Not going to become the 3rd largest religious group any time soon.

However, even if we grant that the larger estimates by friendly scholars and movement insiders are more accurate (and I’m hoping 2011 census data will bear our larger estimates out), that would still only mean around 3-5 million modern (ie “neo,” revivalist, and reconstructionist) Pagans worldwide. We are far from taking anything over, despite our advances and achievements. Yet the mere idea of Paganism’s return has sparked some atavistic fears within certain segments of Christianity, and has caused them to use shoddy estimates to falsely bolster our numbers in order scare their audiences into buying products. Many are gloomily predicting that Wicca will soon be America’s third-largest religion. Naturally, what scares certain conservative Christians excites some Pagans, leading them to use these explosive estimates to their own ends.

Wicca is America’s Fastest Growing religion, and it is anticipated by some Christian religious experts that it will become the third largest religion in the United States early in the 21st century, behind only Christianity and Islam. Just this week, a press release for the new book God’s Ghostbusters, by Defender Publishing quoted editor Thomas Horn “In the United States alone, there are now more than two hundred thousand registered witches and as many as 8 million unregistered practitioners of ‘the craft’.”

Witch School Co-Founder Ed Hubbard recognizes that the statements and numbers put out by Horn are similar to his own viewpoint. Hubbard offers “There is such a rapid spiritual reorientation in America occurring, that the need for thousands of Wiccan teachers over the course of the next decade will be required to meet the demand for basic teachings. Because of Wicca’s liberating beliefs and useful skills, people want to understand and embrace it, and learn how to awaken their inner abilities.”

That’s from a brand-new press release issued by Witch School, using these largely invented figures to sell their product. In fact, Witch School co-founder Ed Hubbard knows Horn’s figures are overblown, because he told me so right here at The Wild Hunt.

“I know how they got the 8 million. It has to do with a series of articles from 2005. Basically if we had doubled every eighteen months as we did in the beginning, we would be facing 8 million. I know much of where this is coming from. I can give the strange math if you ever want it.”

In fact that there is a “spiritual reorientation” going on in the West, but it isn’t really about modern Paganism. The numbers point to growing numbers of the religiously unaffiliated more than anything else. That may be good for us societally speaking, and may even spark some growth, but we aren’t the primary recipients of this shift into post-Christianity. Witch School may have had over 200,000 people take classes with them, but I highly doubt they’ve managed a 100% retention rate of students who stuck with Wicca or some other form of modern Paganism over the years.

Speaking frankly, I think it does our movement no favors to peddle misinformation and wishful thinking in order to self-promote. Spreading inaccurate narratives, no matter how positive they may seem, actually harms our attempts to establish ourselves. Muddying waters with “strange math” simply sets us up as opportunistic self-promoters instead of building the bridges we need in areas like chaplaincy, intrafaith, and interfaith work. I’m disappointed that a popular Pagan service would validate the Christians who want to see us as a encroaching menace, even if may flatter our conceptions of rapid growth. The narrative of explosive growth does us no good, I hope that Pagans will drop it in favor of statistical data that will support our claims.

“Mark Hepworth is a Gardnerian Wiccan with Greek Reconstructionist beliefs but the Sydney IT worker would like to be counted as a pagan first. ”A lot of other faiths see us as the people that got too much into Harry Potter and decided to call themselves a witch instead of an actual group of people who do have a serious spirituality,” he says. And it’s like other faiths that pagans would like to be treated, at least in a statistical sense. The Pagan Awareness Network, of which Mr Hepworth is vice-president, is urging its many and diverse faith paths – which include Druidism, Shamanism and Lesbian Feminist Goddess Worship – to nominate paganism as their religious category in this year’s census. Mr Hepworth hopes the weight of people nominating ”pagan” as their primary faith, followed by their variant after a dash, will prompt it to be reclassified as an umbrella term by the Australian Bureau of Statistics – the first step in consolidating pagan numbers and gaining wider recognition as a legitimate religious choice.”

For Australian advocacy groups like The Pagan Awareness Network getting the disparate and often fiercely individualist Pagan, polytheist, and Heathen religions under the same umbrella term is an important step towards fighting what the Australian Human Rights Commission calls “widespread” distrust and “hostility” toward modern Pagans and other minority faith groups in the country.

