About Us

View our Directors page - Organizing Document

The Institute for Cultural and Healing Traditions, Ltd. is the only free-standing institute of its kind in the area. Its fundamental aim is to provide a forum for the presentation and the contemporary interaction of diverse cultures, including the healing cultures and their traditions.

Current issues cannot be understood unless one is acquainted with the various traditions from which they spring.

Our perspective finds expression in the following quotation from T.S. Eliot

The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new ( the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity
between the old and the new.

No society can exist without commerce, but wealth and commerce are but one thread of any society, and they form but one part of the whole culture, the essential lifeblood of any society.

The Institute for Cultural and Healing Traditions is concerned with these aspects of culture in their myriad expressions and in the various traditions which are the vehicles for these expressions. The Institute looks at these traditions in contemporary settings.

We use the word “culture” in its broadest sense.

Culture, including the culture of healing, is reflected in how people think. We carry our culture with us wherever we go. It is expressed, among other modes,. in our beliefs, in our actions, in our written and spoken words, in our educational, artistic and healing traditions.

The Institute encourages ongoing independent individual work in various aspects of contemporary culture including the culture of healing .To this end, The Institute provides a freestanding public, educational forum every Thursday evening. This forum is for Independent Scholars to present their ongoing work to interested co-learners. It occasionally invites speakers for Thursday evening sessions. These sessions are always open to public participants and interested co-learners.

The Institute has two aspects of its work:- 1) The Independent Scholar's Evenings run during most of the acedemic year; and 2) Integrative Wholistic Healing, a forum that works with hospital and educational administration to bring Integrative medicine and Wholistic healing to the communities under their care.

With the word "Tradition" we wish to highlight The Institute's position that a body of knowledge, as in practices and philosophies imported with other cultures, are best understood; and of most use; when studied in their depth. These units of knowledge, then, true to their form, can co-exist with other units of knowledge and provide authentic resources for the community.

We have been concentrating on the Independent Scholars' Evenings during the past few years, while the effects of the three Integrative Wholistic Healing retreats we ran take hold in the community.

We will be focusing, intermittantly, on that aspect as the need arises.

In the meantime, the Independent Scholars' Evenings are maintained weekly. This provides the area with a public forum to bring together varied representatives from the community while providing a public forum for interested co-learners. These Evenings are provided for area and regional residents to present their ongoing work in the presence of interested co-learners. The presenting of independent work as well as the possible dialogue following the presentation is designed to assist participants in furthering their work.

The Independent Scholars are both local and invited from regional and national levels.

It is a natural consequence that, with the encouragement of Independent Scholars of great competency, more independent work will come forward, both in its completed form as well as in its 'under-construction' form.

The atmosophere is that of a social evening: There is wine and a ' world sampler dish' served in an ambiance of a very large turn-of-the-century living room.

The role of The Institute is that of a catalyst. Conditions return to their previous positions if the catalyst is removed. Catalysts focus on and formulate trends that then become a permanent part of a community. The interaction of a catalyst is a delicate balance in a community. Its effectiveness can be seen most clearly by observing the conditions around the catalyst when it is a fully functioning entity.

We are actively seeking to attract members from varying and different factions of the community in the sharing of their work.

In these days of solitary internet, it is an evolution of 21st. Century lifestyles to have an active Free Standing organised Independent Scholars' Evenings where participants can freely interchange concepts, ideas and work without the involvements of formalized institutions. Adult education without any committment from the side of the participant is possible in our generation and times. We are able to have an active, free standing, Public Forum, where we, as independent scholars, have no commitments expect to share our ongoing work with interested co-learners.

To that end this organization is reserved for the convenience of both academicians as well as lay independent scholars, and is offered under the name of the Independent Scholars’ Evenings. The events are held in a fully refurbished Arts and Craft/ Praire style building built for a private club during the turn of the last century! It was built for The Moline Commercial Club, which was started in 1865 by Charles Deere, son of John Deere. In 1912 the building was built for the Club and it maintained itself as such till the big crash in 1929. Then the building was bought by the Y.W.C.A. and remained as the Y. until the downtowns became so lost with the emergence of the shopping malls. Recently, as the downtowns are becoming alive again, this building has been put back into circulation, totally refurbished and operable with a business that provides space for The Institute for Cultural and Healing Traditions, Ltd. Complete with hardwood floors and Prarie School style crown moldings, the building is now known as The Moline Club and is located at 513 16th. Street. Moline. Ill. 61265

The only other building ever built on the property was the first Swedish Church in the area.

This year we began our 8th. year with the annual dinner to welcome Augustana President and Mrs. Steven C. Bahls and they join our community. President Bahls gave his presentation on September 25th. 2003 at 7.30 p.m. at the Independent Scholars' Evenings venue. The event was free and open to the public. The title of his presentation was "The Role of Liberal Arts College in the Community." Please call The Institute at 309-762-9202 or The Moline Club at 309-762-8547 for further details. The Institute for Cultural and Healing Traditions LTd. is located at 1530 5th. Ave. Moline.

The Institute has been set up as a 501©3 organization under U.S. government regulations.

The Institute is based in Moline, Illinois. Moline is one of 4 picturesque towns on both sides of the Mississippi, 45 min. away from the University of Iowa. Two of the towns, Davenport and Bettendorf are in Iowa, and the other two, Moline and Rock Island are in Illinois. Together, these 4 cities make the largest metro area between Chicago and Indianapolis, with a joint population of about 500,000 and it has a draining population of about 1 million people from the surrounding regional rural area. It also has two hospitals. Genesis Medical Center is based in Davenport, Iowa and Trinity Medical Center is based in Rock Island, Illinois. Additionally, the area is the home of John Deere, the largest agricultural farm equipment manufacturer and its allied HMO – John Deere Health Care, Inc.