Thank you for your participation!

The first of the Pagan Home Studies, entitled “Religious Symbolism”, closed today with 245 respondents. Although this was below my desired participation level, it is certainly enough data to consider this a successful pilot study. Thank you to all who participated, and please join the mailing list to be updated on this research, and to be notified of future opportunities to participate.

We have a few more weeks of classes here at K-State, so data analysis will be slow going until then. I plan to work through the responses in the spring and summer of 2010 and send off a few articles at that time. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Emerging Trends in Neo-Pagan Religious Symbolism

As indicated in my previous post, I am releasing the numbers on some emerging trends in the Religious Symbolism study. If you are willing to support my work, I ask that you share this with your social contacts online (see link at the end of this post) and email the survey to any pagan/neo-pagan friends you may have. Thank you to all who have participated thusfar. You can join the mailing list to receive emails about these updates, and future studies.

Brief Technical Synopsis
This is a report of preliminary trends emerging in an ongoing study of neo-pagan religious symbolism and spiritual practices in the home. Specifically, this study examines shrines and altars within the home. The method is an online survey that solicits quantitative and qualitative information from respondents. The target population is those who self-identify as “pagan” or “neo-pagan”. The population was contacted via known online fora, and asked to propagate the study among their peers. Due to the introverted nature of many neo-pagans in regard to spiritual beliefs and practices, a snowball sample was deemed necessary to reach as many individuals as possible. The target population within reach of this method is estimated at 100,000. Therefore, this study aims to receive feedback from 10%, or 1,000 persons.

Emerging Trends
At this time the study includes 215 respondents. Of those respondents, 73% are female and 80% native to their current country of residence. Additional demographic data will be provided in the full study results.

Of respondents, 80% say they practice magic (magick), as defined within the study to “include spells, meditations, energy raising, or other activities aimed at changing consciousness, energies, or physical reality”. Much of the study includes the opportunity for respondents to choose “other” and to provide personalized responses. It should be noted that a significant portion of the population indicates that they would define magic differently and, therefore, might respond “yes” under other circumstances. This issue will be further addressed in the future.

In identifying their involvement within the pagan community, 55% report being active in online discussion groups and 60% identify as solitary. Preliminary results indicate that many respondents report involvement in multiple areas. However, only 19% report involvement in a Coven while a significantly higher percent report involvement in a Circle. A more detailed summary of community involvement will be provided in the full study results.

Respondents generally indicate that they are open about their beliefs within the home and that their beliefs are respected within the home. However, responses are too varied to indicate significant trends at this time in regard to whether household members share the same beliefs, or participate in spiritual practices with respondents.

This study asks respondents to identify the function of altars and/or shrines located within the public spaces of the home, including living, dining, and kitchen areas. Respondents are able to make multiple selections and at this time responses are as follows:

Purpose of Altar/Shrine
Ancestors, or family altar/shrine 30.23%
Decorative 27.44%
Offering place 37.21%
Personal 40.93%
Representation of a specific deity 30.23%
Representation of a specific spirit/energy/element 20.47%
Sacred space 41.4%
Seasonal 23.26%
Workspace (magic, etc.) 30.23%
Other 4.19%
No Response 36.74%

Further Study
This study concludes on November 18, 2009. It is reasonable to assume that the target response of 1,000 is possible within this time frame. I intend to pursue grant funding to assist with data analysis, and to use the findings to prepare future studies of neo-pagan homes and household practices. I encourage readers to share this study with contacts within the pagan community:

Participate in the Study: http://bit.ly/ReligiousSymbolism
About the Pagan Home Studies: http://paganhome.wordpress.com/

For additional information on this study or any of my work, please visit the Pagan Home Studies website: http://paganhome.wordpress.com/

Preliminary Trends

The study now has over 200 respondents! Thank you all for your participation.

I will post preliminary trends to a few questions this weekend. Be sure to check back, or get on the mailing list, to see emerging results.

Read my blog for details on the other happenings of the first week of classes.

Some Updates on the Study

Thank you all to have responded so far! This morning, day 4 of the study, shows us at over 100 respondents. If you have not already taken the survey of neo-pagan religious symbolism and practices in the home, I invite you to do so! And don’t forget to pass it on: http://bit.ly/ReligiousSymbolism

I am already seeing some interesting responses so I’ve identified some results which can be shared publicly without affecting the validity of the study. I will be releasing these preliminary findings in another week. Join the mailing list to be notified when these results are available, or keep checking back.

Want to support my work? I’m using a snowball sampling method, meaning this is a “tell your friends” study. Support this research, and gain my undying affection:

Share this with your social contacts online!

Tell 10 friends about the study, and ask them to pass it on.

I am looking forward to being able to share those early results so check back at the end of next week and join my celebration. Thanks to the six people who completed the survey while I typed this entry.

Study Launched Aug 17

The survey is now live and will be available until Nov. 18, 2009. If you have already completed the survey, please share this link with others in the pagan community: http://bit.ly/ReligiousSymbolism

In just a few hours it will be my birthday (Aug 18th) and what better way to celebrate than with the launch of a new research initiative?

IRB Pending Final Approval

So what does this mean? It means that everything is likely a go for the study. It means yours truly will be spending several hours converting the survey to HTML code. It means that very soon I will be soliciting the participation of over 100,000 people and hoping to the gods that it all works out. If the database crashes there may be tears.

I will be attempting to bribe my favorite network systems engineer into lowering himself to the level of helping me.

It’s quite a pleasant surprise to receive IRB approval this quickly. I credit a slow research summer. Thanks again to those who’ve helped to get this thing rolling. I am very excited!

Site Up, Research Under Review

With the most gracious permission of littlehonda_350 to use the photo “Witchy Bookshelf” on the site, we now have live data. I do not yet have final IRB approval so the survey is not yet available. Check back soon!