The Great God Pan

Pan
God of nature, the wild, shepherds, flocks, of mountain wilds, and is often associated with sexuality

Pan teaching his eromenos, the shepherd Daphnis, to play the pan flute, Roman copy of Greek original c. 100 BC, second century AD, found in Pompeii,
Abode Arcadia
Symbol Pan flute, goat

eromenos. Noun. (plural eromenoi) (historical, Greek history) An adolescent boy who was courted by an older man, or was in an erotic relationship with him. Source: YourDictionary

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan (/pæn/; Ancient Greek: Πάν, Pan) is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. The ancient Greeks also considered Pan to be the god of theatrical criticism] The word panic ultimately derives from the god's name.

In Roman religion and myth, Pan's counterpart was Faunus, a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea, sometimes identified as Fauna; he was also closely associated with Sylvanus, due to their similar relationships with woodlands. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in the 20th-century Neopagan movement. Source: Wikipedia

Pan, god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, hunting and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs, also associated with sexuality and fertility. Famous for his sexual powers and is often depicted with an erect phallus. Diogenes of Sinope, speaking in jest, related a myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes, and teaching the habit to shepherds. Pan's greatest conquest was that of the moon goddess Selene. He accomplished this by wrapping himself in a sheepskin to hide his hairy black goat form, and drew her down from the sky into the forest where he seduced her. Source: Wikipedia

In the late 19th century Pan became an increasingly common figure in literature and art. Patricia Merivale states that between 1890 and 1926 there was an "astonishing resurgence of interest in the Pan motif". He appears in poetry, in novels and children's books, and is referenced in the name of the character Peter Pan. In the Peter Pan stories, Peter represents a golden age of pre-civilisation in both the minds of very young children, before enculturation and education, and in the natural world outside the influence of humans. Peter Pan’s character is both charming and selfish emphasizing our cultural confusion about whether human instincts are natural and good, or uncivilised and bad. J. M. Barrie describes Peter as ‘a betwixt and between’, part animal and part human, and uses this device to explore many issues of human and animal psychology within the Peter Pan stories.^[49]

He is the eponymous "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in the seventh chapter of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908). Grahame's Pan, unnamed but clearly recognisable, is a powerful but secretive nature-god, protector of animals, who casts a spell of forgetfulness on all those he helps. He makes a brief appearance to help the Rat and Mole recover the Otter's lost son Portly.

Arthur Machen's 1894 novella "The Great God Pan" uses the god's name in a simile about the whole world being revealed as it really is: "seeing the Great God Pan". The novella is considered by many (including Stephen King) as being one of the greatest horror stories ever written.

Pan entices villagers to listen to his pipes as if in a trance in Lord Dunsany's novel The Blessing of Pan published in 1927. Although the god does not appear within the story, his energy certainly invokes the younger folk of the village to revel in the summer twilight, and the vicar of the village is the only person worried about the revival of worship for the old pagan god.

Pan is also featured as a prominent character in Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume (1984). Aeronautical engineer and occultist Jack Parsons invoked Pan before test launches at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The British writer and editor Mark Beech of Egaeus Press published in 2015 the limited-edition anthology Soliloquy for Pan which includes essays and poems such as "The Rebirthing of Pan" by Adrian Eckersley, "Pan's Pipes" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "Pan with Us" by Robert Frost, and "The Death of Pan" by Lord Dunsany. Some of the detailed illustrated depictions of Pan included in the volume are by the artists Giorgio Ghisi, Sir James Thornhill, Bernard Picart, Agostino Veneziano, Vincenzo Cartari, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

Note: Check out 'Greenmantle', by author, Charles de Lint 1988, a contemporary tale, involving 'Pan', his myth and magic influence, on a small, upstate forest community of the northeast U.S. Great story. Happy ending! B.J.C.

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