ONM (Obligatory not mine)
Peace be upon you. I'm sorry, but this may be a very long post, and probably not as exciting as you'd expect (thanks Hollywood).
I've been asked many times now, in responses and conversations in this sub (and others) to share my experiences as an Order of St John Chaplain and Demonologist. It's hard to know where to start to be honest, but the most important thing I think is to say that these are my beliefs and experiences. I certainly don't begrudge you yours, and definitely don't want to assert any kind of authority over the beliefs of others. As Chaplains we are not positioned within a Church, because we minister to communities. It is not our place to judge any member of that community, but only to care for and support them in their needs. Also rule no.1 of the job is to disprove, disprove, and disprove again.
Other than that, to save you the trouble, I'll write things in order of how much interest I think they'd get. Experiences, some insight into our processes (what I'm allowed to speak to), how I got into the field, and then the training I undertook.
Experiences:
General and passive paranormal experiences are part and parcel of the job. I'll touch on it more later, but I'm not afraid of things that go bump in the night. I used to be, but once you've studied and understand it, the paranormal loses its excitement and becomes more of a puzzle that needs to be solved. My passive experiences are things like every month or so I'll have new knocking on our doors and windows, even though we live in a secure 3rd floor apartment. I get random prods and pokes when I'm by myself, whispering, murmuring, growling, scratching, electrical interference, random mists, distorted shadows and shadow figures here and there. This has all become weekly occurrence, although when I say that its usually just one of these things that happens, I deal with it, and it goes away almost immediately.
The Hitchhiker:
This is probably my most fascinating one, because its a recurring event that happens every couple of months, and I haven't yet solved the puzzle. I travel a lot for my role, at the moment I've been sent to one of our small towns to train people, run mental health programs, or help with large scale crisis responses. This results in my driving for long hours, sometimes during the day and sometimes at night.
I will see the same stocky, hitch hiking figure walking along the side of the road in a black hoodie and jeans, with hood up, thumb out. I've never stopped, and he's never turned around when I've approached. I've seen him at every point in the day, dawn, day, dusk, night. I've seen him in locations several hours drive from each location. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but hitch hiking is really uncommon in our country (we're small, and buses are cheap).
Howling:
This is another recurring one, although its newer. Its more annoying than anything else to be honest, but several times my partner and I have been woken to a long howl in our bedroom. We're windows closed, apartment unit like I said, but its ruining my sleep and I really enjoy my sleep.
Cloaked Figure:
This is one that I've thankfully resolved, but had to deal with over a series of years. To cut a long story short, whenever I was in the middle of a really tough case supporting someone in what we call spiritual warfare I'd get a visit from whatever this was. It was the same every time, where I would have a dream of a cloaked figure, wake up to a spinning room, and be choking. I've had sleep paralysis episodes before, but this was certainly different. I'm still half convinced this was some kind of sleep apnea issue or episode, the only thing that makes me think it was paranormal is because it happened without fail when I dreamt of this figure, and it stopped after I put some intentional work into stopping it.
There are experiences of clients that I cannot share because I've made a strict confidentiality agreement with them, and that rests on my soul. But, generally speaking, I've helped people deal with their psychological issues more than spiritual. Some spiritual ones have been fascinating, and there's a feeling I get when there's a really obvious sign of oppression or infestation (its like a heavy feeling on my chest, and stuffy air). I've helped people by blessing their houses, which is a complicated process and - depending on your beliefs - can be somewhat risky. You essentially have to call forth the oppressing force, challenge it, rebuke it, and either condemn it or suppress it (if it can't be dealt with in one blessing). I've also helped people with deliverance, although I'm not big on the evangelical deliverance ministry (we're a more traditional denomination), but I've never helped with an exorcism. I'm still relatively young for my role, and while I am a commissioned member of the Order I'm not yet a fully Ordained Minister.
