Satanism and devil worship is on the rise in Britain, according to census data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week.
The 2021 census, carried out once every ten years, includes a voluntary question on religion. Among findings on its data on religion was a rapid rise in Satanism in both England and Wales, with the number of people identifying as Satanists increasing by 167 per cent between 2011 and 2021 in England and Wales.
The Telegraph described it as “one of the most surprising findings” of the census, and reported that the reason for the rise ‘remains unclear’.
ONS researchers found that within that ten-year period, the number of Satanists increased from 1,893 to 5,054. It comes as census data also revealed that a total of 15 babies were given the name Lucifer last year. It’s a name which didn’t appear in the rankings until 2016.
Satanism, which can either be religious or counter-cultural, is centred on the figure of Satan, also known as the devil. It has long been practised under a different name among polytheists in their invocation and propitiation of the evil deities.
In Christianity and Judaism, Satan represents absolute evil, and Satanism is primarily a revolt against Christianity and the Catholic Church. Historically, it rejects Satan’s antithesis – God, or Jesus Christ, and rose in the twelfth century, culminating in the Black Mass, a blasphemous parody of the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass.
Modern Satanism has become widespread in circles that venerate the devil, pray for his assistance, and perform elaborate rites in his honour. There are legally recognised ‘Churches of Satan’ and Satanists venerate what Christians call the “principle of evil”.
While the reason behind the rise of Satanism is not clear, the newly released census data does line up with separate data from the ONS, published last year, which was indicative that a reverence for the devil was on the rise.
In the wake of the fall of Roe versus Wade, the ruling which legalised broad-based abortion as a right in the US, the Satanic Temple came to greater visibility, making headlines for going after abortion bans.
As recently as October, the Salem-based Satanic Temple sued Indiana and Idaho in federal court over their abortion bans, arguing bans on abortion violate the religious rights of people in those states. The Satanic Temple has launched multiple political actions and lawsuits over the separation of church and state in the last number of years.
The 2021 census also uncovered a significant increase in the number of Pagans in the UK – up from 56,620 to 73,733 in the ten-year period. There was also a rise in the number of Animists – who believe that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence, and all natural things have a soul – increasing from 541 in 2011 to 802 in 2021.
The ONS data showed that the number of people practising witchcraft in England and Wales is falling slightly, seeing a decrease from 1,276 to 1,045 in ten years. Similarly, scientologists now number 1,276 – down from 2,418 in 2011. Members of the Occult fell slightly, from 502 to 490.
There is, however, reason for the figures to be taken with a pinch of salt – seeing as, in the last census in 2011, 177,000 people declared they were ‘Jedi’ under the religion section of the census, making it the UK’s seventh most popular religion. An additional 6,242 people professed their religion as ‘Heavy Metal,’ while 650 Britons said they were New Age.
Many of those religions will now fall into the ‘other’ section of the form, now offered to respondents.
It comes as it was revealed through the ONS census data that the number of Christians has seen a sharp decline in Britain,
Christians now make up less than half of the UK population for the first time in census history, with the proportion of the British population who class themselves as Christians dropping to 46.2 percent (27.5 million people) in 2021, representing a drop of 5.5 million in the number of Christians in the last ten years. Christians are now outnumbered by non-religious people in Wales.