Spiritualist Harmony Church welcomes all
To some, popular television shows like “Medium” and “Ghost Whisperer” may be fictional accounts of the other side.
To Joy Strasser of Davenport, it’s simply the truth.
Strasser is secretary, treasurer and manager for the Spiritualist Harmony Church in Davenport.
A spiritualist practices a combination of science, philosophy and religion based on the belief of continuous life. Spiritualism teaches that one can communicate through mediums with deceased people, although people like Strasser don’t believe in death or the dead.
“They go home,” Strasser said, using those dying in the Middle East as an example. “They are as alive as they were here, and we will see them again.”
Strasser said anyone can develop medium abilities and she has communicated with her son, Lester Strohm, who was murdered on Jan. 1, 1992.
“Through him I’ve learned a lot,” she said.
The Spiritualist Harmony Church was established in the Quad-Cities in 1972. Members conduct worship services and host readings by certified mediums in a renovated house on 7th Street in Davenport.
The church has no creed, but abides by principles outlined by the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, Strasser said.
The first and foremost of these principles is the belief in infinite intelligence, which Strasser prefers to call, “the Creator, I AM.”
“One requirement we have in our beliefs you know you believe you accept there is only one true God,” she said. “There are different names, different terms, different ways of worship but it’s all one and the same.”
The Spiritualist Harmony Church welcomes those of different faith backgrounds in what Strasser calls “an umbrella religion.”
She grew up as a Presbyterian in central Iowa, and said spiritualist experiences were ignored and condemned there. She emphatically denies that spiritualism is a form of devil worship, or occultism, as many critics have told her.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, your spirit band would never hurt you,” she said.
Spiritualists believe all people have a spirit band, or a group of people they can communicate with from other planes. Some of the “guides” and “master teachers” are with you your whole life, some are only there for a while, she said.
As a child, church member, Yolanda Johnston of Davenport said she had imaginary friends that she could physically see. She said she became scared of these visions and tried to ignore them.
When her granddaughter was just learning to speak, however, she pointed to a picture of Johnston’s deceased grandmother hanging above the mantlepiece. Johnston said her granddaughter told her the woman was in the kitchen.
Her granddaughter’s spiritual experiences “opened the door” for Johnston to look into her own past and discover Spiritualist Harmony Church, she said.
“Life was so tough for me. Now I look at life in a different way,” she said.
“We’re in an age now where it’s turning. People are starting not to be afraid,” she added. “It’s kind of like coming out of the closet.”
Strasser said, according to prophecies received by the Mayans, great geological and climactic change will come on Dec. 22, 2012, and the spiritualist churches must be prepared to take in those who are questioning.
Cody Boner is a medium in training with the Morris Pratt Institute and a member of the spiritualist church. Boner said he receives many requests to contact deceased loved ones on the “other side,” known as Summerland to the spiritualists.
“About seven out of 10 times I’m able to do that for them,” Boner said.
The other times he said he refers them to someone with more experience in contacting the other world.
Boner said his own life has dramatically changed since he joined Spiritualist Harmony Church. For example, he said he met his husband two weeks after a medium told him he would fall in love, and they got a house after he heard that he would in a private reading.
“I’ve gained a lot of confidence in myself. I never really had confidence in myself before,” Boner said.
Although he still has a little more than a year left to get his medium’s certification, he gives readings and messages at the church. He said mediums abide by rules and cannot give medical or legal advice or diagnose illnesses.
The church also brings in mediums from other cities about once a month and charges a fee for private readings and group message circles.
Spiritualist Harmony Church
Address: 1429 W 7th St., Davenport
Membership: 15
Establishment: 1972
Service time: 1:30 p.m. Sunday
For more information, call Joy Strasser at (563) 324-9659 to schedule an appointment.
Communities of Faith is a twice-a-month feature designed to showcase houses of worship of all faiths in the Quad-City region that runs every other Tuesday in the Celebrate section. If you would like your congregation to be considered for a feature story, please contact us with details about your church and provide a name and phone number of someone to contact. E-mail information to newsroom@qctimes.com or call (563) 383-2292.
The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.