Pan in Arkadia

Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:55 am

Hillman and Roscher wrote:: "Are you not security obsessed, seat-belted against surprise, medicated against panic attacks? And what have you done to save the nymphs, the tiny differentiated sounds of nature, nature’s little night music? Parks, resorts, golf courses, and well-marked trails – no nymphs there, no risk of swooning at the earth’s beauty. No risk of panic either.” Science fears the return to Pan “in here.” Since Pan is Ephialtes and the nightmare, he is unpredictable and amoral.
His urges live in the barren places of the psyche where the mind of civil engineering makes no inroads. He hides in the psyche’s caves, the soul’s wilderness. His promptings to rape, to masturbate, to take flight in panic are alive in the most well-regulated civilian. Is not a basic cause of contemporary environmental devastation “out here” a continuation of Western history’s determination to keep control “in here” over the most potent and enduring of the ancient gods, to ensure that the great god Pan stays dead?
Little wonder that environmentalists receive little sympathy. Beneath the scorn these tree huggers evoke and the violence they sometimes suffer is fear of Pan. Environmentalists serve not only the proud, isolated goddess Artemis in her duty to protect the wild world and its animals. Devotees of nature are also servants of Pan, therapists of his cult, as the world therapeia first means – worshiper, servant, devotee of a god or a cult.

The wild may not be confined to wilderness as imagined in the usual opposition between sublime nature and degenerate city. “Wild” can be freed from natural wilderness, and wilderness itself be de-literalized so that Pan can return to the city. Athens, the model of all cities, had its Pan cult. Lucian called Pan summachos, or ally of Athens, where he had his sanctuaries and rituals. According to Borgeaud, Pan balanced the militarism of Athene and Ares by his favoring music and dance, laughter, mystery rites, and an alliance with “the smiling one,” Aphrodite. Arcadia appears in the guise of the romantic city, misty, languid, nostalgic, evocative – Paris, Manhattan, Venice, Dresden – Pan’s syrinx becomes saxophone, Selene becomes moony longings, the city a haunt of nymphs and nympholepsy.

PAN’s hour was always noon. At this moment he would appear in the blaze and shimmer of midday, startling man and animal into blind terror. This seems to have little to do with the nightmare. Perhaps we need to regard high noon, the zenith of the day, as the highest point of natural strength, which constellates both the life force and its opposite, the necessary fall from this height. It is the uncanny moment when I and my shadow are one. Noon, like midnight, is a moment of transition and, like midnight, daybreak, and sunset, a radix of primordial orientation for what might be called the symbolic clock. These are the moments when time stands still, when the orderly procession of moments disrupts. So certain things must be accomplished before the cock’s crow at dawn, or at the stroke of midnight, or before night falls. At these moments time is broken through by something extraordinary, something beyond the usual order. The Mittagsfrauen appear, or ghosts at midnight – compare Nietzsche’s vision of the eternal at noon in his Thus Spake Zarathustra. This is the moment when the moment itself matters, where the moment is severed from before and after, a law to itself, a quality, altogether a constellation of the forces in the air, without continuity and so without connection to “… the waste sad time / Stretching before and after.”

This is the unrelatedness of Pan, and of the spontaneous aspect of nature. It simply is as it is, at where it is at; not the result of events, not with an eye to their outcome; headlong, heedless, brutal, and direct, whether in terror or desire. This is what is meant by the spontaneity of instinct – all life at the moment of propagation or all death in the panic of the herd. We may read into this behavior many explanations. We may find spontaneity “caused” by deeper laws of self-preservation and the survival of the species. We may see a larger ecological pattern to lie behind these sudden events, that they belong to a wider network of interwoven complexity. We may consider quantum jumps and the principle of discontinuity to be operative in humans and animals (and not only in inorganic physics). Or, we may conceptualize spontaneity in terms of inborn genetic codes being released within an inborn time cycle. Still the spontaneous frolic of kids, the gambol of lambs, as well as, the erection of the shepherd or his uncanny fright occur as instantaneous unconnected events. Spontaneity remains outside explanation. By definition it cannot be accounted for.

Spontaneity means self-generating, non-predictable, non-repeatable. It does not belong within the domains of natural science as science is defined, although it does seem to be a natural phenomenon. To find laws of the spontaneous would be a contradiction in terms, for these events are irregular, lawless. Thus to consider spontaneous events as random events that can be charted in Fisher’s tables blurs the categories between quantity and quality. Random is a quantitative concept; spontaneous is qualitative and significative, pointing to what Whitehead called “importance.”There is emotion with spontaneity. It means radically free. By considering Pan to be the background for spontaneity, we are suggesting an approach to spontaneous events by means of archetypal psychology.

The spontaneous panic out of noon’s stillness reappears in another configuration, the kobold, or little demon, also said by Roscher to cause panic and nightmare. This being too has a sexual connotation: it is phallic, dwarf-like, fertile, both lucky and fearful. Herbert Silberer (probably Freud’s most talented and adventurous pupil whose depth of psychological insight into alchemy, active imagination, and dreams did not save him from suicide) took up the kobold in relation to “accidental” events. His work is one of the first psychological investigations into the archetypal background of chance, or so-called uncaused phenomena.
Silberer attributed chance events to the spontaneous appearance of these kobold figures. They may be taken as a kind of Augenblicksgott, in the language of Hermann Usener. Or, they may be imagined like the daimon that suddenly cautioned Socrates, or any “personification” of a self-willed event that works like an entity crossing our path. Jung considered these events partly as psychic complexes, partly as spirit demons. Above all he gave them full recognition as authentic to nature.

Today we use concepts for these experiences, concepts like hunch, intuition, uncanny feeling, or even prophecy, in the sense we mentioned above. And parapsychology speaks of a sixth sense, which humankind shares with animals. These concepts do not take us very far. We are still left with the feeling assumption that there is a level of awareness, distributed wherever there is instinctual life and which echoes this life in sudden signals.

Myth has put this idea as the dismemberment of Echo. In Longus’s tale of Daphnis and Chloe, Echo was torn apart by Pan’s herdsmen (for refusing him). Her singing members were flung in all directions. Let us say that Pan speaks in these echoing bits of information which present nature’s own awareness of itself in moments of spontaneity. Why they occur at this moment and not that, why they are so often fragmentary, trivial, and even false – these questions would have to be explored through the mythology of the spontaneous rather than through either empirical or logical methods.

Jung considered synchronicity to be a principle equal to the other three and, like them, a part of nature. He found that sudden, irrational, peculiar, yet meaningful connections happen mainly when instinctual (emotional, archetypal, symbolic) levels of the psyche are engaged. Pan cannot be identified with all emotion, with all of the archetypes. But when a meaningful coincidence occurs that has a particularly sexual cast, or starts up a panic, or refers to his time (noon and nightmare), or his landscape, and attributes, or the mood of his nymphs, then we should look to him for insight. But even more than this, Pan may play a role in synchronicity in general, since Pan like synchronicity connects nature “in here” with it “out there.” Again Jung’s conceptual fantasy of synchronicity and the imaginary fantasy of Pan have a common reference.