Processes:
We have to be careful with what we share, and that's for a really inane reason. We often get people who either want to play a prank, or desperately want something paranormal to be happening, and the information we don't share is essentially the key information we need while triaging our cases. What I can say is how we view the paranormal is unusual. Anything paranormal, by our theology, is Demonological, Angelic, or the Holy Spirit. When it comes to things that we humans get scared of? We're hard wired to be scared of the paranormal if we believe in it. Its an non=interactable nocturnal threat, and we are diurnal creatures. Its really easy to trigger our limbic system. However, and again just my view, I see paranormal activity as parlour tricks of a dammed and jealous entity. But I have the power to send it back where it belongs, and it knows that, so it will struggle however it can. It will try and scare me, because it is scared of me. And it should be, I'm there to do a job. Its like spiritual pest extermination. But a moving cup, whispering, growling, etc etc is nowhere as scary to me as... say... driving in heavy rain, or the things I dealt with as a bouncer (while I studied). Humans, dogs, even cats, are more dangerous than most "hauntings" or paranormal experiences. One exception is that possession is incredibly dangerous, but intensely rare. I'm not scared of these things, not because I'm tough or brave, but because they're not actually dangerous. And they need to be condemned.
That being said, if we go through an intensive investigatory process, looks like this;
We are a medical Order. We're the Knights Hospitaller. We're also an indigenously focused arm of the Order, and our indigeneity gives us a different world view. When we assess a person we don't just look at their spiritual health, we look at their social, physical, and psychological health as well. The first thing we will do, fully funded, is have the person see a Doctor and a Psychologist for assessment. This isn't because we think they're crazy, its because we're building a comprehensive profile for exactly what we're dealing with.
If someone is positive for physical or mental health issues that could be causing symptoms that they believe are spiritual, we need to treat those issues and see if the symptoms go away. Our Church fully covers any costs associated with this process.
If that doesn't solve the problem, my job is to definitively disprove the existence of paranormal activity or presences, but do so while believing there may well be a presence. Skepticism is a good thing most of the time, but its sometimes bad. We're not there to assume the issue is mundane, we take all the information we can, assess it, and arrive it the likely outcomes - and we consider spiritual outcomes to be similarly as likely as mundane ones. However, we still need to disprove all of the mundane theories we can. But there's another layer. We also need to prove all of the mundane theories. This helps us have equality of information. So we wont be happy to say "Oh, its probably just this mundane thing" unless we can prove that.
After this, if there is persistence of a spiritual issue, we begin our Church sanctified processes of blessings and protections for the affected individual. These interventions vary on intensity dependent on the person, their faith relationship, and the persistence of whatever we're dealing with.
How I got into the field:
I didn't take a standard pathway. A standard pathway is that you attend a Church that believes in Demonological study, get as involved as possible with whatever you can, talk to the Pastor about your desire to study and follow this pathway, and see if the Church will support you. Its a long pathway though. You can also try to become a Lay Chaplain for certain denominations, but honestly the best thing you can do is wholeheartedly commit to a Church, show them you're willing, and they'll support your journey.
My pathway was that I studied a Youth Psych degree, and specialized in youth gangs. Then a Church was investing into the community and looking for a Christian with my expertise to be their Youth Pastor. I worked there for some time, and after a bit of a journey came back to my home denomination and that's who I work for now. I got a Masters in Professional Practice - Chaplaincy, and a Diploma in Demonology. But my psychology knowledge is what sets me apart for this Ministry in the eyes of the Church. I'm much more equipped to do a referral assessment than many of the Clergy or congregation.
My Training:
My training in Demonology comes from several sources. I completed the Diploma at Bible College, but have also done a small amount of training under a course from Bishop James Long, I did the Paranormal Academy of the United Kingdom online course because its non-Christian, and I trained under our Arch Bishop for some time to specifically respond to the needs of the community in this regard. As a Chaplain, this calling fit under my purview in his eyes. When I need to escalate Church involvement I can go straight to him. He taught me our beliefs, blessings, the processes of our Church, etc. He also taught me our Churches stance on Demonology, which is old school (we're Anglican, King James was a Demonologist so its a particular field for us).
That's pretty much it. I'm always open to helping people on here, so if you have trouble please just reach out through a message. I'm also happy to answer questions and engage in discourse, although I'm not going to be entirely engaging in "what ifs" from the stories. For me it is almost impossible to prove the paranormal online due to the nature of evidence, and how easily it can be faked. So I'm not going to go into that. And I've peer reviewed these things with my colleagues.