“Paganism is an umbrella term that covers a number of nature-based spiritual traditions. The consultations and submissions revealed significant areas of concern regarding paganism and pagans’ ability to practice their faith in Australia. Pagans believe that the lack of information or understanding of their faith complicates issues; many in the wider community assume that Satanism is a part of paganism, when it is separate and distinct.Recognition was raised as the biggest issue that underlies other matters. According to the Pagan Awareness Network, there are approximately 30 000 people in Australia who follow a pagan or nature-based religion, and this is confirmed by the 2006 Census, which also shows the significant, recent growth of paganism.”

Pagan groups in both Australia and the U.K. are fairly certain that there are far more Pagans living in their respective countries than are shown in previous census results, and a “Pagan-Dash” initiative has been embraced by organizers from both nations. In Britain around 40,000 individuals labeled themselves as Pagans, Wiccans, or Druids (making them the 7th largest faith grouping in the UK) during the last census. However, British scholars like Ronald Hutton think there may be more than 250,000 Pagans according to an estimate he made in 2001.

“Ten years ago 42,000 people declared themselves as Pagans – the seventh highest number for any UK religion – but some experts believe the true figure was nearer 250,000 – and is significantly higher now.”

The 2006 Australian census found that there were around 30,000 Pagans in Australia, a growth of only 3,000 individuals from 2001. The numbers made sociologist (and Pagan) Douglas Ezzy wonder if modern Paganism’s rapid growth had now slowed.

“We just heard the figures for the Australian 2006 Census. They are: Paganism 16,000 (11,000 in 2001), Witchcraft/Wicca 8,000 (9,000 in 2001), Other Nature Religion: 2,000 (3,000 in 2001). That makes a change from a total of 23,000 (0.12%) in 2001 to 26,000 (0.13%) in 2006 … so, basically, the number of Pagans recorded on the Australian Census in 2006 is around 0.13 to 0.14% of the population and has grown in size by about 13% since the 2001 Census. Not bad, but nothing like the growth the movement had earlier.”

But has growth leveled off, or were individuals reluctant to identify themselves as Pagans or Witches? Australian Witch (and former reality television star) Stacey Demarco notes that fear could be artificially suppressing an accurate count of Australia’s Pagans.

“Stacey Demarco, a witch and author from the northern beaches, says she is “obviously very much out of the broom closet” but many pagans weren’t. The fear of outing themselves affects how they treat the optional religion question on their census form.”

The British census was conducted in March and we’re still awaiting data (maybe summary findings next year), the Australian census takes place in August. While Australia organized a Pagan-Dash campaign for the 2006 census, it did not seem to be widely adopted by respondents. So results from the 2011 censuses will be the first test of how effective Pagan-Dash will be in getting an accurate count of Pagans. Whatever the results, this new data will be of huge importance for Pagan groups and the academics who study them.

For modern Pagans in both countries dramatic (or even modest) increases in numbers could mean a corresponding increase in legitimacy and political clout. This would make landmark events like The Druid Network receiving religious charity status a less publicly contentious issue in the UK, while in Australia it could mean a turnaround in the seemingly significant level of distrust and hostility described in the Human Rights Commission report. As some debate how useful or accurate the label “Pagan” is, that umbrella term, however imperfect (even with a dash), seems to be the current default for large-scale activism.

No One Likes a Jedi at Census Time: Last week I reported on the “PaganDash” campaign, which is looking to encourage Pagans in the UK to stand up and be counted in the census, and use a uniform write-in for the census form. However, Pagans aren’t the only group looking to improve their numbers in the 2011 British census. British humanists and atheists have launched a campaign to increase the number of respondents that check “no religion”, taking aim at the Jedi census phenomenon from 2001′s census.

“If your religion is of low enough importance to you to that you are willing to put in a religion from 3 good sci-fi films from years ago, and 3 more recent rubbish ones,please consider ticking “No Religion” instead. The data gathered is used to inform government policy, and was used by the last government to justify funding of religious community bodies over secular ones. For example, 2001 census data has been used repeatedly to justify an increase in the number of state maintained faith schools and the increasing level of government money spent on faith organisations. By ticking ‘No Religion’, you will ensure that the Government receives an unambiguous message about the number of non-religious people in the UK. Any other response may be manipulated into a response in favour of religion and publically funded religious organisations.”

