Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
Your Favorite Sabbats (Or Sabbats By the Numbers)

Your Favorite Sabbats (Or Sabbats By the Numbers)

Last updated on: September 18, 2019 at 3:47 pm by Jason Mankey

Your Favorite Sabbats (Or Sabbats By the Numbers) 2019-09-18T15:47:00-06:00 Jason Mankey

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

One of the very few perks of being the Channel Editor at Patheos Pagan is that I have access to raw numbers. I generally have a pretty firm grasp on how many readers we have on a given day, week, month, or even year. That number will fluctuate wildly from time to time due to viral posts, how often people are writing, etc etc, but from year to year, one metric is constant: traffic goes up a great deal for certain sabbats.

Art by Kjersti Faret, this is also the cover of my latest book.

When I write about the sabbats on this blog, I often lament how unpopular the “Summer sabbats” of Midsummer, Lammas, and Mabon are. I know that there are people out there who absolutely love these sabbats, but by the raw numbers, people are fare more interested in reading about other sabbats.

One factor I’ve often mentioned when figuring out the “popularity” of the sabbats, is that sabbats which have a “Christian relative” in the over-culture tend to be more popular. If I’m correct in that assertion (and the numbers do suggest so), interest in Samhain (Halloween), Yule (Christmas), and Ostara (Easter) should be higher than that of the other sabbats. I’m well aware that Groundhog Day and St. John’s Night are holidays with Pagan sabbats near by (Imbolc and Midsummer), but when is the last time you saw a Groundhog Display at your local Target?

For this particular exercise I calculated the average number of page-views in the thirty days leading up to each sabbat and then compared that to the three days nearest the actual date of each sabbat (meaning the day before and the day after). I can’t share the raw page-view numbers with you (the numbers aren’t mine to share), but I can show you the percentage difference between the period leading up to a sabbat, and the actual sabbat (which I calculate as a three day period).

Janus of course. From WikiMedia.

In most cases traffic rises at the sabbats, but on a few occasions, it actually declines. Yikes! When I say that some sabbats don’t get a lot of love I really mean it!

There are some variables to point out in this exercise. At any given moment there could be a viral post floating around from Patheos Pagan that’s incredibly popular near a sabbat that has nothing to do with the actual sabbat. That could skew the numbers a little bit. Also, we generally have more traffic during the week than on the weekends, so sabbats that fall on a weekend date during a given calendar year might see a decrease in engagement because of that.

However, having observed the rise and fall of web-traffic near the sabbats over the last five years, what I’m sharing with you here aligns pretty well with that.

THE BIG FOUR

Samhain up 43%
Yule up 30%
Ostara up 24%
Beltane up 22%

It’s not surprising that traffic increases the most at Samhain. Some of the traffic increase comes from people simply interested in Halloween, and by extension Samhain. But talk to ten Witches and I bet half tell you that Samhain is their favorite sabbat.

Yule’s popularity here is probably due to circumstances similar to that of Samhain. A whole host of Christmas traditions come from Pagan antiquity and many people here write about those. And again, holidays that are big with the general public, generally see their Pagan equivalents become larger as a result.

You were probably expecting to see Beltane at two or three, but surprise!, traffic is always higher at Ostara. Some of that is because the start of Spring is generally exciting, much of it is because of its proximity to Easter.

Image from Pxhere. CC0 License.

Beltane has always been a very popular Pagan holiday, but it probably ranks a bit less than Ostara in terms of traffic because it’s generally further away from the Easter holiday than the Spring Equinox. In addition, it lacks the linguistic connection to a Christian holiday. (In 2019 Beltane traffic at Patheos Pagan was only up 9%, prompting me to go back and look through earlier years.)

THE “NOT BAD” TWO

Imbolc up 10%
Lammas up 5%

Imbolc and Lammas are traditionally two of the “Greater Sabbats” so you’d expect to see them before the very bottom of the list. Both lack near by holidays in the over-culture, which probably results in less traffic. It’s just easier to celebrate a sabbat when it appears as if everyone around you is also celebrating a similar holiday.

THERE’S A LOT OF INDIFFERENCE TOWARDS THE LAST TWO SABBATS

Mabon -2.6%
Midsummer -7%

Traffic actually dips at Patheos Pagan during Mabon and Midsummer. Perhaps you can spin these numbers to say “it dips Jason, because everyone is outside celebrating those holidays” but I don’t really think that’s the case. I’m not surprised things decline in the warmer months, people tend to travel more at that time of year and simply “get out of the house.” However, 70% of web traffic comes from phones, and the weather is nice at Beltane too, so the “weather is nice” excuse doesn’t quite work.

In addition to the raw numbers from web traffic, as someone who visits a lot of “open sabbat circles,” attendance at those rites tends to be highest at Samhain, Yule, Beltane, and Ostara. Imbolc is something of a draw, but things generally bottom out from Midsummer through the Autumn Equinox. Your experiences may be different.

There is no one best sabbat, and the popularity of holidays does wax and wane, but I think the numbers shared here today are representative of the Pagan Community as a whole.

NO MATTER YOUR FAVORITE SABBAT, I HAVE A RITUAL FOR YOU!

Previous Post

September 16, 2019

The Autumn Equinox Could Be Your Favorite Sabbat

Next Post

September 25, 2019 Soul Mates & Witchcraft

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Editorializing Gateways to Paganism Guest Posts Holiday Histories Led Zeppelin News and Views Occult Pagan Pagan TV Club Paganism polytheism Ramble On Reviews Ritual Strange Days Uncategorized

Select a Month August 2026 March 2026 February 2026 November 2025 September 2025 August 2025 April 2025 August 2024 April 2024 February 2024 December 2023 October 2023 August 2023 June 2023 May 2023 January 2023 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the last judge of Israel and also a prophet?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Samuel Nathan Saul Eli