THE god who brings madness can also take it from us. Like cures like. Yet, how little attention has been given to Pan in all the writings on mental illness. Pan was one of the few figures in Greek mythology to whom mental disease was directly attributed. [66] We read from Roscher that Soranus considered Pan responsible for both mania and epilepsy, which we might delimit with the language of today by saying that Pan (inflator) rules our hypomanic states, especially those with sexual compulsions and hypermotor activity, and he rules sudden seizures that convulse the whole person, whether panics, anxieties, nightmares, mantles (speaking with tongues). Using the psychoid, genetic metaphor, Pan would rule at the deepest level of our frenzy and our fear. At the same time Pan heals at this level, and there are connections between Pan and Asclepius through the attributes of music, phallus, nightmare vision and mantle insight. Both Pan and Asclepius heal by means of dreams. Through the nymphs special localities heal and bless. We have also seen Pan help the despairing Psyche; similarly, he frees the captured Chloe in Longus’s tale. Perhaps now we should read again Plato’s prayer to Pan quoted as a motto to this essay. The prayer is said by Socrates in a dialogue whose main concern (much disputed) is the right manner of speaking about eros and madness. The dialogue ends with Pan as it opens on the shady banks of a river near a place sacred to nymphs. Socrates reclines there, barefoot. There at the beginning Socrates mentions that he is still struggling with the maxim "know thyself" and with his sense of ignorance about his true nature.

Then at the end comes the prayer with its appeal for inner beauty, which would mean an end to ignorance, for in Platonic psychology insight into the true nature of things brings about true beauty. Pan, then, is that god able to bestow the special sort of awareness that Socrates needs. It is as if Pan is the answer to the Apollonic question about self-knowledge." [Pan and the Nightmare]

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"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*

Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:56 am

Hillman and Roscher wrote:: "Pan is god of both nature “in here” and nature “out there.” As such Pan is the bridging configuration who keeps reflections from falling into disconnected halves where they become the dilemma of a nature without soul and a soul without nature, objective matter out there and subjective mental processes in here. Pan and the nymphs keep nature and psyche together. They say that instinctual events reflect in soul; they say that soul is instinctual.

All education, all religion, all therapy that does not recognize the identity of soul with instinct as presented by Pan, preferring either side to the other, insults Pan and will not heal. We can do nothing for the soul without recognizing it as nature “in here” and we can do nothing for instinct without remembering it has its own fantasy, reflection, and psychic intentions. The identity of the twin nuclei of Pan, whether as behavior and fantasy, compulsion and inhibition, sexuality and panic, or the god and his nymphs, means psyche and instinct are inseparable in every moment. What we do to our instinct, we also do to our souls.

It means that selfknowledge recognizes the presence of Pan in the obscurest caverns of the psyche and that he belongs to it. It means further that self-knowledge recognizes that Pan’s “horror” and his “moral depravities” also belong to the soul. This insight, by giving the goat its due, may bring the beauty for which Socrates prays. And by recognizing Pan so completely Pan may provide the blessing Socrates seeks, where inward and outward are one.

Socrates’s prayer to Pan is even more relevant today. We will not be able to find our way back to harmony with nature through the study of it alone. Though today's major concern is ecological, ecology as such is not enough. The importance of technology and scientific knowledge for protecting nature's processes goes without saying, but part of the ecological field is human nature, in whose psyche the archetypes dominate. If Pan is suppressed there, nature and instinct will go astray no matter how we strain on rational levels to set things right. In order to restore, conserve, and promote nature “out there,” nature “in here” must also be restored, conserved, and promoted to precisely the same degree. Otherwise our perceptions of nature out there, our actions upon it, and our reactions to it, will continue to show the same mangled exaggerations of inadequate instinct as in the past. Without Pan our good intentions to rectify past mistakes will only perpetrate them in other forms. The re-education of the citizen in relation to nature goes deeper than the nymph consciousness of awe and gentleness. Respect for life is not enough, and even love puts Pan down, so that the citizen cannot be re-educated through ways which are familiar. These all start with Pan dead. The reeducation would have to begin at least partly from Pan’s point of view, for after all it is his natural world that we are so worried about. But Pan’s world includes masturbation, rape, panic, convulsions, and nightmares. The re-education of the citizen in relation to nature means nothing less than a new relationship with these “horrors,” “moral depravities,” and “madnesses” that are part of the instinctual life of the citizen’s soul.

If Pan brings the madness, then he is its healer. Like cures like. He belongs in the education of the citizen. As master of instinctual soul, he has something to teach about rhythms and range. Pan was a music man and called a great dancer. He made his appearance felt in choral gatherings, in the beat of rhythmic clapping, bringing communal order to private panic. Music carries the body out of its separated loneliness. It educates (lit. “leads out”) the soul driven into itself by fear. It has been claimed that dance styles begin in the animal world; humans learned motions and gestures from animals, the ballet masters of ritualized spontaneity. Dance comes from out of the wild, and its intoxication leads us back into it.

If the society suffers the disease of wild rapaciousness, masturbatory exhibitionism, eruptive violence, and loss of an intimate sense of nature in the supposed “emptiness” of a “lost generation,” their wilderness and their wildness, then the god in the disease is Pan. He offers an education in music that compels that generation – music within the halls of education, not merely exploitive commercialism. Then Pan returns from noisy cacophony to syrinx and flute, lightstepping intricacy of the goat-footed god. Then we might see that it is not Pan who is mad and must be healed, but the society that has forgotten how to dance with him.

This leads us back to the nightmare and the revelation through it of the horrifying side of instinctual soul. Socrates’s puzzlings upon himself at the opening of the Phaedrus (230a) have a similar focus. He considers his likeness to Typhon, a demonic giant of volcanic eruptions, storms and underground earthquakes, “the personification of nature’s destructive power.” To “know thyself” in the Phaedrus begins with insight into nature’s demonic aspect.
The nightmare reveals this. There the healing re-education might begin because there instinctual soul is most real. Jones reminds us that "the vividness of Nightmares far transcends that of ordinary dreams." Roscher and Laistner observed this, and Jones quotes others who have stressed this reality:

"The degree of consciousness during a paroxysm of Nightmare is so much greater than ever happens in a dream … Indeed I know no way which a man has of convincing himself that the vision which has occurred during a paroxysm of Nightmare is not real. "

"The illusions which occur are perhaps the most extraordinary phenomena of nightmare; and so strongly are they often impressed upon the mind, that, even on waking, we find it impossible not to believe them real."

The vividness of the nightmare experience h as given rise to the belief in the objective reality of personified demons and gods or nightmare as experiential base of religion.

