Moonlighting: Channeling Medium

Moonlighting. It doesn’t have the bad rap it used to. Today people find ways to make a living and make a life.

Moonlighting is our series about the radically interdisciplinary lives of Lehigh alumni who are successful in two professional areas, and where a secondary “job” is primarily fun and fulfilling.

In this edition, we meet a construction management leader who also is able to speak the words of spirits.

Barry Strohm ’65
Business Management

Finding Lehigh
Strohm grew up near Hershey, Pa., and for seven years attended a one-room schoolhouse that educated children from kindergarten through 12th grade. His father worked in project management for heavy construction, and Strohm knew he wanted to pursue a similar career. Lehigh was his top choice, so he was pleased when he was admitted. Strohm, like all Lehigh students in his era, was part of ROTC. He also served as pledge master and social chair at Kappa Sigma.

While he started as a geology major, Strohm shifted to business management. He never took an engineering class at Lehigh, but later in life he did take the engineering in training exam and became a registered engineer in Pennsylvania. He was married “to his soulmate” his senior year — all of his Lehigh friends stood up with him at the wedding. He and Connie celebrated 59 years of marriage in December 2023.

Career after Lehigh
For two years following graduation, Strohm worked on highway design. He then took a job as a construction estimator in the Baltimore area. That led him to working as a project supervisor focused on sand and gravel, part of bigger jobs like the construction of the substructure of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. He then entered the stone quarry business as an operational vice president. Soon he was a CEO over multiple quarries in addition to trucking and concrete companies. He finally retired in 2006, but not before he invested in an antique shop in New Oxford, Pa., that he later found out was haunted.

Haunted antique store
While the antique store entered his life in 1991, Strohm didn’t start spending time there until 2008. It was a side hobby that had him going to antique shows in 49 states. Although the business had steady visitors due to its proximity to Gettysburg, it was the other visitors from beyond the astral plane that were more interesting.

Strohm didn’t believe in ghosts until he began to encounter bizarre events — items moved, and he saw people disappear before his eyes. He brought in a team of paranormal investigators that included a psychic. He’d never met a psychic before. During their visit, they locked in the spirit of a little girl who was in the store because her doll was there. Strohm recalls the investigators asking the girl to lead them to her doll and she led them through the store by giving instructions to the psychic. When the team seemed to lose contact with her, they turned on the lights and found a doll, sitting on the shelf before them.

More paranormal activity
Strohm often visited the Gettysburg battlefields at night to take photographs. One night he was out walking on a trail when he remembers hearing a clear voice telling him to stop. He paused. Moments later, 25 feet in front of him a tree fell, crashing across the path. He credits the voice for saving his life. That event made him take a deeper pause — what was that voice, and how did he hear it?

Becoming less skeptical, he returned with a few friends to that spot on the trail. They brought a ghost box, a radio-like device used in paranormal investigations that transmits unexplained voices. Strohm set it up and then asked the emptiness around him, “Who saved me?” They heard a voice come back across the box: “The boys.” Confused, Strohm asked, “Do you recognize me?” The answer: “Yes, sir, captain.” He recognized the greeting as a message from a past life from the Civil War soldiers he fought alongside as a captain. Those soldiers were still on the battlefield fighting against the damn Yankees.

Around the same time, Strohm’s spouse had been called to jury duty in Utah, where they owned property (and have skied for years — Strohm used to cut classes to go up to the Poconos). At jury duty, she sat next to a woman who was a psychic and told Connie about a channeling board they used to communicate with spirits, a circular board with the alphabet arcing around it. Connie asked if she and Barry could sit in on a session. They did. The first message that appeared on the board? “Hello, Barry, we were waiting for you.”

For two years, Strohm became a student of board channeling, learning how to do it. As his skills developed, another skill took shape. As the planchette hit letters, Strohm could hear the word in his head that was being spelled, like he did back on the Gettysburg battlefield. Soon, he didn’t need the board; he just had to have the confidence and courage to speak what he was hearing.

It’s all a hoax
Strohm hears people say such things all the time, but there are too many examples of what he has seen, heard, and done that help him silence the doubters. He once was a doubter as well but now he sees himself as a servant. “For 60 years, I was too busy and not ready,” he says. “I needed a stronger foundation, an acceptance of this gift, and a firmer belief in my skill.”

His trust and faith in a broader divine plan keeps him anchored. He now channels spiritual and religious figures on weekly videocasts and podcasts. He has written 10 books based on conversations with spiritual entities and almost 600 videos available on YouTube. He has helped law enforcement officials and grieving families. “I can’t shut it off,” he says. So when an entity wants to chat, it doesn’t matter if Strohm is in the middle of a good night’s sleep.