Is there life after death?

Good heavens: More than half of Britons believe in life after death and a third think ghosts exist

More than half of Britons believe in heaven, according to researchers.

While 55 per cent think it exists, 27 per cent believe in reincarnation, the survey of 2,060 respondents found.

Surprisingly for those who believe society has become increasingly secularised, a similar poll in 1955 showed that only 47 per cent believed in an afterlife.

The latest study - published today by the theology think-tank Theos - also shows that 39 per cent believe in ghosts and 70 per cent believe there is such a thing as the human soul.

Spooky: But do supposed ghosts, like this one in Turkey pictured in 2008, really exist?

A further 22 per cent believe in astrology or horoscopes and 15 per cent believe in fortune-telling or Tarot.

London had the highest proportion convinced by the supernatural, with more than half believing in ghosts.

Tarot: Scotland had the highest proportion of people who believe in fortune-telling

But Scotland had the highest proportion of people who believe in fortune-telling or Tarot (18 per cent) and Wales the highest of believers in reincarnation (32 per cent).

Overall, belief in the supernatural appears to have declined slightly from a similar Mori poll in 1998.

But the paranormal still has far more convinced than in 1951, when a Gallup poll found only 10 per cent believed in ghosts, 6 per cent in astrology and 7 per cent in Tarot.

Theos director Paul Woolley said: 'The Enlightenment optimism in the ability of science and reason to explain everything ended decades ago.

'The extent of belief will probably surprise people, but the finding is consistent with other research we have undertaken.

'The results indicate that people have a very diverse and unorthodox set of beliefs.'

Social research, Geoffrey Gorer, in his 1955 study, Exploring English Character, found that 47 per cent of people believed in the afterlife.

The national study explored English attitudes to everything from superstition to sex and generated more then 15,000 questionnaires.

In 1955 a survey revealed that 47 per cent of people believed in the afterlife