| How many Wiccans are there?Our best estimates of the number |
Number of Wiccans estimated by ARIS: | 134,000 adults |
Plus the number of Pagans found by ARIS: | 140,000 adults |
Total number of Wiccans and Pagans found: | 274,000 adults |
Less our estimate of the number of Pagans who are not Wiccans: | - 70,000 adults |
Estimated total Wiccans found by the survey: | 204,000 adults |
Estimated number of Wiccans who refused to disclose their religion (assuming a 25% refusal rate) |
68,000 adults |
Total Wiccan adults in the U.S. | 272,000 adults |
Estimated total U.S. Wiccans (including teens) | 350,000 people |
2008: Our best estimate of the number of Wiccans in the U.S. based on the updated ARIS survey of 2008:
ReligionLink compared data from the 2008 ARIS survey with that of the 2001 survey. 5 They state:
"Specifically, the number of Wiccans more than doubled from 2001 to 2008, from 134,000 to 342,000, and the same held true for [other] neo-pagans, who went from 140,000 in 2001 to 340,000 in 2008.
Experts say the growth reflects not only increasing numbers of neo-pagans, but also a rise in the social acceptability of paganism. As a result, more respondents would be willing to identify themselves as followers of some pagan tradition. They also note that identification surveys do not fully measure the influence of neo-paganism. Many people use two or more religious identifiers â€" calling themselves Unitarian and Druid, for example â€" while others might adopt certain neo-pagan practices without calling themselves neo-pagan.
The upshot is that neo-pagans â€" such as Wiccans, Druids, Asatru (Norse Heathenism), and various Reconstructionists â€" and neo-paganism have pushed further into the mainstream.
Some scholars credit the Internet and its ability to connect pagans of different tribes who previously would have remained unknown to each other. Whatever the reason, pagans have grown increasingly more organized and more visible and today are widely recognized by religion scholars and sociologists as a group with staying power." 6
Our group's best estimate of the total number of Wiccans in the U.S. during 2008, as based on the ARIS study was computed as follows. All numbers are rounded:
Number of Wiccans found by ARIS: 342,000 adults Plus the number of Pagans found by ARIS: 340,000 adults Total number of Wiccans and Pagans found: 682,000 adults Less our estimate of the number of Pagans who are not Wiccans: - 170,000 adults Estimated total Wiccans found by the survey: 512,000 adults Estimated number of Wiccans who refused to disclose their religion (assuming a 15% refusal rate by Wiccans)
90,000 adults Total Wiccan adults in the U.S. during 2008 602,000 adults Estimated total U.S. Wiccans (including teens) 775,000 people
As noted above, this number is believed to be much lower than the actual value because many Wiccans would probably form a significant portion of the 5.4% of respondents who refused to reveal their religion, and many will not tell the truth.
The second source of error in public opinion polls: not telling the truth.
There is another factor -- not included in the above estimate -- that is known to drastically decrease polls' estimates of the number of Atheists in the U.S. from the accurate number. It is probably present in polls of Wiccans as well.
Traditional surveys have no way to know how many Wiccans do not tell the truth. Many are reluctant to reveal their religion when a stranger over their telephone -- who claims to be from a confidential polling agency -- asks them about their beliefs. Some will pick another religion and say that this is the one that they practice. They do this for self protection because of the animosity by some Christians and followers of other organized religions towards Wiccans and other Neopagans.
This effect is known to be present among Atheists. Conventional public opinion polls typically find that 3 to 11% of U.S. adults "say" that they are Atheists during polls. But Psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle at the University of Kentucky developed an innovative technique to find the true number of Atheists. They designed a polling method that detects a more accurate value without asking the person being polled to give a direct answer. Their estimate was that 26% of U.S. adults are Atheists -- more than twice the polling results.
This effect is also seen with polls about the percentage of U.S. adults who attend religious services most weeks. Typical polls shows that the value is about 40%. But when researchers actually "count noses" of people attending churches, mosques, synagogues, etc. in a given county, they find that the true number is about half that. It seems that many people think that individuals who go to church are somehow better than those who don't. Wanting to be well thought of by the pollster, they tell a fib. The same effect has been found in Canada, although the values there are about half the U.S. ones.
Assuming a similar error with Wiccan polls, this would mean that our above estimate should be doubled, to about 1.5 million for the year 2008, and perhaps increased further to give a better estimate for today's value.
Benjamin Fearnow, writing for Newsweek in 2018-NOV, said:
"The number of witches and Americans practicing Wicca religious rituals increased dramatically since the 1990s, with several recent studies indicating there may be at least 1.5 million witches across the country. ... With 1.5 million potential practicing witches across the U.S., witchcraft has more followers than the 1.4 million mainline members of the Presbyterian Church." 7
Updating these data to later years is covered in the next essay
References used:
- "American Religious Identification Survey (2001)," by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, at: https://commons.trincoll.edu A PDF file of the survey results can be downloaded from this URL.
- "Religion (95A), Age Groups (7A) and Sex (3) for Population, for Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas 1 and Census Agglomerations, 1991 and 2001 Censuses - 20% Sample Data," Statistics Canada, at: http://www12.statcan.ca/
- "UK Pagans celebrate as numbers soar," at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_500000/500484.stm
- Jason Frenkel, "Witches win converts," Herald Sun, 2002-JUL-1, at: http://heraldsun.news.com.au/common/
- "Pagans go mainstream: Wiccans and Druids and goddesses â€" oh, my," ReligionLink, 2009-OCT-20, at: http://www.religionlink.com/
- Barry A. Kosmin, et al., "American Religious Identification Survey 2001," City University of New York, 2001-DEC-19, at: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/ This is a PDF file.
- Benjamin Fearnow, "Number Of Witches Rises Dramatically Across U.S. As Millennials Reject Christianity," Newsweek, 2018-NOC-18, at: https://www.newsweek.com/
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Copyright © 1999 to 2019 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Latest update: 2019-APR-03
Author: B.A. Robinson
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