The horror and the healing effect of the nightmare takes place not because it is a revelation of sexuality as such, but of the fundamental nature of the human being who as sexual being is at one with animal being, with instinct, and thus at one with nature. Pan's vision of our humanity is that we, too, are pure nature in whom the volcanic eruptions, the destructive seizures and typhoons also reside. This reality cannot be borne home in abstract concepts. Nature’s metaphor is concrete and shaped. It must be felt, sensed, visioned in the actual, very real experience of hair and hooves. We must be paralyzed and suffocated by this reality as if there were something euphemistic in consciousness that always is in flight from “the horror.” This sense experience was once, and still is, the vision of Pan in his nightmare forms. Thus Roscher, Laistner, and Jones in different ways are right in finding significance in the nightmare. Its numinous power requires a commensurately overwhelming idea: through the nightmare the reality of the natural god is revealed." [Pan and the Nightmare]

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"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*

Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:59 am

Hillman and Roscher wrote:: "Börner described the character of the nightmare as follows:

"The onset may be at any time during the night and usually commences with the feeling of troublesome breathing … It is generally thought that the attack starts when lying on one’s back, whereas in reality lying face downwards is the more frequent position. The increase of dyspnea secondarily rouses the imagination – the dream – which motivates a large variety of reasons for the dyspnea. The most common (but by no means exclusive) dream is that in which the person sees some hairy animal. This is often a dog who in an inconceivable manner has arrived in the room and slowly and deliberately creeps up upon the bed to sit on the person’s chest, usually on the area of the jugular vein. This is then taken to be the cause of the difficulty in breathing and the pressure (Alpdruck) that has become proverbial. Frequently there is a vision of some disgusting creature, an ugly human being, an old woman, or just a simple burden setting itself down on the chest … Anxiety increases with the degree of dyspnea, and sweating, palpitation, turgescence of the face and swelling of the nerves at the neck set in. The victim feels a need to alter his position so that he can shake off the oppressive agent and he is firmly convinced that this will bring relief. The muscles concerned, however, refuse to react to the most strenuous efforts of the will. This likewise contributes to the unrelieved anxiety … Finally the extreme anxiety and the accompanying interrupted sleep bring about a violent movement produced with great effort and preceded by plaintive moans, which usually results in an immediate and extremely pleasant feeling of relief and ease and is followed either by waking up or by continued sleep. When both sleep and dream are uninterrupted, it is frequently most difficult to convince oneself that the visions seen were not real."

According to other observers the feeling of deliverance is ushered in by a loud cry. Macnish in his book on dreams says:

"At the moment of throwing off the fit, we seem to turn round upon our sides with a mighty effort, as if from beneath the pressure of a superincumbent weight; and the more thoroughly to awake ourselves, we generally kick violently, beat our breasts, rise up in the bed, and cry out once or twice. As soon as we are able to exercise our volitions or voice with freedom, the paroxysm is at an end."

As regards the origin of nightmares in otherwise healthy people, Börner arrived at the conclusion from precise observation of himself “that since the trouble always disappeared suddenly after a vigorous movement, it follows that a hindrance to respiration must have been removed.” Further, observation of himself showed “that during a nightmare, the external orifices of respiration – the nose and mouth – were more or less completely covered. When I was lying on my back or on my side, this was caused by the bedclothes pressing quite firmly over my face, or more frequently by lying face downwards with my face pushed into the pillow.” Dealing with this point, Macnish says:

"I have frequently had attacks of this disorder while sitting in an armchair or with my head leaning against a table. In fact, these are the most likely positions to bring it on, the lungs being then more completely compressed than in almost any other posture. I have also had it most distinctly while lying on the side, and I know many cases of a similar description in others. "

Börner, on the other hand, asserts that, according to his observations, lying face downwards is the most frequent position for the nightmare. Börner’s studies on himself were completely confirmed by successful experiments on other people and were cleared of the suspicion of subjectivity and self-deception. By covering the mouth and nose of other people, Börner in many instances succeeded in producing exactly the same signs that he had observed on himself. In these cases the nightmare was a peculiar bastard animal – half dog and half monkey – that did not, as before, slowly slink up to the bed, but sprang in one leap upon the breast of the victim without being previously noticed (as the result of covering the patient’s face). This sudden leaping jump of the nightmare is characteristic of the majority of cases and hence the Greek word “Ephialtes” – “the one who jumps up” – is very apt. The animal then remained quiet as if sleeping on his victim while the unfortunate person, out of sheer anxiety, did not dare to move until finally the animal fell down as the result of some movement executed at the height of the torture.

"Occasionally – and more commonly in women – the feeling of anxiety is coupled with that of lust, and women often believe that the phantom has had sexual intercourse with them. Men have analogous sensations and generally emissions of semen resulting from the pressure exerted on the genitalia by lying on the abdomen."

Börner states that the main symptoms of the nightmare are the feeling of pressure generally brought about by lying face downward, inability to move, and anxiety. Macnish calls particular attention to the extraordinary and inexplicable anxiety of the patient as a symptom that is practically never absent. An essential prerequisite for the origin of a nightmare is deep sleep.

It is almost generally admitted that the difficulty in breathing, which produces a nightmare in healthy people and is caused by an external impediment like bedclothes, can also originate from certain illnesses and likewise give rise to very severe nightmares. Examples of these illnesses are croup, tuberculosis, organic heart disease, asthmatic complaints, advanced stages of hypochondria and hysteria, mental illnesses, and fever deliria. Börner adds: “Thus I believe that there will be a kind of nightmare preceding suffocation by gases, just like the sudden nocturnal shutting off of the respiratory tracts by foreign bodies, croupous membranes, etc.” According to Binz, one can see in the deliria of typhoid fever the same symptoms as in poisoning by the thorn-apple, i.e., confused sensual dreams, intoxication, and narcotization. Occasionally a nightmare can result from a faulty diet, as for example from the intake of indigestible food.

Binz indeed asserts on the basis of his experiences that when he is suffering from a head-cold, a rather heavy evening meal is sufficient to produce a nightmare. He says:

"The state of dreaming we know under the term of nightmare can be produced by acute poisoning … The validity of Börner’s researches can be established by paying some attention to oneself. If, when one is suffering from a cold that obstructs both nasal openings, one eats a rather heavy evening meal and then goes to sleep while the nose is reasonably free from obstruction and the mouth closed as usual, it will frequently happen that catarrhal secretion and swelling of the nasal mucous membrane occurs during the deepest sleep. The passage of the air becomes more and more obstructed and the carbon dioxide and other suffocating products of metabolism accumulate in the blood and insult the nervous system. A profound uneasiness pervades our mind in completely blurred forms; sometimes this takes the form of a definite process of suffocation, at other times the uneasiness remains obscure and confused in accordance with the duration and strength of its origin. Eventually a sudden movement of the body is imparted to the closed lips, or more often – as I have observed repeatedly on myself – there is a loud cry of fear and need of assistance which opens the mouth to allow the rescuing atmospheric air a free pathway. Oxygen is the antidote. The oxygen equalizes the perverted irritation caused by excretions retained in the cells of our brain; it does this by binding with and chemically altering the cxcretions."

