The 2017 Chapman Survey of American Fears included eight
questions about Paranormal Beliefs, which were originally shown on pages 74 to
76 of the 99-page detailed results file titled Methodology Report (which now is
censored to just 31 pages).
The general question was: “Please indicate your level of
agreement with the following statements” and those eight statements were:
Aliens visited Earth in our ancient past q27a.
Aliens have come to Earth in modern times q27b.
Fortune tellers, and psychics can foresee the future
q27c.
Places can be haunted by spirits q27d.
Bigfoot is a real creature q27e.
I have been protected by a guardian angel q27f.
Ancient advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, once
existed q27g.
Some people can move objects with their minds q27h.
For each question people were to answer with one of the
following five levels:
Blank (no answer given)
Strongly Agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Results were reported on October 11, 2017 in a blog post
titled Paranormal America 2017. It included a vertical bar chart showing the
sum of percentages for Agree and Strongly Agree for seven statements, which
were:
(55.5%) OMITTED
[I have been protected by a guardian angel.]
55% (54.5%) Ancient advanced civilizations, such as
Atlantis, once existed.
52% (52.0%) Places can be haunted by spirits.
35% (34.8%) Aliens have visited Earth in our ancient
past.
26% (26.0%) Aliens have come to Earth in modern times.
25% (24.9%) Some people can move objects with their
minds.
19% (19.3%) Fortune tellers, and psychics can foresee
the future.
16% (16.1%) Bigfoot is a real creature.
I have shown (in parentheses) the percentages stated to
the original tenth of a percent rather than rounded to the nearest percent. The
Chapman blog post omitted the sixth one, q27f I have been protected by a
guardian angel, which was ranked a percent higher than the highest one they
showed.
Why might that be? Chapman University is a
church-related school. I suspect they decided that a religion-related question
was a topic they didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole - because of justifiable
paranoia that they might upset either university or church leaders.
That’s nothing new. Last year they didn’t report results
on the Guardian Angels question, or another about how Satan causes most evil in
the world. See my October 16, 2016 blog post, Guardian Angels and Satan are
paranormal beliefs the 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears wouldn’t touch
with a ten-foot pole.
The image of a logger holding a long pole was adapted
from one found at the Library of Congress.
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