On Sundays at 1 p.m., cars park in the backyard of the First Spiritualist Church of Kent. The structure fades into the corner of Oak Street — half forgotten, half hidden. The white, wooden clapboards are weathered. Falling leaves from surrounding trees are colored red and yellow.

As the congregation enters, the stairs to the front porch creak like a haunted house, but on the inside, nothing is spooky. On the contrary, all is light.

About 25 people, most more than 30 years old, sit on white plastic lawn chairs set up in front of an altar strung with silk sunflowers and white Christmas lights. The word ‘peace’ is set poignantly in the center. Portraits of angels hang in gilt frames on either side of the chairs, and ethereal meditative music sounds from an unknown source.

The congregation is called to stand and sing the hymn “Higher Ground” a cappella, chuckling as they try and fail to reach the high Cs and E flats.

“We’re getting there,” says the Rev. Richard Kyanko as everyone sits back down, still laughing.

To an outsider, the First Spiritualist Church seems eccentric but still similar to other Protestant churches. Then differences emerge. Although the members believe in the Bible and God, they don’t believe in heaven and hell. Jesus is only a teacher, not a savior.

Spiritualists say they use the powers of their minds to commune with spirits and create their own destinies.

Several members of the church say they are mediums — they can use telepathic powers to see more about a person. Some say they are psychic and can predict the future; others say they can help channel past lives.

They believe in palmistry, astrology and tarot. They believe physical lives end, but the spirit never dies, and, therefore, they can communicate with loved ones even after death.

This is how they express their beliefs in worship and in conversation:

As the service continues, the Rev. Edna Heacock takes the pulpit and begins to speak about dying, which she says there is no reason to fear.

“I cannot separate my soul from God,” she says. “I cannot separate my soul from good.”

Heacock leads the congregation to repeat after her:

I am a part of God and he approves of all I do — spiritually.

I am a part of God and he approves of all I do — mentally.

I am a part of God and he approves of all I do — physically.

She reminds the congregation to spend quiet time alone meditating and to take time to be holy.

“You are God,” she says. “You are your own creation. You are fulfilled with the light of that creation.”

The concept of never dying is an idea Spiritualists reinforce, and one that is meaningful to Kyanko, who was raised a Catholic and spent four years in seminary studying to be a priest.

But something was missing.

“I’ve just noticed I’ve been a bit psychic all my life,” he says.

And when he was introduced to a Spiritualist circle in 1976, he began to understand why. He attended a home psychic circle every week where a Spiritualist minister in Cleveland taught him how to channel the spirits.

“I sat every Saturday night with this lady for over a decade,” Kyanko says. “I had the experience of seeing people. I’ve had the experience of seeing my body.”

By this, Kyanko means he would see visions of other people coming to him. While meditating, his spirit has left his body, and he has been able to view it from afar.

Our spirits leave our bodies frequently, Kyanko says, especially while dreaming.

“We just leave our bodies and we go into the spirit world somewhere,” he says.

Ten years ago Kyanko was ordained as a minister. It takes several years of studying the religion to be ordained, and while Kyanko says he has never met a minister who wasn’t also a medium, he doesn’t believe it’s a qualification.

Kyanko says he likes to be aware of what he is saying when interpreting messages from the spirits for other people, but it doesn’t always happen.

“People tell me later how beautiful it was,” he says.

Kyanko says he has had many past lives, and in some of them he wasn’t a very good person. Through meditation he has had those lives revealed to him.

“I lived during the time of (Roman emperor) Nero, and I was either the general of his army or the head of the Palace Guard,” Kyanko says. “I lived in the palace with my wife and three children.”

Coincidentally, the woman who was Kyanko’s wife in the time of Nero is also living in this lifetime, he says.

One day he saw her and “just knew it was her.”

As a general, Kyanko was very hard on his soldiers, and they didn’t appreciate the way he treated them.

“As a consequence, they met me in a dark alley and stabbed me one night.”

Ramona Carroll is another member of the church who has strong ties with spirits and is studying to become a Spiritualist minister. She says she has had the gift to see spirits since she was a child. While growing up, her imaginary friend was a man who died during the Civil War, and she says she could see the tears in his uniform.