The argument seems to have convinced  author and Boing Boing co-founder Cory Doctorow, who says “I’m convinced; we’re atheists and we will list ourselves as such.” There’s other campaigns going on as well, but I wanted to specifically mention the Jedi phenomenon, because I don’t think it just skewed atheist/agnostic numbers. I’ve long thought that those 400,000 “Jedi” also comprised a fair number of modern Pagans as well. In any case, this may be our last chance to get this right, because the UK is seriously considering removing the religion question entirely, with a spokesperson lumping Pagans in with the Jedi as “prank” responses.

Romanian Witches Win Tax Battle: It looks like all those spells and hexes worked. A controversial bill that would require psychics, fortune tellers, and practitioners of witchcraft in Romania be licensed, and tax their largely under-the-table income, has failed.

Defense strenuously objected to the tape being played, that is was “overwhelmingly prejudicial.” You can see why they don’t want that tape played, because it paints a portrait of a man who has utter control over his subjects. Meanwhile, if the comments section of my previous James Ray post are any indication, Ray’s defenders are spinning conspiracy theories and making excuses for their guru across the Internet. After all, once you’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on his “teachings,” I can’ imagine you’d want to believe he’s a negligent egomaniac. It will be interesting to see who the defense calls in this trial, and if they have more than signed waivers and conspiracies to keep their client from prison.

Sex Cult Leader Convicted: Colin Batley, 48, of Kidwelly, west Wales, was convicted of “11 separate rapes, three indecent assaults, causing prostitution for personal gain, causing a child to have sex and inciting a child to have sex.” Batley and his alleged followers were said to wear red robes and read from the Thelemic sacred text The Book of the Law (he had laminated pages from the book at his home), penned by influential occultist Aleister Crowley at ceremonies. Other sources said that all the women in the group sported matching tattoos. As I mentioned in my previous post, Batley claims to have “given up” reading Crowley and was now a Mormon.

“A man has been found guilty of leading a “satanic” sex cult from his home in a small Welsh town. Colin Batley, 48, of Kidwelly, west Wales, presided over a group that preyed on young children and held occult rites. He was found guilty at Swansea crown court of rape and carrying out perverted sexual acts on children and adults. Batley was the self-styled high priest of the group, which operated from a series of homes in a cul-de-sac in the seaside town.”

Four other members of the alleged group were also found guilty. There seems to have been enough testimony from both victims and “customers” to prove some sort of underage sex-ring was happening, what hasn’t been established is how sincere the “occult” elements were, or if they were just trappings of control used on their “recruits”. Nor, at this point, will we ever likely know the full story.

The Further Adventures of Father Gary Thomas: CNN has decided to do profile of Father Gary Thomas, a Catholic exorcist, and inspiration for the Hollywood film “The Rite”. As I pointed out in January, Pagan media critic Peg Aloi got Father Thomas on the record about some of his many retrograde views regarding Pagan religions and “Satanic” underground cults. Despite, or perhaps because of, these views being out in the open Thomas continues to tar other religious systems as pathways to demonic possession.

“A lot of folks dabble in the occult, or they will be involved in practices that … classical Christianity at least would consider to be idolatrous.  People can get themselves involved in Wicca, or people will go see some sort of fortune-teller, or people will go to a séance, or they can go and they can learn how to channel spirits. …”

Father Thomas also mentions an ongoing exorcism case where the client is “suffering from a very unique psychological disorder,” but also, it seems, “been exposed to satanic cults.” He truly seems to think that both are true, and the question is which method to use in treating the client. What I find disappointing is that this is a man labeling an entire religion, Wicca, as a pathway to Satanic possession. Had he done so with Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or Mormonism the reporter would have no doubt called him on his statement. Yet, reporter Tom Foreman’s response is “a vision of politician Christine O’Donnell fills my head.” Proof once again that the press just doesn’t “get religion,” it can’t even properly grapple with the topic of modern Pagan religions in a mature and level-headed manner.

That’s all I have time for today, have a great day!

Counting Pagans in the UK: In one month, the 2011 British census will begin. As in 2001 citizens of England and Wales will be able to mark what their religious affiliation is, a change in procedure that saw minority religions gain significant attention. For the first time, Britain was counting its Pagan citizens, and around 40,000 individuals labeled themselves as Pagans, Wiccans, or Druids (making them the 7th largest faith grouping in the UK). However, many Pagans, and the scholars who study them, believe that number is far higher (Ronald Hutton, for example, thinks there are around 250,000 Pagans, circa 2001, equivalent to the Hindu population). So this year a consortium of Pagan organizations are pushing the PaganDASH (Facebook) campaign to encourage all British Pagans to fill out the census, and to do so in a uniform manner.

