"Presbyterian my real religion is"

"We are not defining what a religion or a faith might be," a spokeswoman said. "We are recognising what some may have entered on their census form and ensuring that our coding framework will cater for it."

Other religions which are included on the list, alongside the better known cases, are the Church of Free Love, Wiccan, Divine Lightmission, and Coleraine Christian Centre.

Shortly before the census last April, an e-mail was circulated in the UK stating that if 10,000 people put Jedi on the census form, it would become a "fully recognised and legal religion".

A similar thing had previously happened in New Zealand, when citizens were led to believe they needed 8,000 signatures to make Jedi an official religion.

Also on the list

Druidism Satanism Free thinker Wicca Celtic Pagan

The list of religions - posted on the statistics office website, and available under "Internet links" - is simply the list of answers to the religion question.

It is not yet clear how many people will have written Jedi on their form, as the counting process is still going on. Results are to be published in Autumn 2002.

And even then, the information might not be easy to obtain, as it will not be published separately in the official census reports released by the statistics office. Anyone wishing to find out the number would need to commission a special report to be produced.