Pan Is The Most Misunderstood Pagan God

And what his true mysteries contain

Of all of the gods of the Pagan pantheons, there is no God that is quite as misunderstood as Pan. To some, Pan is perceived as a dark and malefic deity, to others he is just another nature god, and to most, his inner mysteries are illusive. Underneath the surface, Pan holds the key to some of the most transformative mystic experiences, and is the one who causes the so-called “ego death” or “crossing of the abyss”. He is not just a nature god, or an archetype of the Divine Masculine, he is the gateway to life, death, and rebirth itself.

To understand the mysteries of Pan, one must first explore his connection to nature. Pan is a god of the wild, of the feral, and of the wilderness. He is not a god of the tamed down nature that appears in well-manicured city parks, he is a god of being alone in the deep woods on a remote mountain. He exists outside of civilization. On a mystic’s path towards divinity, and towards the ultimate goal of uniting with the godhead and annihilating the individual self, they must break free of illusions. Many of our illusions are set by the society we live in. We develop attachments to things that we do not need to be attached to, create restrictions on our psyche that do not actually exist, and develop a false consciousness.

This is why the perennial tale of the mystic who retreats from society and temporarily lives as a hermit in the wilderness, in order to ultimately find enlightenment is told again and again. In the Near East, messiahs and prophets always journey deep into the desert, away from the ancient cities, in order to be alone with divinity. In Europe, they journey away from the towns and villages and deep into the forest, or away toward the sea. This story appears again and again, because a retreat away from civilization is a form of mystic detachment. When you aware from distractions and false attachments, you can be alone with your mind and spirit. But it is more than this, because you have also journey to the realm of Pan—the nature God who is always the gateway to the abyss that all mystics must cross to be one with God.

Once a mystic is in the wild, they often undergo a profound transformative period. This could be through something like asceticism, where they fast for an extended period of time, most famously Jesus fasted for 40 days. Or, they could do as western occultists do in the Abramelin ritual where they go into nature and live off prayer and rice for a few months. Alternatively, they skip the asceticism and just focus on embodying the archetype of the The Hermit. Regardless of what the mystic does in this step, they are doing some variant of purification. In western ritual formulations, purification is always the first step of any major spiritual transformation. The eradication of miasma, or pollution, is vital in order to transform. If one was building a house, there must be cleared ground, one that does not have trees of roots on it, before construction begins. The same is true for the psyche.

After this, the real mysteries begin. At this point, the mystic joins with Pan. Pan is now not just an embodiment of their retreat into the wild, but is now taking on his full form. Pan is a creator and a destroyer. Unlike most Gods, he is able to embody both sides of this coin. The reason for this is that what is nature but a constant cycle of life, death, and rebirth? Nature has endless new life, but also is full of wildfires and destruction. It is both.

One may question why anyone would want destruction in their lives—is mysticism not just to build us up and to bring in mercy? The thing is—everything is about balance. The masculine needs the feminine. The merciful needs the severe. Force needs form. And yes, creation needs destruction. If there was simply endless creation, there would be no shape to creation, no form, and everything would fail to function. If there was an endless flow of water, but no river bed to give the water a shape, there would be no such thing as a body of water—the Earth would fail to function. Since we understand that as above so below is a metaphysical law that governs all things, we can understand that this is also true for our souls.

For us to get close to the Godhead, and achieve the ultimate goal of all mysticism, the sum of the Great Work, we need to unite with it. We cannot do that in our current form. The divine is hierarchal and there is a chain of being. At the top of the chain of being, there is the spark of existence, the monad. This is such an abstract and high form of divinity that our minds cannot even comprehend it. Below that, the first forms, is the Gods. Then below that, there are spirits. At the bottom, there is the material world, which includes us. The thing is—the material world does still have a spark of divinity to it, because everything is connected.

Pan is a critical gateway, because as Pan rules nature, Pan is connected to our rung of the divine chain of command. At the same time, Pan is a God, meaning that Pan is also incredibly high up in the chain of being. This means that Pan is a direct gateway to the higher spheres. As well, another thing ruled by Pan is the Will. The Will is something that we possess that is divine, it was given to us by the Gods, and by following it, especially by following the True Will, we will eventually untie with the Godhead, and complete the Great Work. Pan rules our pathway to the Godhead.

As well, the destructive aspects of Pan are vital for our exploration up the divine chain of being. For us to break beyond our limitations, we must be dissolved. Many traditions visualize this as dissolving the self into a chalice, losing our form, and becoming something new. It is worth noting that to complete this dissolution process a mystic must also involve divine feminine forces, as they are the ones that relate to true destruction and limitation. This is a death and rebirth cycle. We cannot reach the Godhead if we do not undergo this. This is known under many names such as successfully passing through the dark night of the soul, ego death, achieving enlightenment, and crossing the abyss. Essentially, you destroy your current sense of self, your current ego, and this frees you from everything you are attached to, and allows you to be able to, even as a living human, get closer to higher forms of spiritual existence. Pan allows the mystic to find this path, then undergo this process.

