What’s a demonologist? Demonology, what’s that? I’ve never heard of that before! Demonology, hmmm, isn’t that a waste of time? These are the phrases I’ve grown accustomed to when telling people about my field of study, but these are questions that I am only too glad to answer because I know that my answer is one they don’t expect. Demonology is a set of acquired skills and knowledge when it comes to the world of paranormal, specifically the demonic. It is not a gift you are born with or part of your hidden sixth sense. Studying Demonology helped define who I want to be in life and it touched a lot of hidden emotions that the majority of previous studies didn’t do and you simply can’t push away what is speaking to your inner thoughts.
It’s a topic not widely discussed or even acknowledged merely because of scepticism and the fact that it’s not a big thing. However, a sceptic isn’t being fair to themselves and plunges themselves into a world of negativity and will stick with what they know, but if you settle yourself into an open-minded state then learning about new things becomes so much easier, you gain some new insight to things that you’ve been building up walls to block out. How easy does that sound?
‘The Warrens’ became a personal idol quicker than content uploaded to Blackboard. Their work was displayed and performed to the best possible level in The Conjuring franchise which consists of The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2 and The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It by actor Patrick Wilson who starred as Ed Warren and Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren. Ed was a famous demonologist, his wife Lorraine was a clairvoyant and they both loved in the beautiful, but haunted Connecticut. Watching them opened me up to a whole new world of knowledge and lessons that I will continue to seek answers to for the rest of my life. If you are truly passionate about something and it becomes a joy to keep learning about it then you’ll know you’ve chosen the right learning path.
A lesson I learned from The Warrens, something so simple yet so touching was “When you get robbed or attacked on the street, you call the police to help you, but who do you call when something you can’t see is pushing you, taunting you, leaving marks on your body, something that you can’t see? You call us. The police and everyone else believe in the world of physical things, but when it comes to the supernatural, a lot aren’t believers. That’s where we come in, to believe you and to help you”. Learning about the world of the supernatural and the demonic teaches you to be open, to believe the unexpected. If someone were to approach me in the future with the anxiety of telling me they might have a haunting problem happening in their own home, then sitting and talking with them about it and saying “It’s okay, I believe you”, that would be enough for me, it would be enough for them. Making that small impact in someone’s life would be enough, just by telling them “I believe you”.
Exorcisms, house cleansing, classification of possession, how to establish whether it’s a demonic or a poltergeist haunting, one’s vulnerability to welcoming in spirits they didn’t think existed; knowledge that is simultaneously phenomenal and terrifying. How to protect against spirits, how to provoke them, classification of communication methods for the supernatural; knowledge we overlooked because we thought there wasn’t any consequences to using a Ouija board. There are consequences for our actions especially when we dip our feet into the world of the unknown; as Ed Warren emphasised Never ever challenge the unknown.
Living up to the standards of The Warrens is something I’ll never be able to do, but what I can do is learn from them and continue to broaden my studying field in the world of the supernatural. If there is to be a well-known Demonologist in Galway then I hope I fit into that category.
