Pan!

[Mex]

Since travelling along my new path, I have swayed towards Wicca. One thing that I seem to struggle with is Pan. I don't know whether it is because of my past Christian upbringing, but I can't seem to shake the feeling that he is evil. Does anyone feel the way I do, or could shed some light on why I have these negative feelings toward a deity that I should be worshipping?

Blessed be!
Mex

[MidnightSun]

MM :)

It very well could be because of the way he looks. He put me off at first as well. I did find out that the early Christians took the image of Pan and adopted it as the image of "Satan". I've found that he is actually not scary at all, once you read about him and study and all that :) Actually a pretty cool God :)

[MammaStar]

I can see your point of view on how past influences can cloud your judgement on a certain image.

For me, when I think of Pan, I have the image of the playful friend from C.S. Lewis' book "The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe". More from the cartoon version of the story. Cheezy, I know, but I've always looked to Pan as a fun loving god. A bit trickey, but not "evil". Even when I was a practicing Catholic.

[Mex]

Thanks guys for your reply, it was reassuring to hear some positive comments regarding Pan! I took your advice and did a little reading on him from a pagan religion dictionary. This is what I found;
PAN - AN ANCIENT GREEK GOD OF HERDSMEN. REPRESENTED AS PART MAN PART HIRCINE. HE WAS A FOLLOWER OF DIONYSUS!
DIONYSUS - GOD OF WINE & FERTILITY HIS CULT INVOLVED THRACIAN WOMEN (MAENADS) ROAMING FIELDS CHANTING AND DANCING WITH FLAMING TORCHES, IN THEIR PASSION FOR DIONYSUS THEY TORE APART ANIMALS AND SOMETIMES EVEN CHILDREN AND DEVOURED THE FLESH THUS ACQUIRING COMMUNION WITH THE DIVINITY!

When I read this it worried me a little, what are your comments?

[MidnightSun]

Well...thats certainly...sickening. LOL :)

Dunno if I have any comments about that...

[Jenett]

One thing to bear in mind is that Pan and Dionysus are, in Greek religion, very definitely *not* the same deity.

The other is that Greek religion has a lot of duality in it in places. In particular, there's the Apollonian/Dionysian division. Apollonian is the rational, the logical, the pragmatic. The Dionysian is the ecstatic, the emotional, the primal.

The idea being, of course, that you need *both* - that either extreme brings some serious problems with it. And that both are far more complex than they look like at first glance,

Dionysus was a relatively new deity in the Greek pantheon (he's mentioned, but not very prominently in Homer, but gets more press later. He's - among other things - very closely linked to theatre, and the major theatrical festival in Athens was named for him. (The one that Euripides, Sophocles, and such wrote plays for.) He's also considered closely linked with Demeter and agricultural cults.

You can read some more details at the Encyclopedia Mythica (http://pantheon.org/articles/d/dionysus.html)

Pan is a different deity (and more minor, in Greek culture), associated with the wilds, and that sense of being utterly alone and in danger that sometimes happens in the wilderness (it's where we get our word 'panic' from.) Pan is more closely associated with nature, with animals, and so on. (Shepards and flocks, in particular)

One thing that helped me get more comfortable with Dionysus (who actually happens to be one of the deities who most intrigues me), was realising that he's not, as a rule, destructive without a pretty good reason - the people who get hurt in his wake are those who have, as a rule, hurt him first (denying that he was a deity, imprisoning him, stuff like that done more than once).

This does not (in the grand scheme of things) strike me as particularly unreasonable, when looked at in context of other Greek deities. (It's not like any of the others have exactly a great track record, and Dionysus actually seems to be far more reasonable about punishment than many of them: you accidentally see Artemis bathing, and zap. You get seduced by Zeus, and get zapped. You brag a little, you get zapped. With Dionysus, most of the reasons are at least *moderately* reasonable - people doing really annoying stuff.

One very interesting look at the idea of Dionysian frenzy is the book "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. It's very thoughtprovoking and intriguing (though not always a very comfortable book to read. It's not graphic, it just raises some very complex points in places.) It's a novel, theoretical a mystery, set at a Vermont college in the 60s.

I hope that helps a bit.

[Phoenix Blue]

It may help if you tried to define "evil" under the circumstances. Consider that the Spartans would abandon a "defective" child to the wolves. Is this necessarily more or less "evil" than devouring a small child in a fit of drunken passion?

:) It's certainly evil by today's standards. . . but then, a lot of things we consider evil now really weren't at the time.

[manstranger]

If you don't like or have doubts about Pan, even after researching him, i don't see why you would feel you would have to have anything to do with him.

[Pan]

Pan... evil? I guess from looks, it could be seen that way. But he's really not evil. Just a trickster God lookin' for some appreciation. I know I'm heinously late on this, but I've been a bit down and out.. so I thought I'd answer anyway.

I read all the info here and it's all very good. As for the tearing apart.. that was normal back then, I suppose. I doubt anyone does it now. 8O

But, yeah.. so the Christians might have taken Pan's image for their satan.. that doesn't mean he's evil. Just satan.. I guess.

I dunno, I'm hungry. :p

[Journeyman]

I think that an excellent thing that Pan could help teach our civilized, left-brain selves is that "good" and "evil" are terms whose definitions float madly hither and thither.

Sometimes his best lessons hurt like hell until you assimilate them.

bb,
jm