Symbols - What does heaven look like
Pan
Pan, in Greek religion and mythology, is the companion of the nymphs, god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein, meaning "to pasture". 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 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.
Wikipedia
The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the principal seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of mountain people whom other Greeks disdained. Greek hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase (Theocritus. vii. 107).
Pan inspired sudden fear in crowded places, Panic (panikon deima).
Following the Titans' assault on Olympus, Pan claimed credit for the victory of the gods because he had inspired disorder and fear in the attackers resulting in the word 'panic' to describe these emotions. Of course, Pan was later known for his music, capable of arousing inspiration, sexuality, or panic, depending on his intentions. In the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians.
So much for the official version, now the reality. Pan is the god of sexual stimulation. He is the personification of this method of achieving spiritual experience. The chase is the hunt for women, not the hunt for game – although I suppose the women might have been ‘game’, I certainly would have been, he looks sort of fun.……
Wikipedia
Pan is famous for his sexual powers, and is often depicted with a phallus. 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.
All satyrs appear to have a passion for women, not just Pan, so I think we can safely assume that satyrs are sexually active as well.
Satyr Pan seducing Aphrodite with the help of Eros. Statue of 100 B.C., found in Delos Greece. National Archaeological Museum of Athens. |
Pan teaching his eromenos, the shepherd Daphnis, to play the chrangos 2nd century AD Roman copy of Greek original ca. 100 BC attributed to Heliodorus (found in Pompeii). |
Observations
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- Barrett Browning, Elizabeth - What was he doing, the great god Pan
- Böcklin, Arnold - Pan im Schilf (Pan in the Reeds) 1858
- Burne-Jones, Edward - Pan and Psyche
- Crowley - 15 The Devil
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Lies - Peaches
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Lies - The Sabbath of the Goat
- Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - In the Caves of the Unconscious