besides spirit travel, Crowley does plenty of the earthly kind, too. She is an international leadership consultant with her husband, Ed Oakley.

Like an extended family after six years, everyone pads en masse in their stocking feet to the kitchen for a cookie break.

Before resuming, Mark counsels - "Let the cookies settle!"

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