MONTREAL (CP) -- A majority of Canadians believed last month in angels and in life after death while about one-third thought aliens and ghosts existed, suggests an opinion poll.
The Leger Marketing survey indicated that 57.4 per cent of Canadians believed in life after death, compared with 32.3 per cent who didn't. The remainder did not know or refused to answer.
The polling firm also reported that 6.3 per cent of respondents said they had seen a ghost, 5.8 per cent an angel and 4.4 per cent a witch. University of Toronto professor Dena Bain Taylor was surprised that only 57.4 per cent of respondents expressed a belief in life after death. "Given the fact that so many world religions do say there's life after death, I would have expected a higher number," said Taylor, a writing teacher who did doctoral work on the history of the occult.
But Taylor said the Sept. 11 terrorism outbreak in the United States might have had an impact on some of the 1,504 people who were polled Sept. 18-23. "It really got people thinking in terms of death and of having less hope about the world in general," she said in an interview.
"If we see events like this that seem to show there is no hand of God in human events, then it's a logical thing from there to doubt one's belief systems around the idea of God and life after death."
The survey also suggested that 57.1 per cent of Canadians -- 68 per cent of women and 45.6 per cent of men -- believed in angels.
As well, it found that 31.5 per cent of respondents believed in aliens and 30.2 per cent in ghosts.
The poll, which was made available to The Canadian Press, is considered accurate within plus or minus 2.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Leger vice-president Christian Bourque also said the events of Sept. 11 might have influenced the outlook of some respondents.
"When a crisis happens we tend to fall back on something reassuring such as the belief there is life after death," he said. "However, you can almost think the opposite way in terms of, if God is good, why does he allow these things to happen?" But Bourque said the poll made it clear there is "certainly a thirst for any form of spirituality that may lie outside traditional religion."
"We've probably got all these things -- ghosts, life after death, communicating with somebody who's departed -- to compensate for what people may interpret as shortfalls of traditional religion."
The communications director for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said he wasn't surprised that only 57.4 per cent of people believed in life after death.
"We're living in a secular society and a lot of people have adopted very secular attitudes towards life," Bill Kokesch said from Ottawa.
Kokesch tended to discount the theory that Sept. 11 had much to do with the number.
"I don't think people's beliefs were formed by that. I think the events of Sept. 11 may have reinforced whatever particular beliefs they had, whether it was a belief in the afterlife or not."
And neither Taylor nor Kokesch was surprised the poll found that 57.1 per cent of respondents believed in angels.
"Angels are just a very pervasive symbol in society and in religion, especially in Christianity," said Taylor.
Added Kokesch: "There's been a popularization of angels in media in recent years -- (TV show) Touched by an Angel, for example, and some movies about angels."
But Rev. John Walsh, pastor of the St. John Brebeuf parish in Montreal, found the 57.1 per cent number curious.
"I find it rather high but I also know that people have told me they don't believe in God but they believe in angels -- and didn't think it was a contradiction," said the Roman Catholic priest.
"How can you believe in angels and not in God when they're supposed to be messengers from God? People live today with a number of contradictions."