When Carroll was 6 years old, she lived with her mother in a top-floor apartment. As she lay in bed at night, she could hear a tricycle riding back and forth above her head from the attic and someone calling her name.

One night Carroll grew so curious she crept to the attic to see what the noise was.

“I peered over the landing, and I distinctly saw a woman standing on a tricycle,” Carroll says.

She was 5 feet 6 inches tall. One hundred eighty pounds. Blue eyes. Hair in a bun. She wore a short-sleeved, blue, button-up dress. White flats.
The woman hung from the rafters with a rope around her neck.

“I saw the tricycle coming right at me,” Carroll says.

After Carroll told what she saw, her mother panicked and told the landlord. Sure enough, he had been unable to rent the apartment because a woman had hanged herself in the attic. Carroll and her mother were new to town and didn’t know what happened, so the landlord thought he could rent the apartment to them. They never went back.

When Carroll realized how strange her mother’s reaction was, she stopped sharing stories of what she saw and tried to block out the spirits, avoiding them for years.

Carroll was raised Lutheran and has been at the Spiritualist church for about five years.

“For years I always tried different churches,” she says. “I never really found anything I clicked with.”

A friend took her to the Spiritualist church in Kent.

“When I walked in, I had an immediate sense of comfort,” she says. “I was crying when I got home because for once, I found a church that believes like I do.”

Twelve years ago, Carroll decided to open herself back up to the spirits, and because she belongs to the Spiritualist church, other members have helped her to hear them.

“I get all these images,” Carroll says. “The minute I stand up to give messages I’m open, and I’m on and it comes through just like that.”

The rest of the time, Carroll puts a wall up around herself; otherwise, she would intercept spirits around everyone she sees.

Everyone has the ability to see spirits, Carroll says, but they close themselves off.

When people say, “I could have sworn for just a moment I saw somebody,” it could have been a spirit they’ve actually seen, she says.

Spiritualists live their lives with the ultimate goal of positively benefiting mankind, Carroll says. Although they don’t believe in heaven and hell, they do believe in good and evil and some form of karma: What goes around comes around. Good deeds will be reciprocated, as well as bad deeds or anything done with malicious intent.

“Spiritualism has really had to prove itself,” Carroll says. “You’ll always have someone who will say, ‘That’s not true,’ and, ‘I don’t believe in this at all.’”

While she agrees Spiritualism isn’t for everyone because not all people are comfortable communicating with spirits, Carroll says not to discount it.

According to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches of the United States of America, the Spiritualist Church was founded in 1848 in Hydesville, N.Y. Two girls, known as the Fox sisters, heard rapping noises in their home, which they said came from a spirit seeking assistance. Afterward, the girls said they were able to communicate with other spirits and gave performances across the United States. Their spiritualist movement claimed 1 million followers by 1855.

• • •

At the pulpit, Heacock instructs the congregation to accept these spiritual visions.

“Be open,” she says. “Be willing to listen. Be willing to learn. You may be surprised what you find.”

Then it is time to speak with the spirits.

The congregation stands to sing “Sweetly Falls the Spirits’ Message.”

Ever do we bid thee welcome Dwellers from the other side

Welcome, loved ones, we are waiting to receive our words of cheer

Christie, the church healer, stands in front of the room. She is the first to receive messages today. She gazes around the room until her eyes fall on the Rev. Merry Ann Clark and she begins to channel:

All these smells of pie and cookies and nut bread … They bring this to you because it was always so comforting to you … They’re saying make sure you run your vaporizer.

Cathy … Your mom is here … She says if there are things you need help with, she wants you to ask.

When Christie has finished, Clark takes her place. She folds her hands like the children’s rhyme about the church and the steeple, places the steeple to her lips and squints her eyes in concentration.

She has a message for someone new to the church.

He didn’t walk away … He just chose a different direction ... It’s very important you realize it was nothing you did wrong.

Becky … They pulled me back and they showed me pyramids … All the pyramids have gold tops with jewels on them … They each mean something for you.

The service wraps up, and the members of the congregation leave the small church to head home. The service is over, but most of the members have been given a message to get them through the week — spirits and all.

Allison Remcheck is a magazine journalism graduate.
This is her second story for The Burr.

STORY Allison Remcheck
PHOTOS Leslie Cusano

ABOVE The Rev. Fran Seymour speaks to the congregation.