“The ONS wants to count us. They have a ‘mandate of inclusion’ which means they are looking for ways to include us in their figures. Looking at the raw data that was provided last time to us gave us some startling insights. However, as mentioned, by just writing Pagan on your form, we lose the data for various paths, and our diversity — but there is a simple solution — one that’s worked elsewhere. In Australia in 2001 there were 10,000 Pagans in the census. Just 5 years later, with this initiative, their numbers are being counted as nearer 70,000. So if we can do the same here, and get more accurate numbers it will go a long way to getting the recognition we have fought for, and deserve.”

So a Wiccan would write in “Pagan - Wiccan”, a Druid “Pagan - Druid”, and so forth. This initiative is already gaining some press, and as The Druid Network points out, could result in better representation in government. This is an excellent opportunity to chart the growth of modern Paganism in the UK (one we don’t have in the United States), and I hope British Pagans of all stripes support this initiative.

Child Care at Pagan Conventions: The Pagan Newswire Collective’s Bay Area bureau has published the first installment of a multi-part series on child care and Pagan families at conventions. Focusing on the recently completed PantheaCon, Lily Shahar Kunning, looks at the options, and lack of options, families with small children have at such events.

“In fact, the ‘Con is not fully aware of how many children attend, as they are not formally registered if they are under 12. But parents attending PantheaCon agree- there are tens of dozens of children in attendance, and more come every year. Yet there is no formal “track” for children to attend, no formal childcare arrangements, and most events in the schedule are not kid-friendly.”

As our movement grows, and becomes increasingly multi-generational, issues of how we treat our youngest, and oldest, members will become increasingly pressing. We are at a point now where organizers are straining under the weight of continual growth and popularity, yet we often lack the infrastructure and capital to expand as much as we need to. How we deal with issues like child care, and the inclusion of younger Pagans, can have far-reaching ramifications in our future. Stay tuned to PNC-Bay Area for the next installment of this series where they’ll discuss family-oriented programming at PantheaCon.

Pagan Leadership Panel: One of the panels I participated in at this year’s PantheaCon, led by Modern Witch Podcast host Devin Hunter, was on Pagan leadership in the 21st century. On the panel was Hyperion of The Unnamed Path, Ms. Rabbit Matthews of CAYA, and myself. Devin has uploaded the video he took to Youtube, and is up now in seven parts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbLKKfzfRdU

You can find the other six parts, here. I think some very important topics were touched on, and I’m thankful that Devin was able to record his panel and share it with the world.

Cherry Hill Seminary Graduation Ceremony: Yesterday at the Sacred Space Conference in Maryland, Cherry Hill Seminary held their first graduation ceremony under their new program. Certificates were presented to six students, and PNC-Washington DC (aka Capital Witch) was there to report on the event. Below you can see some video taken during the ceremony.

PNC-Washington DC/Capital Witch will be posting photos later with exclusive interview footage of the CHS faculty and student graduates. So please stay tuned to that site for further updates, and congratulations to the six Cherry Hill Seminary graduates! To find out more about CHS’s educational offerings, please check out the web site.

A Trip to Lucky Mojo: On their way home from PantheaCon the PNC-Minnesota bureau were lucky enough to stop at the famous Lucky Mojo Curio Company, took pictures, and interviewed proprietor Cat Yronwode.

“People of a mixed back ground often find Hoodoo resonates with them because it calls to part of their cultural back ground.  It is a very vital, very American form of magic.  I love it, I was born Jewish, and then joined the Baptist church and now am a spiritualist.  I have always felt at home in Hoodoo. I would say that since the dawn of the internet age, there is more white people practicing it, but there always were. It has never been something that was exclusively Black, although black cultural nationalists have claimed so.”

For anyone who has shopped at a hoodoo store, and loved it, this article and interview should bring back many pleasant memories.

Addressing Dianic Exclusion of Transgendered Women: In a final note, I wanted to quickly point to this run-down of issues regarding the exclusion of transgendered women at Dianic events at PantheaCon.

