Melusine Draco - Pagan Portals - Pan: Dark Lord of the Forest and Horned God of the Witches

As you read this, Pan is opening his strange eyes with those lucid, rectangular pupils, which give him huge peripheral vision. He is observing you very quietly. Look up from the page, look around. He is here, now. Believe what I say!

Also be aware that at this same moment there is an Inner Pan within your psyche who yearns to be aware of things from this wider perspective, who aches to take you toward the dark recesses of your mind, and the wild, tangled undergrowth of your unconscious. As you make your own antic path into the Wild Woods in search of the Great Pan, your nape hairs might prickle, you might see things at the new edges of your vision and strange realms might open up. If you have a frisson of fear you are on the right path. Keep going. There is light and love there too, in abundance.

Mlusine Dracos book is filled with pleasing seeds and roots that she has collected from obscure, musty corners of the mythological and literary forest. Just brooding upon them ensures that they will be planted and grow in your consciousness, often in startling ways.

And if you ever find yourself on hilltops in Wiltshire and see an elegantly ageing and once-handsome chappie chanting: Io Pan, Io Pan, Io Pan, Pan Pan! then youre probably hearing me putting to good use the practical evocations she gives.

Alan Richardson, author of Priestess and The Old Sod, biographies of Dion Fortune and Bill Gray

A fascinating and interesting read packed full of historical and mythological information and knowledge. Draco has researched her subject well, illuminating Pan as never before. His mystique and folklore jump off the page and make you yearn to find him in the forest!

Draco is a well respected instructor in British Old Craft and she shares her wisdom in her many books on traditional witchcraft and magic. This latest book richly adds to her collection. A must read for those interested in learning more about the Horned God with practical exercises to enhance the readers consciousness along the way. Enter the woods if you dare!

Sarah-Beth Watkins, author and publisher at Chronos Books

First published by Moon Books, 2016

Moon Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach, Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

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Text copyright: Mlusine Draco 2015

ISBN: 978 1 78535 512 7

978-1-78535-513-4 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943148

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I call strong Pan, the substance of the whole,

Etherial, marine, earthly, general soul,

Immortal fire; for all the world is thine,

And all are parts of thee, O powr divine.

(The Orphic Hymns)

In Coven of the Scales schooling, Meriem Clay-Egerton always saw Pan as the Horned Godand the Horned God as Pan. This was a traditional British Old Craft coven that honoured Aegocerus the goat-horned an epithet of the Greek Pan not Cernunnos, the stag-horned deity the Celts had brought with them from northern Europe. It should also be understood that although Coven of the Scales held firmly to the philosophy and opinion that all faiths were One and all Paths led to the same Goal, it did not advocate what is now referred to as eclectic paganism. So how on earth could this ancient, pre-Olympian Greek deity find his way into the beliefs of traditional witchcraft in Britain?

What CoS did teach was the desire for knowledge and experience, regardless of source. Each new experience was, however, studied within the confines of that particular religion, path or tradition, but each new discipline was kept completely separate from the other. Only when the student had a thorough understanding of the tenets of each discipline were they encouraged to formulate them into their own individual system. So why, despite the fact that no other foreign deities were ever added to the mix of traditional British Old Craft, was Pan accepted as a facet of the Horned God so far from his native shores?

In Greek religion and mythology, Pan (ancient Greek: , Pn) was the god of the wilderness and rocky mountain slopes, of shepherds and flocks, woodland glades and forests, hunting and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs. Yet even the Greeks were often hard-pressed to know how to categorise this most ancient of deities who had been revered in his native Arcadia long before his name and cult spread to other parts of Greece.

Pan has no part in the traditional Olympian pantheon because, like other archaic nature spirits, he appears to be much older than the squabbling, fornicating, incestuous tribe that resided atop Mount Olympus. In the Homeric Hymn to Pan, however, where he commences his literary career, he is identified as the son of Hermes (also a pastoral god of Arcadia) who fell in love with Dryope:

Homeric Hymn XIX to Pan

[1] Muse, tell me about Pan, the dear son of Hermes, with his goats feet and two horns a lover of merry noise. Through wooded glades he wanders with dancing nymphs who foot it on some sheer cliffs edge, calling upon Pan, the shepherd-god, long-haired, unkempt. He has every snowy crest and the mountain peaks and rocky crests for his domain; hither and thither he goes through the close thickets, now lured by soft streams, and now he presses on amongst towering crags and climbs up to the highest peak that overlooks the flocks. Often he courses through the glistening high mountains, and often on the shouldered hills he speeds along slaying wild beasts, this keen-eyed god. Only at evening, as he returns from the chase, he sounds his note, playing sweet and low on his pipes of reed: not even she could excel him in melody that bird who in flower-laden spring pouring forth her lament utters honey-voiced song amid the leaves. At that hour the clear-voiced nymphs are with him and move with nimble feet, singing by some spring of dark water, while Echo wails about the mountain-top, and the god on this side or on that of the choirs, or at times sidling into the midst, plies it nimbly with his feet. On his back he wears a spotted lynx-pelt, and he delights in high-pitched songs in a soft meadow where crocuses and sweet-smelling hyacinths bloom at random in the grass.

[27] They sing of the blessed gods and high Olympus and choose to tell of such a one as luck-bringing Hermes above the rest, how he is the swift messenger of all the gods, and how he came to Arcadia, the land of many springs and mother of flocks, there where his sacred place is as god of Cyllene. For there, though a god, he used to tend curly-fleeced sheep in the service of a mortal man, because there fell on him and waxed strong melting desire to wed the rich-tressed daughter of Dryops, and there be brought about the merry marriage. And in the house she bare Hermes a dear son who from his birth was marvellous to look upon, with goats feet and two horns a noisy, merry-laughing child. But when the nurse saw his uncouth face and full beard, she was afraid and sprang up and fled and left the child. Then luck-bringing Hermes received him and took him in his arms: very glad in his heart was the god. And he went quickly to the abodes of the deathless gods, carrying the son wrapped in warm skins of mountain hares, and set him down beside Zeus and showed him to the rest of the gods. Then all the immortals were glad in heart and Bacchie Dionysus in especial; and they called the boy Pan because he delighted all their hearts.