Traditional Christian Beliefs, Spiritualism, and the Paranormal: An Icelandic--American Comparison

The relation among traditional Christian beliefs, spiritualism, and the paranor- mal was the subject of a factor-analytical study to compare religious-paranor- ma1 belief structures of samples in Iceland and the United States (Louisiana, Virginia, and Illinois). Tobacyk's 25-item Paranormal Belief Scale (Tohacyk and Milford, 1983) was administered to 349 Icelandic students. The same seven factors emerged in Iceland as in Louisiana but the strength of the various factors differed considerably among the two samples. The Traditional Religious Belief factor, which explained most of the variance in the Louisiana samples, was fifth in Iceland, where the Spiritualism factor emerged as the strongest but was fifth in the United States. The Psi factor showed comparable strength in both samples. The Icelandic sample revealed itself as less believing on all subscales (factors) except on the Spiritualism subscale where it was comparable to the U.S. sample.