The Great God Pan

The Horned One.  To the Greek he is known as Pan.  In Celtic mythology, Cernunnos.  In English Folklore, he is called Herne the Hunter.  And sometimes he is associated with the Green Man, the Holly King or the Oak King. Some may see these as different names of one being and others may see them all as completely different gods.  

This actually was an area of confusion for myself for quite a few years. Until I truly got to know Pan as my patron deity.  I now believe these are all different gods, but of the same archetypal energy.  In Jungian Psychology, gods or deities, angels or demons, are described as archetypes of our own mind or psyche. Whichever resonates for you, these horned gods are nature gods.  Gods that represent fertility, masculinity, creation, and can have some trickster energy as well.  Associated with the planets Mercury and Saturn, some even tie this archetype to the Norse god Woden or Odin.  I have learned in my personal experience not to get too caught up in semantics.  Like with any religion, theology or mythology, there are so many stories with so many interpretations over time, we have to look inside ourselves and find what truly resonates with us.  We cannot say for sure that any story or myth or legend is absolute FACT.  However, all myths and legends are based on some truths, or better said, someone’s truths or experiences. 

Pan’s History and Folklore

Pan is said to be one of the oldest gods in the Greek pantheon. The son of Hermes and possibly a Nymph.  Born with goat legs and horns and a beard. He became the god of shepherds, nature, the wild, fertility and music, hence the ‘Pan Pipes.’ He did not live in Olympia with the other gods.  He lived instead in the trees and mountains out in Mother Nature.  He represents sexual freedom, male energy, the raw ecstatic force of nature.  He is untamed and wild.  But when the rise of Christianity happened and they sought to banish paganism, witchcraft and any ‘old world belief’ systems, they used Pan’s image to create what we now know as the Christian ‘Devil’.  The Church did not want people to be sexually free, untamed or liberated. They wanted them docile, tamed and subservient.  So sex, fertility rituals, and so on, became evil and ‘of the devil.’ Sabbats and the old gods were demonized. And yet the church used these very pagan rituals and festivals to create their own versions of holidays, such as Easter and Christmas.

But whether he was used as a scapegoat, or pushed to be forgotten, he lives on anyway in myth and folklore, poetry, art and music.  And even more so, he lives on in the woods, forests, trees, rivers, mountains and lakes. He and his Nature Spirits, or Elementals, are everywhere in nature. 

That being said, I wanted to share my experience of my patron deity and what I know of the beautiful nature god Pan.

Who is Pan to Me and How Did He Become My Patron Deity?

I was raised “born-again Christian.”  So the story of how I came to the place where I now identify as Pagan, a Green Witch and a Druid Priestess is quite long. That story is for another blog.  However, I must tell you a brief background, to explain who Pan is to me.

My spiritual journey truly began around 2015.  I was at a very dark place again in my life and this time it was my breaking point.  They say it, ‘takes something to break you to awake you’ and for me this was very true.  Instead of giving into the suicidal thoughts plaguing me, I decided to fight.  As soon as Spirit heard me say I wanted to fight, that night I had a dream. I was in a room that was made of green crystal Jade and I heard an Angel (Uriel) say, “You need Jade, for physical and emotional healing.”  And that was it.  I went down a rabbit hole researching all I could about crystals, and Angels names, and holistic healing, which led me to herbs and green witchcraft and then to Doreen Virtue.  She and Hay House were extremely popular in the spiritual community at that time.  I became a Certified Angel Tarot Reader and Fairyologist.  

But my troubles did not just simply vanish.  I still had much trauma to heal from.  My daughter and I left on a crazy journey out of the country, to Ireland in 2017.  In 2018, we ended up back in the USA in a small town with my Father.  It was then that I met Pan for the first time.  I was learning tarot, even reading for friends and posting on FB and IG.  But I still had so much to learn and so much to heal.  

Our First Meeting

He appeared to me in meditation, just his face and his name. But I heard both ‘Pan’ and ‘Cernunnos’. And I saw an image of both a Faun and a Stag.  This is why I was confused for many years, until I realized both Pan and Cernnnos had reached out. But it was the name Pan that stuck with me the most.  

I heard him say I had trauma from my father buried deep that I was not even aware of and he was there to help me heal as well as protect me from further pain. And he was right.  After going to counseling, even after already knowing the surface level of abuse from both my father and my step father, my counselor and I did discover a deeper trauma that my mind had suppressed so deep I had no memory of it.  So there was some real deep stuff I had to release.

So I began to research the great god Pan.  Of course with my religious upbringing, I was terrified he was ‘The Devil’ at first.  To my religious zealot Mother, everything was ‘of the Devil’. Anything from crystals, to tarot, to MTV rock videos (showing my age), to sex before marriage, homosexuality and more.  Just about anything would get you sent to Hell.  I spent my entire childhood terrified demons were under my bed just waiting to drag me to Hell so the Devil could torture me for all eternity.  I know now they have a term for this, Religious Trauma Syndrome.  And it takes years to release that trauma and undo that programming.