As we shall see later, this theory was already formulated by the physicians of ancient times. A special feature to which attention has been called by most observers is the unusually vivid nature of nightmare visions that frequently far surpass the impressions left by what is experienced while awake. Laistner says in this connection:

"The intensity of the apparitions in nightmares is far greater than in the ordinary dream images, so much so that the subject when awake is fully convinced that he has not simply had a dream. The impression exceeds the most vivid intuition of the person’s waking imagination, however extraordinarily “mythic” that may be, and so there can be no doubt that the living belief in nightmare monsters can be explained most simply by the vividness of the dream presentations."

Thus Macnish recounts an actual observation by the physician Waller, who had a nightmare apparition, which he mistook for reality for a long time until he finally realized that it was only a dream. Macnish also states:

"Sometimes we are in a state closely approximating perfect sleep; at other times we are almost completely awake; and it will be observed that the more awake we are, the greater is the violence of the paroxysm. I have frequently experienced the affection stealing upon me while in perfect possession of my faculties and have undergone the greatest torture."

This view of Macnish seems to some extent to be endorsed by Cubasch, who says in Der Alp (The Nightmare):

"Dream pictures often seem to continue after awakening; this is a peculiarity that is not only associated with nightmares, but is often observed in vivid dreams of all kinds. This continuation of the visions must be attributed to sleep-drunkenness, which is the state between being fully awake and deeply asleep or the reverse. It demonstrates only that a person has not yet ceased to dream and that sleep has not yet been completely shaken off. The conditions most favorable for this state are provided when a person is suddenly aroused from deep sleep either by alarming dreams or by other circumstances."

The so-called pavores nocturni (night terrors) of children between the ages of three and seven years seem to belong in this context. Of these Soltmann says:

"They usually occur during the deepest sleep and several hours after falling asleep, without any prior warning. The children commonly sit up suddenly in bed about midnight with a flushed face and bathed in sweat. Their fixed gaze, the confused talk, the absence of response to calls and questions, all indicate that consciousness is dulled. The carotid blood vessels pulsate, the heart beats strongly, and the hands tremble with terror. Persuasion is of no avail and the senses remain spellbound under the heavy pressure of terror and fright brought about by the vision. Sometimes the children will utter monosyllabic garbled sounds and words – like “there, there,” “dog,” “man,” etc. – which obviously relate to the alarming visions. It often requires fifteen to twenty minutes to calm down the child."

Soltmann further points out that the majority of these children suffer from indigestion, dyspepsia, constipation, gastritis, anaemia, scrofula, and rickets. Occasionally these night terrors occur in typhoid fever, scarlet fever, and in psychic excitement produced by fright and fear. A twelve-year-old boy afflicted with advanced spondylitis dorsalis imagined during his attacks that an animal had jumped on his back and wanted to crush him to death. It can be seen from this how closely related children’s night terrors are to the nightmare.

Compare Tylor:

"… dream pictures play with the half-awake consciousness, and the mind is made to believe things that do not exist inreality. Thus the forms or shapes of that fanciful world of fairy stories in which a person saw himself transfigured remain as an echo before his clouded consciousness, and the person thinks he is observing these things fully awake, whereas in fact he is not yet quite fully conscious. Sleep-drunkenness is a fruitful soil for all kinds of deceptions of the senses … A person in the state of sleep-drunkenness who is fully convinced that he is master of himself is seeing just the phantoms that assailed him while he was asleep; and he sees them now with his eyes open and with apparently normal consciousness."

After waking, such phenomena remain for some time and are directly on the borderline between a dream and a hallucination – that is to say, between normal consciousness and disturbed consciousness. They differ merely quantitatively from the hallucinations of insanity by their shorter duration; if they continue to persist undiminished over a period of days, weeks or months, they must be looked upon as an undoubted sign of insanity. At this point it is well to heed the fact that “frequently dreams are blamed by mental patients as the starting points of certain fixed ideas, in so far as what is dreamt is thought to have been a genuine experience.”

As regards the dangers of nightmares when these occur frequently and are very intense, Börner thinks that a severe degree of dyspnea with its attendant retarding of the blood circulation could easily give rise to cerebral hemorrhage and possibly even acute edema of the brain. According to Radestock, nightmares sometimes precede mental illness and occur in organic cardiac diseases, asthmatic syndromes, and repeatedly in the more advanced stages of hypochondria and hysteria. Macnish is of the opinion that they can produce apoplexy or may be the cause of epileptic and hysteric attacks in people who are unusually sensitive.

Collective apparitions are sometimes met with in the nightmare, just as in what has been called the panicky terrors and mental disorders. This means that a large number of people are attacked at the same time by the nightmare – just as in an epidemic – and that these people all have the same visions. On the basis of such “collective apparitions,” A. Krauss assumes that a specific Alpmiasma (nightmare miasma) gives rise to these apparitions. An interesting example of the condition is seen in the following report by Radestock:

"A complete battalion of French soldiers quartered in an old abbey near Tropea in Calabria was attacked by a nightmare during the middle hours of the night. The whole battalion to a man arose from their beds and, chased by panicky terror, ran out into the open. (Note here the close link between the nightmare and the panicky terror of man and animals.) When questioned what had so frightened them, they replied one and all that the devil in the shape of a large black shaggy dog had entered through the door, rushed on their chests with the speed of lightning and then disappeared through a door opposite the entrance. The same scene was repeated on the following night. Notwithstanding the fact that the officers had distributed themselves on all sides to stand watch against the devil, no power on earth could make the soldiers return to their quarters. This extraordinary manifestation is explained very simply. These soldiers had, on a hot June day, done a forced march of 25 miles and were then crowded into the abbey, which was too small for so large a number. They had lain down to sleep on a little straw and had not taken off their clothes because they had nothing with which to cover themselves. The exhaustion, the primitive sleeping conditions, and the constricting uniforms all caused physiological excitation, which soon produced an apparition already known to the troops, since the locals had told them that they would experience something uncanny in the abbey where the devil prowled in the guise of a black shaggy dog. "

The erotic dreams described by Börner as occasionally associated with nightmares can be divided into two types according to the sex of the erotic demon who appears. This depends generally – but not necessarily – upon the sex of the sleeper. Hence even today Germanic superstition differentiates between the female (mare) and the male (mar) love phantom. The former is by far the more frequent. According to a medieval and current popular belief, devils and witches – i.e., daemonic living beings – appear in both forms to seduce or torment the sleeper in his or her dream. (The incubus and succuba of the Middle Ages come to mind.) Indeed, there exist numerous partly highly romantic fairytales and legends in which the sleepers fall in love with the love-phantom and even have offspring by it. Obviously some of these are often the result of organic sexual complaints, as Krauss in particular demonstrates in his “Der Sinn im Wahnsinn.”

