Spirituality Among Americans

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/12/07/spirituality-among-americans/

In recent decades, Americans have become less likely to identify with an organized religion. Yet a new Pew Research Center survey shows that belief in spirits or a spiritual realm beyond this world is widespread, even among those who don’t consider themselves religious. The survey finds that: 

83% of all U.S. adults believe people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body.

81% say there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we cannot see it.

74% say there are some things that science cannot possibly explain.

45% say they have had a sudden feeling of connection with something from beyond this world.

38% say they have had a strong feeling that someone who has passed away was communicating with them from beyond this world.

30% say they have personally encountered a spirit or unseen spiritual force.

Overall, 70% of U.S. adults can be considered “spiritual” in some way, because they think of themselves as spiritual people or say spirituality is very important in their lives.

These are among the key findings of a new Pew Research Center survey of American spirituality, conducted July 31-Aug. 6, 2023, among a nationally representative sample of 11,201 members of our American Trends Panel.

This report covers the following topics:

Measuring spirituality

Spiritual beliefs

Spiritual practices

Spiritual experiences

Who are ‘spiritual but not religious’ Americans?

Is spirituality increasing?

Some news articles have speculated that young Americans may be turning away from organized religion and replacing it with their own mix of spiritual elements drawn from many sources, including Asian religions and Native American traditions, as well as New Age beliefs about crystals, tarot cards and the like. Media coverage has often focused, in particular, on people who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”

While Pew Research Center surveys have documented a decline since 2007 in the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian, the evidence that “religion” is being replaced by “spirituality” is much weaker, partly because of the difficulty of defining and separating those concepts.

This survey is intended to help fill the gap. We plan to use our new questions about spiritual beliefs, practices and experiences as a baseline, re-asking them periodically to see which measures are rising, which are falling and which are stable. And rather than imposing a definition of spirituality, we will let survey respondents tell us what it means to them and how they practice it.

Spiritual experiences and practices

Some kinds of spiritual experiences seem to be relatively common. For example, 46% of U.S. adults say that at least once or twice a month they feel a deep sense of wonder about the universe. A similar share (44%) say they feel a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being that often.

Feeling a deep sense of connection with humanity and feeling “the presence of something from beyond this world” are less common. Still, about one-fifth of Americans or more say they have such feelings at least once or twice a month.

To gauge experiences that may be relatively rare, we asked respondents whether they have ever had specific otherworldly experiences.

Fully 45% say they have had a sudden feeling of connection with something from beyond this world, and 38% say they’ve had a strong feeling that someone who previously passed away was communicating with them from beyond this world. Three-in-ten say they believe in spirits or unseen spiritual forces and also say they have personally encountered one.