Customer Reviews

Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States (Studies in Comparative Religion)

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Helen Berger is a professor of sociology at West Chester University, and also the author of A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States (Studies in Comparative Religion), Witchcraft and Magic: Contemporary North America, Teenage Witches: Magical Youth and the Search for the Self, etc. Evan Leach is professor of management at West Chester, and Leigh Shaffer is a professor of sociology at West Chester.

They wrote in the Preface to this 2003 book, "(the book) is an analysis of the data collected in a national survey of Neo-Pagans titled The Pagan Census, conducted between 1993 and 1995. Our intent in writing this book is to provide scholars with data that may inform their research on Neo-Pagans, give Neo-Pagans some insights into their community, and provide the general reader with an overview of this new religion... This book provides a voice to the over two thousand individuals who answered this survey and through them a unique view into the Neo-Pagan community."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"Neo-Pagans also tend to be more politically liberal and more politically active than their neighbors." (Pg. xv)
"...it was impossible to do an accurate census... because Neo-Pagan organizations were unwilling to give us their membership lists, as they felt this would violate their members' privacy..." (Pg. 2)
"In our survey 50.9 percent of the respondents state that they are currently solitary practitioners." (Pg. 12)
"Starhawk, the most widely read Witch in the English language, serves as an important bridge between more traditional Wicca and Dianics because she incorporates both into her vision of the religion." (Pg. 14)
"Odinists tend to be more politically and socially conservative than other Neo-Pagans." (Pg. 17)
"...although Neo-Pagans see overlaps between their spiritual practices and those of the New Age, they also view these paths as distinct... Although negative notions of the New Age exist, these are not universal among the Neo-Pagans in our survey." (Pg. 25)
"The three most popular sects are Wicca, Pagans, and Goddess Worshipers... the term Neo-Pagan is used by far fewer individuals than Pagan is." (Pg. 91)
"Neo-Pagans on the whole are more politically active; those who attend festivals tend to be drawn from the more politically active subsection of the Neo-Pagan population---i.e., those who work in groups." (Pg. 215)

I very much enjoyed this book. It was an excellent source for statistical data on a very little looked at group. The NORC and write-in format allowed for a lot of information to be conveyed.