Having objectively established the current theories on the nature and origin of the nightmare, we are now in a firm position to criticize the attitude of the ancient physicians. The first Greek physician who we know for certain to have dealt with the nightmare in his scientific research was Themison of Laodicea. He was the founder of the so-called Methodical School and a contemporary of Caesar and Cicero. Unfortunately, all we know is that in his letters he called the nightmare not ephialtes (“leaper”), as did other doctors, but employed a rarer but, at the same time, rather characteristic term: pnigalion (“throttler”). We obtain much more exact information from the theories of the leading member of the school, Soranus, who, next to Hippocrates and Galen, was perhaps the most productive and significant of the ancient physicians. In the era before Soranus, incidentally, Rufus of Ephesus had also considered the nightmare. "When someone is plagued by the incubus, prescribe emetics and laxatives, put the patient on a light diet, purge the head by sneezing and gargling, and later rub in beaver oil and the like to prevent epilepsy.”

Concerning the views of the ancients on the nature of the nightmare, the very expression pnigalion, which Themison probably borrowed from the vernacular, shows that he considered “choking, becoming strangled” as the most essential characteristic of the nightmare, the symptom to which Soranus, Oreibasius, Aetius, Paulus Aegineta, and others have also drawn special attention. Further symptoms mentioned are the feelings of the sleeper that somebody is sitting on his chest or suddenly jumps upon it or that somebody climbs up and crushes him heavily with his weight. The sufferer feels incapacity to move, torpidity, and inability to speak. Attempts to speak often result only in single, inarticulate sounds. According to Soranus and Paulus Aegineta, the impression may arise that the demon sitting on the sleeper’s chest is trying to violate him but vanishes as soon as the sleeper seizes his fingers or joins his own hands or clenches his fists: “Some are so affected by empty visions that they believe they are being attacked and forced to the vilest acts: if they grasp the oppressor they believe it will vanish.” The passage is absolutely clear and obviously means that according to popular belief the person tortured by the nightmare must grasp the monster with his fingers if he is to chase it away.

This belief is also current in Germany and among the Slavs. Laistner says: “He whom the Murawa oppresses must touch her small toe, and then she leaves him.” “One must hold firmly the finger of Psezpolnica (a Slavonic female spirit) and then she flees.” “One must seize the Murawa or nightmare witch or hold her fast by the hair.” The expression “with closed fingers,” quoted from Paulus Aegineta, is not so easy to explain because it is not clear whether he refers to the fingers of the nightmare demon or to those of the victim. If the former, it is virtually identical with the words of Soranus; if the latter, we are reminded of the ancient superstition that folding the hands or clenching the fists was an effective antidote for magic. According to Wuttke, the nightmare can be dispelled by placing the thumb under the fingers. Veckenstedt and Laistner say that whoever succeeds in pressing his big toe three times against the bedstead will frighten the Murawa away. All these suppositions arise from the observed fact that the nightmare disappears as soon as the sleeper recovers the lost capacity for movement by a slight motion of the fingers or toes. The Greek physicians also observed regular epidemics of nightmares. Caelius Aurelianus writes: “Silimachus (an error for Callimachus) a pupil of Hippocrates, relates that many were carried away by this contagion just like the plague in the city of Rome.” This obviously refers to the Hippocratic Callimachus, who was a pupil of Herophilus in the third or second century BCE.

The ancient writers, and in particular Soranus, emphasize that the nightmare can be considered a dangerous ailment only when it affects the same person time and again. Under these circumstances there may be chlorosis, emaciation, insomnia, constipation, and, if the attacks are especially violent and frequent, sometimes even epilepsy and death. Soranus believes that in its essence every nightmare is identical with an epileptic attack. (Even before the time of Soranus, the physician Rufus of Ephesus, explained the nightmare as a sign of incipient epilepsy.) The victims of a nightmare suffer while asleep exactly the same as does the epileptic while awake. Hence the evil must be dealt with energetically at its root so that the condition does not become chronic and permit the onset of epilepsy, mental disturbance, mania, or apoplexy. (Soranus describes epileptics as those who have heavy and appalling dreams and easily become insane.) As faithful pupils and followers of their great master Hippocrates, the ancient physicians strongly opposed the prevalent popular belief that the nightmare was a god or wicked spirit. Soranus in particular refutes this superstition in detail in his Aetiology. there is here neither a god nor a semi-god nor Cupid” (in error for concupiscence). I presume that Soranus is thinking here of erotic nightmares and of the teaching of Herophilus, according to which our concupiscence or our erotic instinct can produce dreams of this kind. Soranus considers even erotic nightmares as incipient epilepsy, especially since epileptic attacks are often associated with gonorrhoea without the erotic instinct (cupido) being present. As soon as the attack has passed and the victim is awake one can observe that the face and body orifices are covered with moist sweat, and the patient feels a heaviness in the nape of the neck and has a mild irritating cough. This cough is presumably only a natural sequel to the precedent dyspnea.

As regards the aetiology or cause of the nightmare, the ancients had already noted that it frequently originates from digestive upsets following overeating, alcoholic excesses, and eating indigestible food. Naturally the ancients knew nothing about its causation through mechanical obstruction of the respiratory inlets as first noted by Börner. Another feature correctly observed in ancient times was that the state of sleep-drunkenness or the transition period between fully asleep and fully awake is very favorable to the production of a nightmare; and that the visions of the dream may then persist so vividly for a period before falling asleep or after waking up that the sleeper will deceive himself into believing that he sees the vision with open eyes and in actual reality. Thus, for example, Macrobius, probably following one of the old physicians, writes:

"Fantasma is indeed a vision, between waking and deep sleep, in those first mists of sleep when one still believes oneself to be awake and has just fallen asleep, which seems to be forcing its way in as wandering forms of varying size, shape, or temper, either joyful or disturbing. Ephialtes is of this type, which popular belief holds to come in on the sleepers and weigh on them heavily and oppress them severely."

