Statistics
Several studies over the past two decades have been able to prove widespread acceptance of the "supernatural". Phenomena that the informants have had to consider are, for example, telepathy, astrology and reincarnation. The results are similar for several Western countries. For example, the reincarnation idea is supported by an average of one in four people asked.
Healthy (2007b, p. 113) refers to the European part of the World Value Survey of 2000, which showed that 24.4% believed in reincarnation. 44.2% believed in telepathy and 19.1% said they stuck with a lucky charm. This study has been conducted several times before. The issue of reincarnation received the support of 17.4% in the Swedish part of the 1982 survey, in 1990 of 19.8%, while in 1999 22.3% believed in reincarnation.
The newspaper Dagen (Boström, 2008, 16 July) in collaboration with Liselotte Frisk, professor of religious studies at dalarna University, conducted a survey in 2008 of, among other things, support for new-age beliefs among the public. Of the 923 people surveyed, 32.8% said they agreed in whole or in part to the question: "I think man is reborn (reincarnation)".
The Centre for Contemporary Analysis (2009, February) in collaboration with Demoscope conducted the survey "Faith and Spirituality in Sweden" during the autumn-winter 2008-2009 survey with 2,797 Swedes aged 15-89 years: When asked if respondents believed in "Reincarnation (rebirth)," 20% answered in some degree in the affirmative. Including those who answered "Neither", this group, which to some extent believed or at least did not reject the idea of reincarnation, constituted 38%. Younger people and people up to retirement age were more in favor of the idea of reincarnation than older people. In the 65-89 year group, 12% believed in reincarnation. The reincarnation idea was more popular with women. About 30% of them and 10% of men embraced the issue to some degree. Women generally believed in typical "new age phenomena" (telepathy, paranormal phenomena, astrology, etc.) on average 10-15% more than men.
Ipsos MORI (2012) commissioned by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Research and Science (UK) conducted in-person interviews with 1,136 people who identified themselves as Christian in a previous survey. When asked if they believed in "Reincarnation", 8% answered "Completely" and 19% "To some extent".
Harris Interactive (2013, December) conducted an online survey of 2,250 people living in the United States in November 2013. This survey gave the following results: 24% of respondents answered yes to the question: "Reincarnation – that you were once another person". Support for "Astrology" was 29%; "Ghosts": 42% and "Miracles": 72%. In this survey, support for reincarnation was about the same in all age groups up to the "68+" group, where support was about ten percentage points lower. Furthermore, it was noted that support for reincarnation has increased by an average of 3% since the 2005 measurement.
Support for reincarnation is possibly the most notable in a Christian cultural circle. Several of the other notions and phenomena addressed in these investigations probably overlap with popular superstition, which should have been able to coexist with the long-dominant religion, while the idea that we will be reborn in a new physical body is a comparatively exotic notion.