Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States [Hardcover]

Helen A. Berger (Author)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 279 pages
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press (Mar 13 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1570034885
ISBN-13: 978-1570034886
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.3 x 2.9 cm
Shipping Weight: 608 g

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,344,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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From Publishers Weekly

This wide-ranging, non-random survey and analysis encompasses a broad sample of the Neo-Pagan community, including Wiccans, Pagans, Goddess Worshippers, Druids, Shamans, Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and assorted Odinists and "magic workers." For all their diversity, a certain profile emerges. Typical Neo-Pagans are white, college-educated middle class women (men account for about a third of Neo-Pagans). They tend to hold liberal views and be politically active, especially on environmental issues. They are more likely than the average American to have had a paranormal or magical experience, and more likely to invoke quantum mechanics and string theory to explain it. They are broadly supportive of alternative lifestyles and sexualities, and tend to approve of group marriage, in theory if not in practice; but they split over the propriety of sex between spiritual teachers and students. The study also surveys participation in a variety of Neo-Pagan ritual practice and festivals and explores attitudes towards intra-pagan controversies: Neo-Pagans disdain New Agers as dilettantes and violently reject any association with Satanists, but embrace the title of "witch" with pride. The authors, professors of sociology (Berger and Shaffer) and management (Leach), break down the data by sex, geographical region and Neo-Pagan sect, and provide an even-handed, nuanced commentary on the development of Neo-Paganism and the relation of Neo-Pagan beliefs and opinions to the larger political and cultural landscape.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
This is one of the over two thousand respondents to The Pagan Census (see appendix) a nationwide survey that asked Neo-Pagans questions about their beliefs, practices, and everyday lives. Read the first page

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4.0 out of 5 stars "Just the facts, ma'am", Jan 8 2006

Samuel E. Wagar "Wiccan historian" (Surrey, BC CANADA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States (Hardcover)

Excellent source of hard data on demographics, attitudes and trends in the neo-Pagan religious communities. Although it is non-random, the authors undertook to correct their data to mak it more useful. By using some questions from the General Social Surveyso they could make valid comparisons between Pagans and the US population as a whole, and because of the number of respondents they were able to look at smaller segments of he Pagan communities. Fascinating survey. I found Berger's earlier solo work, "A Community of Witches", which drew upon some of these data and her own ethnographic work in the neo-Pagan Wiccan communities, to be more directly useful, as that work charts changes and trends as the community ages and provides a context for the data.

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Amazon.com: 4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

4.0 out of 5 stars Good source, Feb 6 2010

By K. Sokol - Published on Amazon.com

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This review is from: Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States (Hardcover)

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.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars AN INTERESTING SOURCE OF DATA ABOUT PAGAN/WICCAN TRADITIONS, July 28 2011

By Steven H. Propp - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States (Hardcover)

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)

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews 4.5 out of 5 stars