More modern medical opinion confirms that deception of the senses often occurs in the state directly preceding sleep.
The fact that certain illnesses – especially those associated with hectic fever – produce a variety of terrifying nightmarish visions of vivid intensity was quite familiar to the ancient physicians. Let us compare, for example, Hippocrates: “The evil in these fevers and cramps (contortions) from dreams,” to which Galen adds: “We also notice in dreadful illnesses oppressions, fears, and cramps stemming from dreams.” Again Hippocrates: “Once he has gone to sleep he jumps up from his sleep when he sees the monstrous visions” (previously the talk was of fever). Later he continues: “Critias reports on feverish dreams.” Galen: “I have called those who suffer from physical illnesses clear-sighted and those who are frightened by dreams prophets and seers through phantasmata.”
From these fears, which according to Hippocrates also attack small children in their sleep (as noted above, the pavores nocturni), the god of dreams, Phobetor, obviously derives his name in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and to him are ascribed in particular the production of all kinds of terrifying animal apparitions. The frightful and monstrous things, the confusion of the senses, the startled flight from the bed presumably also belong in this context, i.e., those night deliria and nightmares considered signs of epilepsy in the broader sense and which Hippocrates talks about in The Sacred Disease. We learn from Hippocrates that people believed them to be the influence of evil spirits of the dead against which one employed sacrifices of purification and expiation and incantations. Even the layman had such frequent opportunity of witnessing nightmarish deliria and hallucinations during fever that it does not seem strange if sometimes the two conceptions of fever and nightmare are interchanged and the usual Ephialtes as the demon of the nightmare is repeatedly called Ipialos, Ipialis. Aristotle, in “On Dreams,” acknowledged the close kinship between deliria and dreams when he wrote: “We meet the same symptoms in people startled from their dreams, as indeed dreams cause illnesses.” Aristophanes is obviously thinking of severe fevers allied with dangerous dyspnea and nightmares and of their demons when he boasts that he fought as a second Hercules: “For you he fought, and for you he fights: / And then last year with adventurous hand / He grappled besides with the Spectral Shapes, / The Agues and Fevers that plagued our land.”" [Pan and the Nightmare]

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"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*

Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:00 am

Hillman and Roscher wrote:: "The remedies and dietetic discipline employed by the ancient doctors for nightmares were closely aligned with their views on their origin. The majority and most important of these remedies aimed at removing the damaging morbid humors and changing them into beneficial ones – corresponding to the basic theory of the humors in ancient medicine. The main therapy used was primarily venesection and various kinds of purgatives. For effective dietetic treatment Soranus-Caelius advises several days of fasting and then an easily digestible simple diet, strictly avoiding all foodstuffs producing flatulence, above all beans. Beans were strictly forbidden to the Pythagoreans because they were considered to be very indigestible and causative of evil dreams and nightmares by their flatulent action. Plinius even reports a remarkable superstition according to which the “souls of the dead,” i.e., evil spirits, were believed to dwell in beans.

Hence the belief that they dwell in certain injurious foods and that the intake of these foods would bring the spirits temporarily into the human body. The most important of these demons living in plants was Dionysus, the god of wine, ivy, and perhaps also of hemp, endowed with narcotic strength. He was directly identified with ivy and vine and, having transferred himself to men by their enjoyment of the produce of these plants, he animated and inspired, indeed possessed them. We also meet the same – and probably a most ancient – popular superstition in Porphyrius. He observes on the demons causing nightmares that they enter into the human body with the food and there do all kinds of mischief and, in particular, bring on flatulence: “As we eat, they enter into us and settle in us and thus they pollute, not by divine interference. They generally delight in blood and filthiness and invade the possessed. In a word, a compulsion of greed and desire, and general excitation cloud rational thinking and unintelligible sounds connected with them and also flatulence cause man’s breakdown which satisfies the demon.” It seems to be evident from the fragment found in Proclus that Porphyrius was probably thinking of the demons of vicious dreams and nightmares that live in certain unwholesome foods when speaking of the flatulence aroused by malevolent demons. Zeller has related this to the ancient beliefs about incubi. The unintelligible sounds most probably refer not only to belches and flatulence but also to the inarticulate shrieks of the victim tormented by the nightmare.

Philostratus tells an exactly parallel story in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana (6.27), of an erotic nightmare spirit appearing in the form of a satyr. While Apollonius and his companions were staying in an Ethiopian village not far from the Nile cataracts and were eating their evening meal, they suddenly heard shouting by women who called out to one another, “Seize him and persecute him!” They also asked their husbands to punish the “adulterer.” This village had been haunted for ten months by the ghost of a satyr who had evil designs on the women and was even said to have murdered two with whom he was particularly in love. The story continues to tell how Apollonius tamed and rendered harmless the demonic satyr by intoxicating him with wine – just as Midas did to the silenus (or satyr) – and banished him into a nymph grotto nearby.

Considering the frequent mixing of the concepts of Pan and Satyr (Faunus) in the Hellenistic age, one could in this case again think of Pan as the chief representative of the nightmare in the last centuries of the classical period. Often victims appear to their murderers in dreams at night or in hallucinations when half awake but still drunk with sleep. They take the form of ghostly evil demons, terrify their victims and foretell their imminent destruction. An example is the ghost of the murdered Julius Caesar who appeared to Brutus and Cassius. Plutarch calls the ghost appearing to Brutus “your evil daemon.” According to Valerius Maximus the same is true for the “man of enormous size, black in color, with filthy beard and unkempt hair” who terrified Gaius Cassius Parmensis shortly before his death “in the first sleep, when he lay on his couch asleep with anxiety and troubles.” [54] In both cases the evil daemon can only be Caesar himself or his personal genius. What is described is most probably a nightmare, and yet some of the most characteristic signs are missing: jumping up, rushing in, burdening, weighing down; likewise in the dreadful dream of Aulus Caecina in Tacitus. It is possible that the concept lying at the basis of this dream is similar to that found in many Nordic sagas, i.e., that the soul of the living possess the power of leaving the body during sleep and of appearing to others in their dreams, thereby imparting a kind of reality. (I am referring to the Norse fylgja.) The modern Greek kallikantzaroi, who are in many ways related to the Pans and Satyrs, act in a similar fashion.

Here the tradition about Alexander the Great comes to mind, whose mother Olympias is said to have conceived him during a dream in which Zeus appeared in the form of lightning. Then there are the supernatural births of Plato, Seleucus, and Augustus and the Thasian legend about the birth of Theagenes; finally the fables concerning Zeus and Alcmene, Zeus and Danae, Zeus and Semele, Mars and Ilia, etc. Even today the impulse to fable similar legends has not fully died. Crusius points out correctly that in Hellenistic literature, the sirens were believed to be the daughters of Achelous and a muse, rather akin to the Naiads, and according to Dinon in Pliny, these sirens “charm people with their song, and when they are sunk in heavy sleep, tear them to pieces.” The Naiads were also reputed to be daughters of the river gods and especially of Achelous.

We find similar beliefs about the North German elves. These are also distinguished by their beauty and like to bask in the sunshine. Corresponding to the elves dancing on moonlit meadows are the sirens as playmates of Persephone as she picks flowers in the fields. A blow from an elf causes lameness or brings on illness. The elves shoot their arrows down through the air, and similarly the elf’s “shot” carries death. The same holds true for nymphs. In Icelandic folklore the elves have love affairs with human beings. Closely connected with the elves are the vampire-like Empusae and Lamiae of whom it is said in Philostratus:
“These beings fall in love, and they are devoted to the delights of Aphrodite but especially to the flesh of human beings. And they decoy with such delights those whom they mean to devour in their feasts.” Let us take this opportunity to recall the insomnia Veneris or somni Venerei (bad dreams of Venus) that are so closely allied pathologically with nightmares. These are erotic dreams associated with gonorrhea, and the doctors in ancient times believed them to be the precursors or symptoms of epilepsy and insanity – just as with nightmares. The people also attributed them to the powers of daemons.

