{"id":14313,"date":"2014-05-15T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T17:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/latinos-in-the-u-s-have-a-strong-belief-in-the-spirit-world\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:22:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:22:17","slug":"latinos-in-the-u-s-have-a-strong-belief-in-the-spirit-world","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/05\/15\/latinos-in-the-u-s-have-a-strong-belief-in-the-spirit-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Latinos in the U.S. have a strong belief in the spirit world"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

A majority of American Catholics see Pope Francis as a major change<\/a> for the Catholic Church. But in one area, Francis may be the most traditional pope in a generation: He has \u201cnot only dwelled far more on Satan in sermons and speeches than his recent predecessors have,\u201d according to a recent Washington Post article<\/a>, \u201cbut also sought to rekindle the Devil\u2019s image as a supernatural entity with the forces of evil at his beck and call.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Francis is the first pope from Latin America, where \u201cmystical views of Satan still hold sway in broad areas of the region,\u201d according to the Post. Last week, Catholics from 33 countries gathered in Vatican City<\/a> for a conference on exorcism. The Post estimated the number of \u201cofficial exorcists\u201d to be between 500 and 600, \u201cthe vast majority operating in Latin America and Eastern Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

While we do not have data on how many Americans overall believe in the presence of spirits, a recent Pew Research survey<\/a> found widespread belief in this among Latinos in the United States. More than half (57%) said that people can be possessed by spirits, and 44% said magic, sorcery or witchcraft can influence people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n\n

In our survey, about one-in-eight Hispanic Catholics in the U.S. (12%) said they have witnessed<\/a> an exorcism. Even more Hispanic Protestants (37%) \u2013 including 59% of Pentecostals \u2013 said they have seen \u201cthe devil or evil spirits being driven out of a person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Varying percentages of U.S. Hispanics also hold other spiritual beliefs<\/a>, which in some cases may reflect a mix of Christian and indigenous or Afro-Caribbean influences.<\/p>\n\n

Roughly four-in-ten U.S. Hispanics (39%), including a similar share of Hispanic Catholics, said they believe in the \u201cevil eye,\u201d or that certain people can cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen. A smaller share (15%) said they have had witchcraft or black magic practiced on them or someone close to them.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than half (57%) of Latinos in the U.S. said that people can be possessed by spirits, and 44% said magic, sorcery or witchcraft can influence people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[161,180,152,147,425,422],"bylines":[854],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[517],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-14313","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-beliefs-practices","category-catholicism","category-hispanic-latino-demographics","category-race-ethnicity-politics","category-race-ethnicity-religion","category-religion-race-1","bylines-michael-lipka","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-religion"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":313,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/05\/15\/latinos-in-the-u-s-have-a-strong-belief-in-the-spirit-world\/","art_direction":{"A1":{"id":26776,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png?w=564&h=317&crop=1","width":564,"height":317,"chartArt":false},"A2":{"id":26776,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"A3":{"id":26776,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png?w=194&h=110&crop=1","width":194,"height":110,"chartArt":false},"A4":{"id":26776,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"XL":{"id":26776,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png?w=640&h=335&crop=1","width":640,"height":335,"chartArt":false},"social":{"id":26776,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/05\/PF_14.05.07_HispanicReport_dataCards_evilEye.png?w=640&h=335&crop=1","width":640,"height":335,"chartArt":false}},"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Latinos in the U.S. have a strong belief in the spirit world","description":"More than half (57%) of Latinos in the U.S. said that people can be possessed by spirits, and 44% said magic, sorcery or witchcraft can influence people\u2019s lives.","og_title":"Latinos in the U.S. have a strong belief in the spirit world","og_description":"More than half (57%) of Latinos in the U.S. said that people can be possessed by spirits, and 44% said magic, sorcery or witchcraft can influence people\u2019s lives.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":26776,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"e3c17111-0a98-4d24-a962-396910688d98","termId":854}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/14313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/14313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103787,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/14313\/revisions\/103787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=14313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}