“The debate continued. No one won, as-such, but winning wasn’t the point. Though I’m not unbiased in this matter, I doubt anyone would disagree that, at the end, the Dianic elders present were affected by the experience. I believe them when they said that they had no wish to harm transsexual and transgendered women, but they remained firm. Wendy Griffin, toward the end, got quite upset, stating that the issue is effectively one of religious freedom, and that what was being proposed effectively would prevent her from engaging in her religion. Ruth Barrett, who I must admit showed astonishing strength in retaining composure throughout the event — for her, the issue was that she wanted to continue to run events at Pantheacon, but that a non-discrimination policy would effectively mean that she could not continue to do so.”

This is a very large issue, and this link will just be the beginning of my own exploration. In the weeks to come the Bay Area PNC bureau will be posting a report, and I will be following up with my own here at The Wild Hunt. I’m hoping to include interviews with individuals on both sides of this discussion, and hopefully spark a wider discussion regarding gender identity within modern Paganism.

That’s all I have time for, have a great day!

“I would like to see us get more of the student body not necessarily involved but to know we’re there and to know that we’re normal people … Being in an interfaith school where most of the religions are a branch off of Christianity, you have to be able to say what you need to say and say it well as to not offend everybody, but also know what it is that you believe in and stand by what you believe in.”

Hudson joins a small but growing group of officially recognized Pagan chaplains serving at universities, including the Rev. Cynthia Jane Collins at the University of Southern Maine, Brian Walsh at the University of Toronto in Canada, and Catherine Starr, also at the University of Toronto. Naturally, not everyone is happy with this growing ethos of interfaith cooperation, both Free Republic and conservative Anglican site Virtue Online have gotten the vapors over this development. Despite these rumblings from the fringes, Hendricks Chapel Interim Dean Kelly Sprinkle sees this as a something that will put Syracuse on the forefront of religious pluralism.

“Having a Pagan chaplain clearly places Hendricks Chapel and Syracuse University as one of the leaders on the national scene among university and college chapels in recognizing and embodying the importance of religious pluralism on campus. It helps those students that may not be part of one of the larger traditions to realize that we care about them as well and that they are welcome here.”

As this news reverberates into the blogosphere I’m sure we’ll be seeing more commentary, both positive and negative, in the weeks to come.  The Wild Hunt will be sure to keep you posted as things develop. In the meantime, congratulations to Mary Hudson, may she serve well.

In Other News:

Have the Jedi Ruined the British Census for Pagans? The Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the UK is saying that the 2011 census may be the last of its kind, partially due to the quickly-shifting demographics of the nation, but also due to what they say are “prank” answers.

“Prank responses to questions that are perceived to be too intrusive have also knocked confidence in the current system. In 2001 — the first time a voluntary question was asked about faith — almost 400,000 people took inspiration from the Star Wars films to claim that their religion was “Jedi”. This was in addition to about 7,000 people who said that they were witches.”

Now I’m not going to get into a debate about whether the British Jedi are a “real” religion, or how many of the 400,000 were having a laugh, as opposed to being truly spiritually moved by the works of George Lucas. But it is troubling that Pagan Witchcraft, which has been around openly in the UK since the repeal of anti-Witchcraft laws in the 1950s, is being lumped into this “problem”. This development has inspired some unlikely defenders, like from Guardian columnist Tanya Gold.

“But still I feel an urge to defend the witches. Of all the silly religions – and I think that all religions are silly – I believe that witchcraft is the least dangerous and the most benign. It is also the least understood.”

Gold’s somewhat mocking and half-hearted defense of Witchcraft somewhat masks the larger problem here, which is that the 2011 census may be the last opportunity we get for a truly accurate count of Pagans in the UK. I’m sure we’ll soon hear from the Pagan Federation, and especially PEBBLE, who were trying to coordinate Pagan response to the 2011 census, on these developments soon. To replace a census with regular surveys could make data about religions far more unreliable, and mask the growth of minority religions in the UK.

Medea Not Gaia: The Christian Science Monitor reports on a new book by paleontologist Peter Ward that offers a counter-theory to James Lovelock’s popular  Gaia hypothesis. Ward’s book, “The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?”, argues that instead of life sustaining habitable conditions on Earth, per Lovelock’s hypothesis, life might instead be its own worst enemy.

“Ward’s book isn’t really about human-caused global warming. It’s about the long-term future of life on the planet. Organic life has repeatedly caused the collapse of the biosphere, and on at least one occasion (snowball earth) has almost extinguished it entirely.”

But while this counter-theory may be somewhat depressing, the scenario isn’t without hope, and Ward explains that humanity may be able to turn our Medea planet into a Gaia in the longer term.

