Despite the decline of formalised religion in Britain, the country is a long way from being a nation of non-believers, according to new survey.

Research from the think tank Theos suggests three out of four people believe that spiritual forces have influence on the earth and that there are things that science cannot explain.

Among Christians, more than three in five think spiritual forces can affect people's thoughts, or the human or natural world. Even among those who claim no religious affinity, more than a third agree.

A majority of those surveyed (59 per cent) believe in the existence of some kind of spiritual being, more than a third believe in God as "a universal life force" a similar number in spirits, and a quarter in angels. Some 12 per cent accepted the existence of "a higher spiritual being that cannot be called God".

It also found that that one sixth, (16 per cent) said they, or someone they know, had experienced a miracle and half of those were non-religious. But almost a third described miracles as "simply examples of coincidence or luck" and 42 per cent dismissed them as "unusual events that we cannot yet explain through science".

The survey of 2,036 people, for the report The Spirit of Things Unseen commissioned for the independent production company, CTVC, showed that belief in spiritual forces could be found across all age groups, but was most strong among under-34s, a contradiction of the commonly held view that such notions are the preserve of the elderly.

Nearly two in five people (39 per cent) believe in the existence of a soul, 32 per cent in life after death, 16 per cent in reincarnation and 13 per cent in the power of deceased ancestors. While 26 per cent believed in heaven, only 13 per cent accepted the existence of hell.

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