So the first thing I can say about Pan is that he is one the most patient, loving energies or beings I have encountered.  He absolutely hates the association of him with the Christian Devil, and rightfully so, and I have released that thought and fear now.  But he was so patient with me as I was trying to release this fear.  I thought that because I had started to read tarot I had conjured up the Devil just like my Mother told me would happen.  So at that time, I continued to research him, and many other deities and pantheons and other religions as well.  So we did not actually ‘work’ together yet. He just kept letting me know he was there and willing to help me if I so chose.  I learned that one of his main attributes is that he loves to help us get in touch with, and heal our inner child.  Especially those of us with trauma from a Masculine figure in our lives. I am speaking from a female point of view of course, as I am female, but he will work with male or female or non-binary or anyone of any gender of course.  He himself has been labeled or seen as bi or androgynous which I find very appealing. Not to get off on a tangent there….

In the next 2-4 years, my daughter and I did not have a great adventure.  We stayed with family members who were ‘not so nice’ to put it shortly, who threw us out in the middle of the Covid pandemic at the end of 2020.  We spent the next year and a half in a homeless shelter.  Interestingly enough, a Christian homeless shelter. I almost had an existential crisis and reverted back to Christianity like Doreen Virtue did. But thanks to Pan and many other deities, angels, beings and guides I now work with, I did not get sucked back into that system of control. We were not allowed to have any ‘witchy’ items in the shelter however. So it was not until 2022 when we moved into our own apartment that I was able to truly practice my craft again.

At this time I acknowledged him more, and I began to give small offerings to some of my deities like Odin, Persephone, Freya and Pan. I began to study everything from Thelema to Kabbalah, to Gnosticism, Buddhism, Taoism, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Solomonic Magic, Traditional Witchcraft, Norse Paganism and more.  It wasn’t until we moved back in with my parents in 2023, due to my mother’s failing health, that I truly finally connected with Pan. Even though I still had to be a ‘witch in the closet’ living with my parents again, I found my ways around it.  My mother sadly passed right before my birthday in July of 2023.  

Our Next Meeting

It was on Beltane of 2024 that Pan came to me again in a dream and he has been my Patron Deity ever since. The dream was so real I wonder if it was a memory from a previous life as a witch.  I know I have gypsies and witches in my family bloodline, so I would not be surprised if it was a deep memory.  I was outside on a sunny day in a white dress dancing around the maypole with its bright rainbow ribbons, along with many other pagans.  All were merry and celebrating the Sabbat. Then a little black goat appeared to me nuzzling my leg and then he turned into a little black bunny.  He then led me to a building on the property and when I entered one of the rooms, the mood became very dark and scary. I was suddenly grabbed by two men in black suits with big white collars and big white hats.  I quickly realized these were Puritans and had dragged me in to be accused as a witch.  They sat me down and told me how paganism was evil and Pan was ‘the Devil” and how we were to stop dancing and doing rituals and celebrating sabbats.  Then he pulled out the bible and read verses.  But somehow I knew of these men’s dark, dirty secrets and I said to one of them, ‘interesting that you are saying sex is evil and a fertility ritual is evil when you are committing adultery.’ And then I looked at another one and said, ‘and you are sodomizing your own child’ and ‘you expect your own daughters to service your adult needs’.  It was horrifying.  I felt sick in my stomach knowing and seeing in my mind’s eye all the atrocities they were committing while preaching for ‘God.’  These men were the true evil. I then quoted bible verses back to them, knowing the bible full well, and knowing Yeshua’s true intended messages, and they were silenced and outraged.  Then Pan led me out before any harm could come to me and I woke up. I know now he was showing me the time when the Christian Church of England, and the Puritans were instituting the ‘one true religion’ and all old religions or pagan beliefs were demonized, the witch trials were beginning and they turned Pan into the Devil.

One video I highly recommend is by Robert Olgivie Combie (ROC), on Youtube.  He was a very influential person in founding the Findhorn Foundation and also met the great god Pan in the woods near his cottage. He too was called to be a voice for the Fae and for the Nature Spirits.  And in his video called, “Conversations with Pan,” the great nature god told him about how he doesn’t necessarily like his image with the goat horns and legs because of what they turned that image into. Pan also appears with deer antlers sometimes, as a stag, or as other animals or sometimes just as a man.  He said his shadow self, is what he calls ‘Anti-Pan” and is the ‘trickster’ part of his energy. The aspects or characteristics of this being what the Christians turned into ‘the Devil.’  But we all have a shadow side and he does not like his shadow side anymore than we like our own.  We all have a dark and light side.  We all have to face and integrate our own shadows.  And this man, ROC, discovered, as I did, that Pan is a beautiful, loving, protective, fun deity, who wants us to live in harmony with Mother Earth. He simply represents the wildness and unpredictability of Nature. And he wants us to all embrace our inner child and to roam wild and free and uninhibited. To see the world with a sense of wonder and awe as we did when we were children.  To know magic is real and has always been all around us.

