Massive global survey: Do people believe in magic? – Greece’s rates are high
40% worldwide believe
A new massive global survey shows that many more people believe in witchcraft , or some form of it, than you might have thought.
Going into details, the research of the Professor of Economics at the American University, Boris Gershman, is based on the answers of 140,000 people and concludes that about a billion people in 95 different countries believe in witchcraft . In fact, it is pointed out that this number is “definitely an underestimate”, since too many people are hesitant to discuss this issue and may not answer completely honestly.
Overall, the survey concludes that almost every country will have people who believe in some form of witchcraft, with around 40% of those surveyed saying they do. It was even discovered that there are very large local variations, with the results differing significantly from country to country, and even from region to region. For example, in Sweden only 9% of participants reported believing in witchcraft, while in Tunisia the percentage reached 90%.
It is worth noting that this new research was done through questionnaires that were distributed in person, but also through phone calls, with the data collection phase starting in 2008 and ending in 2017.
Among other things there were questions about respondents’ wider religious beliefs and their belief in witchcraft. In all cases respondents had to answer whether they believed in the “evil eye” or the idea that “some people can cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen to someone else.” The second part of the question was used in the survey as the definition of witchcraft, with 40% worldwide saying they believed in this description.
The percentages of Greece:
As can be seen from the map made public as part of the research, Greece’s percentages seem quite high, roughly close to 60 to 70%. Our neighbors to the east, the Turks, are also marked with the same color on the map, while our neighbors to the west, the Italians, seem to believe less in the eye and magic, as defined by the survey.
Always according to said research, at the individual level , people with more education and financial security were less likely to believe in witchcraft. Additionally, a high percentage of people who declared belief in a deity also reported believing in magic.
Nationally , witchcraft beliefs are associated with weak institutions, low levels of social trust and low innovation, as well as conformity and higher levels of prejudice.
In closing, it should be mentioned that despite its very large sample, this new study has some limitations, since there is no data at all from China and India, the two most populous countries on the planet.
The research was published in the scientific journal PLOS One on November 23, under the title ‘Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis’.
You can find it by clicking here.