The reason why Pan is so demonized comes from this. To many, Pan is fear-inducing. He is what lies outside of our conscious world. When one undergoes this process, they lose themselves, they lose the world they thought they existed in. For some, their Will is simply not strong enough, and they are not spiritually fit enough, so the crossing of the abyss completely destroys them. Pan, like nature itself, has the power to annihilate someone in a negative way. When one goes into the wilderness, they are tested. Pan is a God of strength, vigor, and vitality, he is not one of mildness, so the unprepared adept can have a very negative experience. These negative experiences have led people to develop a negative perception of Pan. As well, high control religious that reject individual mystic journeys reject the mysteries of Pan, as the ego death can lead someone to completely changing their worldview, even their religion.

It is also worth exploring the connection between Pan and the Divine Masculine. Divine Masculinity is all about endless force. The Masculine creates, the Feminine restrictions. Looking back at our body of water metaphor, the Masculine is the water, the feminine is the river bank. While Pan is an anomaly amongst Divine Masculine archetypes in that he does possess the ability to annihilate, he also is generative and creative. After all, if one is just dissolved, there is nothing after that. Of course, the Divine Feminine must be brought in during that process to complete it. Regardless, Pan is a pure masculine archetype. He embodies Will itself. Pan is endless potential and growth. For the male practitioner, connecting to Pan can allow them to undergo a Divine Masculine awakening, allowing them to align with that energy on a deep level, and reach their true Masculine potential.

In some neopagan traditions, especially Wicca, Pan has been used as a placeholder for the entire Divine Masculine. Wiccan theology is duotheistic—there is a God and a Goddess. For the Goddess, they chose a lunar archetype. But for the God, they went with a Horned God archetype, one that clearly pulls deeply from Pan, to the extent that some covens even use the name Pan for the God in their rites. This is a logical decision, because what deity can embody the Masculine principle more than a God of endless creation and will.

Another critique of Pan is that he is a sexual God. That his mysteries are all erotic. This is not true. Of course, sex is part of the divine mysteries. Without sex, children do not exist, and neither does marriage. Sex is the union of the opposites—the union of masculine and feminine, in order to create something perfected, a child. For men, the mysteries of Pan can help them with those chapters of their lives. There is no point in denying the attachment of Pan to male sexuality, but at the same time, what is the point of demonizing that? Creating new life is beautiful and one of the greatest mystic experiences a human can have in their life. To demonize male sexuality to the extent that one assumes Pan must be a demon for relating to male sexuality is Gnostic to a fault—it supposes that the material is evil, that life itself is evil, and is a deeply anti-cosmic position. While Pan’s mysteries are much more complex than male sexuality, there is nothing wrong with them relating to male sexuality.

In a sense, Pan’s relation to sexuality further emphasizes his ability to bring one to the Godhead. When two parents have a child, they unify fully, then dissolve their individual lives, in order to do something greater. This is a direct parallel to what Pan can do in the life of an individual mystic who is trying to cross the abyss. As well, it cannot be understated that since everything is impermanent, and that everything is a cosmic cycle of eternal recurrence, that one could approach Pan for a dissolution than rebirth multiple times, asking for it to happen in numerous forms.

The power of Pan is a key reason why Pagans venerate nature. Of course, the beauty of nature warrants the veneration on its own, as beauty is divine. But, it is more than that. Nature is everything. Humans are part of nature, and all things are emanations of the divine. But even beyond that—Pan’s ability to connect one to the highest mysteries in the cosmos is a key reason why Pagans honor nature. By honoring nature, and by honoring Pan, you are honoring the full potential of mystic development.

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To end this article, I would like to add the text of a beautiful mystic poem that explore the mysteries of Pan. This text is “Liber Liberi vel Lapdis Lazuli”, specifically the section entitled, “Prologue Of The Unborn” by Aleister Crowley:

“Into my loneliness comes -

The sound of a flute in dim groves that haunt the uttermost hills.

Even from the brave river they reach to the edge of the wilderness.

And I behold Pan.

The snows are eternal above, above -

And their perfume smokes upward into the nostrils of the stars.

But what have I to do with these?

To me only the distant flute, the abiding vision of Pan.

On all sides Pan to the eye, to the ear;

The perfume of Pan pervading, the taste of him utterly filling my mouth, so that the tongue breaks forth into a weird and monstrous speech.

The embrace of him intense on every centre of pain and pleasure.

The sixth interior sense aflame with the inmost self of Him,

Myself flung down the precipice of being

Even to the abyss, annihilation.

An end to loneliness, as to all.

Pan! Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan!”

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GR