Vivid nightmares often appear to the sleeper as objective external experiences, and he does not heed the fact that all the motives contained in the legend – for example, the paralysis of the hip – recur in nightmares, as will be pointed out in the following. The fact that the struggle in question is not specifically designated as a dream experience must not be considered an obstacle, for dreams, and especially nightmares, which have been conspicuous by their peculiar vividness, have frequently not been recognized as dreams, but have been described as factual experiences. As we have already seen, even modern physicians accustomed to accurate observation of themselves, have sometimes mistaken subjective dream phenomena of great intensity for real experiences. Let us compare, for example, in the Odyssey, where Ulysses, hidden in the form of an eagle, appears to Penelope in a dream and calls out to her: “This is not a dream but a happy reality that you shall see fulfilled.” One thinks also of the remarkable story of the cure of Sostrata of Pherae, where it is reported how this patient had set out on her return journey without having received a clear vision in a dream and on the way was cured by Asclepius when she was fully awake and not through the agency of a dream. A charming ode of Horace is based on a similar dream vision. The best analogy of all, however, is furnished by the nightmare of Hyginus, which is expressly stated to be a real experience. The words to be specially noticed in Artemidorus are: “The dream, which brings victory to one of the two wrestlers, who keeps his strength until the break of dawn.” According to Artemidorus, “a struggle with an unknown opponent means danger through illness". Similarly, Veckenstedt in his Lithuanian Myths says of the Lithuanian Medine or forest woman: “It can happen to whoever goes through the wood that the Medine forces him to struggle with her; should he be victorious he is richly rewarded, but if he is defeated, she devours him.” Kolrusch and Perty say that the nightmare is sometimes so intense that the sleeper contending with the specter tumbles out of his bed; obviously the fall may cause sprains, laming, and all kinds of injuries.

In the first place the rheumatic pains contracted by slumbering incautiously in the open air and known as witch or demon “shots” spring to mind. This designation clearly shows that such pains and pareses were ascribed by the people to the beings who became visible in nightmares. The “blow” of the Greek Nereids is a similar belief. This was directed particularly against people who went to sleep about midday in a lonely spot in the open air near springs and streams and manifested itself by mental or physical illness.

In this context Laistner writes: “If you can more or less conjecture who it is you feel to be lying upon you (as a nightmare demon) you must call him by his name, and the Murawa will escape.” This motif plays a big part in numerous fairytales and saga collected by Laistner. The best known is that of Rumpelstilzkin.

Finally the Brandenburg nightmare demon Scherber (Serp, Serpel) falls into this category. This is the male counterpart of Serpolnica and hacks the plagued victim in the heel with a curved knife (sickle?), just as in the Austrian alplands it is considered highly dangerous to tread barefoot into the footprints of the Hafergeiss when this demon goat appears as a nightmare devil, because one immediately feels the Gallschuss (a shot of bile), which produces a piercing pain in the foot as caused by rheumatism or gout." [Pan and the Nightmare]

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"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*

Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:01 am

Hillman and Roscher wrote:: "Among the Sandomier forest dwellers the nightmare demon is called the Vjek (”old man’’) or Gnotek (”small oppressor”). Nobody knows where he spends his days. He is not big but exceedingly heavy. The Vjek lies down on an unsuspecting sleeper and compresses his chest with all his strength so that the victim cannot move. People say that if anyone can snatch away the Vjek’s cap, the Vjek will bring him plenty of money.

The blessing that the nightmare demon confers may also consist in the communication of important and useful secrets or in the granting of strength and good health. As we shall see later, this feature of blessing, of doing good and being of service, is imprinted and developed to an exceptional degree in the Germanic domestic spirits (spiritus familiares) who are at the same time nightmare demons. Thus the connection between the hitherto unexplained name of Mephistopheles and Ophelis/Epophelis (“helper, benefactor”) becomes clear since he was one of these useful domestic spirits according to the old Faust legend.

The view mentioned above of a health-promoting and blessing-bestowing field of activity of the nightmare demon is expressed in an epigram in Kaibel, which has been variously misunderstood. This inscription was found in Rome, and Kaibel dates it about the second century CE. In it, a shepherd claims to have been cured of a serious illness by the appearance of Pan-Ephialtes while he was taking his midday rest. The epigram runs:

"To you, o flute player, hymnist, benevolent god
Pure leader of the Naiads pouring bath waters,
Hyginus, whom you yourself healed of severe illness
by coming near him, presents this oblation.
For you have appeared to all my sheep,
not as a dream vision but in the middle of the day."

Compare this to Artimidorus where the same antithesis of dream and day is found, and of course the Odyssey where Ulysses calls to Penelope in a dream, “Take heart, daughter of the noble Icarius. This is not a dream but a happy reality you shall see fulfilled.”

Almost all scholars who have reviewed this interesting inscription hold the opinion that the godhead who is presented with the oblation is Apollo-Paean although nowhere else is he called soriktis (“flute player”). Plew and Drexler are the only writers who have connected the epigram correctly with Pan, who is elsewhere, as here, called hymnist, leader of the Naiads, and flute player, as Drexler correctly noted. Furthermore, the fact that Pan reveals himself in dreams to people during their midday sleep – just as here – justifies this interpretation. In Longus, all kinds of terrifying day and night visions are interpreted as “revelations of Pan’s anger with the sailors.” We advance further in the understanding of our epigram by the insight that the instance of Hygeinus does not – as Plew and Robert assume – deal with an ordinary dream but is rather one of those vivid nightmares that, as we have just seen, were attributed to Pan-Ephialtes and according to ancient popular belief were said to have curative effects on illness. Pan – like Asclepius – healed the sick through dreams:

"On going down from here you come to a sanctuary of Pan Lyterius … so named because he showed to the Troezenian magistrates dreams that supplied a cure for the epidemic that had afflicted Troezenia and the Athenians more than any other people."

A shepherd, Hygeinus, is afflicted with a severe physical complaint and about midday lies down to rest among his flock. While he believes that he is still awake, Pan-Ephialtes (the god of both shepherds and hunters) appears to him in an exceedingly vivid dream and by this apparition cures him. The same is true of the incubation dreams in which the god, demon, or hero who lives physically in the temple appears to the dreamer and cures him either by personal intervention or by telling him the therapy. The vividness of the dream sometimes reaches the pitch where the sleeper believes that he has seen the awearance of the god when awake and not when asleep. This is evident in the remarkable story of the cure of Sostrata in the second catalogue of Epidaurus.

In accepting a physical and not simply dreamed apparition of the god, Hygeinus is strengthened by the fact that at the same time his animals fell victims to a panicky terror (likewise attributed to the god), and out of gratitude he offers an oblation to the rescuing god for having been cured. Perhaps Pan’s appelative Paean relates to him in his capacity as helper and saviour, as the rescuer from illness. The representation of Ephialtes as a rescuing and redeeming healing god is easily explained by the feeling of rescue and redemption following most nightmares. Nightmare and panicky terror are closely related concepts and are therefore frequently assigned to the same demons.

