Secret Academies

Secret Academies are the most common facilities maintained by the organization, and often the largest. They are both venues for trainees to undertake the initial five-year training period, and usually cater for the further training in one or two of the further specialized courses. Care must be taken to avoid moving suspiciously large numbers of people around the world, both to maintain a low profile for the Ghost Hunters and their organization as well as saving on vital funds and resources.

Worldwide there are approximately twenty large Academies. At a further level, six are dedicated to training ghost hunters, eight serve ghost mediators, two educate ghost consulates, and four are Combined Academies, catering to all of these three disciplines.

There are also several other types of facilities, similar to the Secret Academies yet with their own unique and vital functions.

Secret Foundries are both places of education and active workshops. They are rare and vital facilities, since ghost hunters rely on equipment produced by the spirit-smiths working in them for much of their combat effectiveness. Their maintenance and supply is one of the most expensive single endeavors of the organization.

Secret Libraries are both literal libraries, catalogues and stores for the Secret Volumes that detail all human knowledge of the spirit world, and administrative and research facilities where psychoscientists complete their training.

After completing their training, graduates go on to begin their career in one of the five disciplines.

Facilities have been retroactively numbered and divided by type, according to the order in which they were founded.

Training at the Secret Academies

There is a distinction sometimes made between the role of 'teacher' and 'instructor' at the Secret Academies: every class is lead by at least one instructor, but the teachers form a sort of executive council, leading the curriculum and deciding important matters relating to Academy discipline or procedure. Teachers are considered to be masters in their fields. They are prodigies or veterans tested to extremes in their discipline. While one exceptional ghost hunter may save dozens of lives during a career, in that same span they could train hundreds of good ghost hunters, saving scores upon scores of civilians all over the world.

The Primary Course

Formal training usually begins with a five year initial course, largely aimed at 11-16 year-olds (depending on when they begin, they may be quite a few years older), with the goal of bringing about the full manifestation of each student's mask and give them a thorough grounding in all the basic aspects of interacting with, and defending themselves in, the spiritual spectrum. Although students are selected very carefully, due to ill health, a desire to live a more 'normal' life as they grow older, or various other pressures, many unfortunately do not complete the course; there is a 30-to-50% drop-out rate over the 5-year period.

Many who "drop out", however, choose to participate in limited or remedial programs that allow them to play an important role within the organization. Some become ghost hunter auxiliaries and medics, others are spell preparation assistants-even office staff and groundskeepers in Secret facilities have commonly gone through part of the initial Secret Academy training before deciding they were not suited for such an active role.

Secondary Courses and Specialization

After the initial course is complete, graduates go on to study more deeply into one or more specializations, either in the same facility or at one of many others scattered around the world. These students are largely between the ages of 17-21 years of age, though again, they may be older if they began the Primary part of their schooling later in their life. As part of their secondary training, all students organize and take part in several periods of 'work placement', working for graduates in their chosen field or experts in the mundane dimension of their skill set-for instance, trainee spirit-smiths may spend time working for traditional Japanese sword smiths as well as in Secret Workshops and in commercial product design departments.

After graduation from this secondary part of the full program, students are given the honor of being a full-fledged Hunter/Smith/Consulate/etc. rather than a Ghost Mediator in Training. They may conduct their chosen career path anywhere in the world they so choose.

Tertiary Training

It is very common, and usually expected, for graduates to return to training facilities all through their life for periods of tertiary training, additional courses, or retraining into an additional expertise. With sudden breakthroughs in understanding of the spirit world or refinements of technique, training with new equipment and the identification of unknown spiritual entities, the world of the ghost hunters is an ever-changing and uncertain one for which they need to be constantly prepared.