Jedi census phenomenon
The Jedi Census phenomenon arose out of protest against the United Kingdom Census 2001 . When asked about religious affiliation , various respondents in this census stated that they belonged to Jediism , a syncretistic religion that is derived from the philosophy conveyed in Star Wars .
history
Due to the great popularity of Star Wars , in the past , especially in the English-speaking countries, censuses repeatedly resulted in respondents citing “Jedi” as their religion.
Shortly before the census received on 6 March 2001, thousands Australians an email unknown sender. If people cannot identify with any other creed , they should indicate “Jedi” as their religion when prompted by the email. That email stated that if there were at least 8,000 votes, Jediism would be officially recognized as a religion in Australia. The head of the Australian census office, John Struik, threatened to punish false statements with a fine of the equivalent of 570 euros. Since the indication of religious affiliation is done on a voluntary basis in all censuses, criminal prosecution was unlikely. The indication "Jedi", as an answer to the question of religion, was not recognized as an official religion in the evaluations and was added to the "undefined" column.
In 2001, for example, 390,127 people in Great Britain reported this. In the Australian census on August 7, 2001 in Australia this was more than 70,000 inhabitants.
Individual evidence
- ↑ news.orf.at: data networking instead of questionnaires (accessed on April 2, 2011).
- ↑ shm.com: May the farce be with you
- ↑ abs.gov.au: Census of Population and Housing - The 2001 Census, Religion and the Jedi