WELLINGTON, New Zealand – To the frustration of the census managers in New Zealand, England, Wales and Australia, an e-mail saturating inboxes for the past couple of months just refuses to go away.
The e-mail, which appears to have originally surfaced in the first week of March in New Zealand, urged locals who didn't identify with conventional religions to tell census statisticians they were adherents of the Jedi religion, whose knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Star Wars movies. The e-mail suggested that just 8,000 of these responses would mean that New Zealand would have to declare Jedi an official religion after its March 6 census.
The proposal has since spread to the census in England and Wales, held April 29, and to Australia's census, which will be held Aug. 7.
Experimenting with the power of e-mail – an experiment one must deem a success – was a stated aim of the original e-mail. But the other goal, to try to create an official religion, just created an official headache.
New Zealand's census manager Frank Nolan said that those Jedi answers might just be coded to "response outside scope." And despite the e-mail's assertion, new religions aren't just created by weight of numbers.
"What we have is a classification, religious affiliation, which we do review," Nolan said. "What we generally do is have a look and see at various new religions and make a determination along with experts in religious studies as to whether these are religions or not."
Australia's Bureau of Statistics will code Jedi followers as "not defined," but within the grouping will tally up the overall number of Jedi, according to John Struik, Australia's census manager.
"Jedi responses will be separately identified," Struik said, "but whether Jedi becomes a new category in the classification will depend more on other criteria, such as the existence of a formal organization structure rather than on number of responses."
In the census of England and Wales, which included the region's first-ever question about religion, Jedi will simply be deemed "other." "We would not be planning to produce analysis of that," said David Bradbury, an official at the Office of National Statistics.
In all three censuses the question on religion is voluntary, and because of this, prosecution for putting Jedi – another worry circulating – is remote.
"It is unlikely we would take action against a person recording Jedi as his/her religion, since unless there was evidence to the contrary we have to assume it is that person's genuine belief," said Australia’s Struik.
But all the census managers agree that giving incorrect information is undesirable. In New Zealand and Australia, as in England and Wales, the aim of asking one's religion is to build a picture of people's backgrounds, especially as many people nowadays identify themselves by their religion. Choosing Jedi could, the census managers argue, shortchange other religions.
"If you would normally answer Anglican or Jewish or Buddhist or something else to the question 'what is your religion?' and for the census you answer 'Jedi', then this may impact on social services provision if enough people do the same," the Australian Bureau of Statistics warned.
Urban myth debunker Barbara Mikkelson sides with the census managers.
"Giving whimsical responses as a form of protest over feeling like a number might provide a momentary sensation of empowerment, but the long-term cost of such unthinking behavior is almost beyond reckoning, if enough people choose to engage in this form of acting out," she said.
Nonetheless, the Jedi e-mail has captured the hearts and minds of many.
In Great Britain, the arrival of the e-mail in early April on Dan Gibson's computer spurred him to put together a website that very same day.
"I guess the real reason I put the site together was that I was fascinated by the whole idea," Gibson said in an e-mail. "There are loads of chain e-mail hoaxes, but this one was different. Despite the claims that if enough people entered Jedi on their forms, it would become a recognized religion (which we all know is not true), the e-mail was pretty genuine."
"I love the idea that in the next 10 years if someone looks at the official statistics for the U.K., they could see that a percentage of the population claim to be Jedi."
"The Australian Bureau of Statistics responded by threatening fines to people who put 'Jedi' as their religion. Many of us then considered what this meant. We feel we are Jedi," said Luke Housego in an e-mail. "Star Wars gave us our spirituality. It is the basic text that, when learning the Bible, Torah or whatever, we referenced to for a concept of a deeper self. Obi-Wan taught me mysticism, not St. John of the Cross."
In New Zealand, local website developer Phil Donaldson wants to try and gauge the e-mail's impact from his own survey. "I guess I was just fascinated by the claim that Jedi could become an official religion. So were a couple of my customers, so we decided to try to get some measure of the results," he said.
So far 142 people have said they identified as Jedi in the New Zealand census. New Zealand has just released its population information from the census, but the full results, including the religion data, won't be out until February next year.
For census managers trying to stem the Jedi tide, drawing on force may have been easier than appealing to civic duty. For according to Star Wars hero Han Solo (enumerators take note), "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
