More people in Britain (55%) believe in the supernatural than believe in God (49%).

The poll that produced the figures was commissioned by TV channel Watch, which last week launched Believe, a highly rated drama about a girl with supernatural powers.

It also features lots of sci fi and fantasy programmes.

Last year, a YouGov poll found that only 25% of 18 to 24-year-olds believed in God. A scientific study and analysis has claimed the more intelligent a person, the less likely they are to believe in God.

In the 2011 census, a quarter of the population of England and Wales said they had no religion.

I declared I was a Jedi Knight (along with 176,632 others). Other surveys said 52% believe in ghosts.

This last figure is not surprising. Spend a night in an old and spooky house on your own and you might well believe in ghosts by the time Dawn arrives with a cup of tea. It’s all to do with circumstance and man is a very susceptible being.

God and belief is confusing in these modern days. Centuries past it was a lot simpler. During the world’s turbulent history of starvation, servitude, slavery, plagues, war and survival, people were only too happy to embrace the promise of an after-life that was better than the one they were living.

Religion relied on belief and need.

Perhaps, today, that need is no longer as strong.

Perhaps we have so much now, that it is easier to think there is nothing else beyond the final curtain.

Dave Wood, chairman of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, said: “It could be that in a society which has seen economic uncertainty and is dominated by information and technology, more people are seeking refuge in the paranormal, whereas in the past they might have sought that in religion.”

Which is why the supernatural is so popular today in literature, film and television: it both feeds and promulgates the need.

Years ago, to get your

fix of religion meant going to church or temple to observe one holy day a week.

Today you can submerge yourself in sci-fi, ghosts, vampires, aliens and the unexplained on your TV any time you like.

Has society found its new religion on the telly?

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