“Ward brings us full circle. Life is Medean, he’s argued for 140 pages, not Gaian. By its very nature, it’s self-destructive. The only hope in the very long run is through human foresight and planning, to ensure continued survival. Then, he implies, life on Earth life will have finally overcome its Medean nature. It will have become truely Gaian.”

This book will no doubt incite some fierce debate, especially within the modern Pagan community, where the Gaia hypothesis has been almost fully embraced.

Myth, Religion, and Percy Jackson: It look like critics are evenly split on “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief”, with some saying it’s a lifeless slab of market research aiming for the Harry Potter dollar, while others were enchanted by seeing the Greek myths brought to life on screen. Those who might be enchanted particularly worries the Catholic New Service.

“…it may represent an attempted revival of pagan ideas with the potential to confuse impressionable kids.”

Then again, perhaps the Catholics should be worried, since young Catholics are increasingly relativistic regarding other faiths. As for the Pagans, they seem excited to see the film, and meet-ups are being planned. I’ll be interested to see reviews from Pagan film-goers emerge (especially from Pagan film critic Peg Aloi). As a kid who was completely enchanted by myths, which did eventually lead me to Paganism, I’m sure I would have utterly loved Percy Jackson. Maybe I’ll have to sneak out to a showing and treat my inner child a bit.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

“A number of scholars have noted that it would be helpful to have a follow-up of that survey to see if and how the community has changed or remained the same. The survey that follows uses many, although not all of the same questions that were in the original survey to provide that comparison. There are also new questions, for instance about the Internet, something that was of little interest 20 years ago but is now, and some from other studies, that again permit a comparison. This has resulted in the survey being somewhat long–we appreciate your taking the time to complete it.”

I urge all my readers who identify in any way with the modern Pagan/Heathen movement to participate in this census and spread the word to everyone you know. The more respondents the census has, the more accurate the data. You can find it, here. You can be sure that I will be paying attention to this renewed project as it goes forward, and will keep you appraised of any updates or results.

“Since then, Facebook’s beliefs box has generated a staggering number of entries. So exactly how many users put down “beer” as their religion? How many “Catholic”? What correlations exist between religion and number of friends? Company spokeswoman Meredith Chin declined to answer such questions, citing user privacy. But Chin agreed to compile a list of the most popular religious identities and offered some tantalizing hints at what a full readout might show. Not surprisingly, the most popular faith professed is “Christian” and the various denominations associated with it. The category is so dominant that for this list, Facebook’s statisticians insisted on combining such other designations as “Protestant,” “Catholic” and “Mormon” under the “Christian” label. As a result, the second most popular entry on the list is “Islam,” followed by “Atheist.” “Jedi,” interestingly enough, makes an appearance at No. 10.”

There are so many questions about Facebook’s religion data that aren’t asked or answered in William Wan’s breezy little article. For instance, Facebook statisticians “insisted” on combining all the Christian variations, but did they do the same for other religious groupings? Were all the various Pagan faiths combined as well? If not, why not? Is “spiritual” a catch-all category, or is it just people who listed themselves solely as “spiritual”, and why include a Washington DC top-ten but not one for the USA as a whole?  Why only ten? If it isn’t a violation of user privacy to give us a top-ten list, why not a top twenty or fifty? Further, why did Wan classify “Seguidor del Wiccanismo” (follower of Wicca in Spanish, of which there are 2000 on Facebook) as “offbeat”, did he not bother to run it through a translator? Does the fact that this listing was given as an example of “offbeat” answers to the religion question (along with “Heavy Metal” and “Amish”) in fact prove that Facebook statisticians didn’t bother to gather the modern Pagans into an easy-to-count single grouping?

Instead of doing a real investigation of religion on Facebook, Wan focuses instead on how “hard” it is to fill in that text box, when all you want to do is hook up with some friends.

“It’s Facebook. The whole point is to keep it light and playful, you know?” said Heim, 27, a college student from Dumfries. “But a question like that kind of makes you think.”

Indeed, it does make you think, I just wish the Washington Post were similarly inspired. It’s “interesting” that Jedi came in tenth, but not interesting enough to probe a bit deeper into why it’s the tenth-most-popular faith category on Facebook. If only the The Force could spur some more in-depth journalism on these questions.

ADDENDUM: Get Religion and I seem to be on the same wavelength today.