Despite the falling popularity of organised religion, most people in the UK still believe in the power of spiritual forces, research suggests.

A study for the Christian think tank Theos recorded 77% as believing some things could not be explained by science or any other means.

Among the other findings, 8% said they or someone they knew had experienced a miracle, while one in four expressed a belief in angels.

ComRes surveyed just over 2,000 people.

"The study appears to confirm that, despite a steady decline in congregations and in formal religious belief, a sense of the spiritual remains strong in Britain," said the BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott.

Only a quarter of those questioned thought spiritual forces had no influence on Earth.

And almost two-thirds of those who identified themselves as Christians thought such spiritual forces could influence people's thoughts or the natural world.

More than a third of the non-religious shared that belief.

Between 2001 and 2011, the proportion of people in England and Wales identifying themselves as Christian fell from 72% to 59%.

In the last census a quarter of the population said they had no religion - up from 15% 10 years earlier.

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Image by Alice Popkorn