Please check out his video “How to See Nature Spirits ROC’s Conversations With Pan” here:

Getting to Know Each Other

On Beltane of 2024, I did a small ceremony to dedicate myself to Pan as my Patron God and to the Crooked Path of Witchcraft and to Mother Hekate as well.  I did not go all out, as I was still learning and slightly afraid to commit.  But I started a journal with him and bought the Green Witch Tarot deck I use now specifically to communicate with him. One of my biggest ways I get downloads or communicate with my guides and deities is through tarot, automatic writing, and Claircognizance.  I just have images or thoughts pop into my head suddenly, or I will just write without even realizing what I’m writing and then I go back and read it later. This is how I channel Spirit.  

So for a year, 2024-2025 I worked with and talked with him more and more. I followed his guidance on everything from books he wanted me to read, to dietary changes, shadow work, inner child healing, releasing religious and childhood trauma, and more. I wrote him poems, drew him artwork, and began leaving him offerings nightly on his altar. I also began studying and working with the Fae Folk during this time. As Pan is the god of the Fair Folk, I learned their history and folklore, and about the different types of Elementals.  I read, researched, and also journaled with them, wrote poetry for them and created a Fae altar in my room. I now leave them sweet cream and treats every night. I studied Traditional Witchcraft, Appalachian Folk Magic, Green Witchcraft, and Druidism under his tutelage. He also knows I consider myself an ‘eclectic witch’ and has allowed me to continue to work with many deities from many different pantheons.  He also encouraged me to start this very website you are on and the blog posts you are reading.  He knew me better than I ever knew myself and helped me to remember some of my past lives as well.  I knew somewhere deep down I had been a Witch, Shaman, Seer or Priestess at some point before. I knew I had written poetry and loved art and music and performed before. But I had forgotten all of those things until he opened my memory and heart again.  And he helped me to believe in myself.  I realized I could create anything I set my mind to.  He has helped me heal mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.  He helped me to discover and follow my own path.  

My Initiation Ceremony

Now it is June 2025, and on Beltane (May 1st, 2025) of this year, I did a full Druid Ceremony to initiate myself as a Druid Priestess and to dedicate myself to the great god Pan.  I honor him, yes. I leave him offerings, yes.  I talk to him everyday.  I follow his guidance.  But I do not ‘WORSHIP’ him, or any deity or being, outside of myself.  In fact, they do not want our ‘worship.’ The old gods and goddesses do not want to ‘enslave’ mindless sheep.  They want us to take back our power and become our highest versions.  They want us to remember that Source is within us as it is within them.  That Source is all around us in nature, in the elements, in the air we breathe.  They want us to heal and help bring healing to others as well.  He wants me to help build a new earth.  And he wants to be remembered and known as his true self.  As do the Fae and the Trees and all Nature Spirits.

For too long humanity has forgotten all the Nature Spirits and Deities. The spirits of the land, the elements of earth, air, water, and fire. The gnomes, sprites, elves, sylphs, undines, nymphs and dwarves. The Genus Loci or Land Guardians.  The old gods and goddesses.  And Mother Gaia herself.  They want us to love ourselves and our planet and live in harmony with each other once again.

So Pan has led me to be the Druid Priestess I am today.  And has asked me to be a Voice for the Trees, for the Nature Spirits and a Friend to the Fair Folk, as well as a champion for Mother Gaia.  He has asked me to live a more sustainable and green lifestyle. And to teach others to do the same.  And this, I feel, is only following my true purpose anyways, that I had forgotten until now.  And I am honored to do so.  I wanted to share my experience of, and love for, Pan. So you too might know the real Pan. Nature God of fertility, of the wild, of fun, music and magic. The deity that protects and guides. That helps us to heal our inner child and release trauma. That helps us to remember freedom, laughter and pure elation.  Who watches over the forests, trees, and all his nature subjects. The beautiful nature god that was scapegoated and demonized and is anything but ‘The Devil.’  

Pan is my mentor.  My beloved. My protector. My guide. My friend. And I am happy to introduce you to this beautiful Nature God.  Hail Pan! 

Thank you for joining me again!  Please leave a comment or share with a friend.  And as always, be good to yourself, each other and Mother Gaia! Take any small step you can towards living a Greener Life!  May the Awen be with you and many fairy blessings!

-AF- The Grove Witch