Almost half of us believe in Guardian Angels
According to an Ipsos survey, 46% of Britain's adults say they believe in Guardian Angels and 3 out of 4 of these people agree that their Guardian Angel has helped them in their everyday life.
160According to an Ipsos survey, 46% of Britain's adults say they believe in Guardian Angels and 3 out of 4 of these people agree that their Guardian Angel has helped them in their everyday life. The survey of 1001 people representative of adults over 18 in Great Britain was commissioned by Random House's Arrow imprint to celebrate the paperback launch of Angels in My Hair by Lorna Byrne. Researchers found that a belief in Guardian Angels is a phenomenon that crosses educational lines. Women, though, are significantly more likely to believe in Guardian Angels (58%) than men (34%). Scotland has the highest level of belief in Great Britain with 51% of adults believing, ahead of the 46% who believe in Guardian Angels in England, and 44% in Wales. Two thirds (67%) of those who believe in a God also say they believe in Guardian Angels, suggesting that belief in Guardian Angels is widespread across all religions. A little surprisingly, almost one in five (19%) of those who don't believe in God do believe in Guardian Angels. "We're really surprised at the very high level of belief in Guardian Angels,"160 Kate Elton, Publisher of Arrow, said. "We would have expected it to be much lower. These figures help to explain the enormous success of Angels in My Hair." Angels in My Hair has been in the Sunday Times Bestsellers Top 10 (paperback non-fiction) for the past 6 weeks. It tells of Lorna Byrne's lifelong experience of seeing and communicating with Angels. Published 16 months ago, the book by this previously unheard of dyslexic Irish widow, has taken the Irish book trade by storm, spending 20 weeks at number one (paperback non fiction). The book has just been launched by Random House in the USA after a bidding war and foreign language rights have been sold to 45 countries. Several offers have been received from Hollywood for the film rights. Prior to this research, it had been thought that perhaps people who believed in Guardian Angels might think that only people with similar religious beliefs to them had a Guardian Angel. In fact 85% of those who believe in Guardian Angels agreed with the statement "everyone has a Guardian Angel, regardless of what their religion is or whether they even believe in a God." Lorna Byrne was very pleased to hear this level of agreement with the statement that everyone has a Guardian Angel. As she says:
"I see the light of a Guardian Angel three feet behind every human being, and have done since I was a baby. I have never in my whole life seen anyone without a Guardian Angel."
Commenting on the result that 3 out of 4 people (75%) who say they believe in Guardian Angels said that their Guardian Angel has helped them in their everyday life, Lorna Byrne said:
"Right across the world people are becoming more aware of their Guardian Angels. They are seeing the help they are receiving and seem to be more prepared to acknowledge this help. They are comforted to know that they are not alone, that they have a Guardian Angel there supporting them, and that all they have to do is ask."
For further information , or to request further details on the research, a copy of Angels in My Hair, or to set up an interview with Lorna Byrne please contact160Rina Gill on 020 7840 8611 or at160160www.lornabyrne.com.
Technical Note
A nationally representative sample of 1,001 adults aged 18+ in Great Britain were160interviewed by telephone by Ipsos using random digit dialling. Quotas are set on age, sex, standard geographical regions and housing tenure. The data is also weighted against the profile of Great Britain to provide a representative sample. Fieldwork took place from 26th - 27th August 2009
Ipsos Contact: Peter Cooper.