How widespread was the concept that Pan when angry sends terrifying dreams and visions clearly appears from several glossaries of Hesychius and Photius, which have not been rightly understood until now. Photius (Lexicon, ed. Naber, 51): “Because Pan is the instigator of visions causing insanity;” Hesychus: “The emanations of Pan cause nightly visions.” The anger of Pan is also frequently mentioned elsewhere, e.g., in the Medea by Euripides (1172), in relation to the onset of epilepsy. It can easily be recognized that the connection of Pan with dreams and visions – especially nightmares – is most intimately associated with panic, terror, the excitation of which was likewise ascribed to Pan.

I may be permitted here once again to state what I have already observed for the understanding of this remarkable phenomenon, which is easily comprehensible from the nature of Pan as the god of shepherds and herds: it is an acknowledged fact that even completely tame animals, such as sheep and goats, are affected by the most violent disquiet and terror, which frequently come on very suddenly – primarily during the night – and generally without any objectively perceptible reason. The animals become completely senseless, and as if insane, rush to one spot, even if this is highly dangerous for them. For example, they may charge into a precipice or into deep water and thus some animals or even the whole herd can perish. In Valerius Flaccus (Argonautica, 3.43ff.), the panicky terror that was fatal for the Doliones is traced to nocturnal trumpet calls and shouts of terror. The description runs: “Men’s rest was broken; the god Pan had driven the doubting city distraught. Pan, lord of the woodlands and of war, whom caverns shelter from the daylight hours. About midnight in lonely places are seen that hairy flank and the roughing leafage in his fierce brow.” The description ends with the words, “Sport it is to the god when he ravishes the trembling flock from their pens, and the steers trample the thickets in their flight.” The Suda says: “The terrors of Pan – something that occurs in military encampments; horses and men are suddenly thrown into agitation for no apparent reason; so called because these groundless terrors are attributed to Pan.” Julius Fröbel writes on this panic of horses, dogs, etc.: “One of the most dangerous incidents that could happen on a journey is a night stampede, or to express myself in the classical manner, the effect of a panicky terror on a team of mules … The least misfortune to be feared is that one of the mule drivers will be trampled under foot by the team suddenly running away as if it were enraged. All the mules may be lost and the entire caravan perish” (Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung [1890], no. 190). Modern zoologists have observed that goats and sheep in particular are subject to this terror…

Just as frequently, visual phenomena bring on panicky terror in accordance with the ancient views. Compare Dionysius (Roman Antiquities, 5.16): “For the Romans attribute panics to this divinity; and whatever apparitions come to men’s sight, now in one shape and now in another, inspiring terror, or whatever supernatural voices come to their ears to disturb them, are the work, they say, of this god.” These supernatural voices are the “ghost sounds of nature” about which E. Thiessen has recently published a stimulating article. This is the so-called panicky terror of which the essential characteristic – as affirmed by the ancients – is the sudden unpredictable onset and the dangerous recklessness, heedless of all sense of reason, which attacks a number of individuals at the same time. Hence this is frequently called madness (mania, pavor lymphaticus). The Greek shepherds, naturally trying to explain the undoubtedly demonic character of this phenomenon (which, as has been said, frequently affected shepherd life) and to make it to some extent comprehensible, ascribed it to the destructive demonic action of Pan as the god of herds and shepherds. They were on their guard against arousing the anger of the god so that he might spare their herds from madness.

Thus Pan also becomes a god of war because he often sends panicky terror to large groups of people, particularly armies. This played a decisive part in ancient military history, as for example at Marathon and Delphi. The fact that the idea of panicky terror owes its origin primarily to the experiences and observations of shepherd life can also be seen in Aeneas Tacticus (Poliorcetica, 27), who states explicitly that paneia (“panic”) has to be considered a Peloponnesian or Arcadian name, because Arcadia and the Peloponnese were held to be the true seat and original home of the cult of Pan from time immemorial." [Pan and the Nightmare]

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"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*

Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:02 am

Hillman and Roscher wrote:: "For a deeper understanding of the close association between the two concepts of nightmare and panicky terror, I draw attention to 1) the epidemic nightmares already mentioned, which in their effects are fully on a par with panicky terror, and 2) the fact that elsewhere the demons inciting panicky terror are also identical with those of the nightmare. Thus, for example, a description of a stampede (i.e., the effect of panicky terror on the herds in the southwest of North America) says: “The herdsmen call this ‘the nightmare’ and attribute it to invisible powers, hobgoblins, or dwarfs who stupefy the cattle in this manner, frighten them, and drive them apart.” It was evidently taken for granted that animals as well as men were tormented in certain morbid states by terrifying dreams (nightmares) and hallucinations, which produced panicky terror. The most unequivocal evidence is found in the Suda: “Excitation through dreams: agitated by dreams, animals also fall ill, says Pythagoras;” and in Lucretius who says about the dreams of animals: “In truth you will see strong horses, when their limbs lie at rest, yet sweat in their sleep and go on panting and strain every nerve as though for victory.”

The pathological condition mentioned here is undoubtedly identical with the one known to German superstition and outright ascribed to nightmare demons. Let us compare, for example, Wuttke:

Even horses and other animals are tormented by nightmares; the animals sweat profusely and snort loudly and become completely disarranged and have knotted manes, which cannot be combed out and can only be burned out with blessed candles or excised by a cut in the shape of a cross. The Walriderske (Westphalian and Oldenburg name for nightmare demons) ride on them to their business.

I presume that this very widespread illness of horses was actually called “nightmares,” but for the present I cannot produce any definite proof for this designation. Snorting (dyspnea), sweating, and great unrest at night are also characteristic for nightmares afflicting humans, according to Soranus. It was indeed generally believed that horses and sheep suffered from almost the same illnesses as man. On this point see Aristotle: “Experience shows that almost all diseases affecting men also afflict horses and cattle.” The peculiar belief of the Huzuls that Kaindl tells us about certainly also belongs here:

At Christmas time these small devils (szczezlyki, chowanci) visit the stables and allow the cattle no peace. They ride and jump around on them so that the cattle die from exhaustion even during the night or become very emaciated; moreover, these devils break all the stable equipment to pieces. In order to prevent this, the stables must be fumigated with incense (ladan) in the evening and the locks of the doors bound with garlic, which keeps away all evil.

Very reminiscent of this is the story of the Leetons – the nightmare demons of the Latvians – where the horses are said to be ridden by the Maar or Leeton, as they are called, at night so that the horses become very feeble and tired; and they point out marks on some horses which are believed to have come from such riders. They put the head of a dead horse under the forage in the manger, because … this will chase off the Maars.

The Romans ascribed a similar illness to a wicked nightmare demon whom they called Faunus ficarius. The signs of this illness were emaciation, violent unrest at night, and agonizing pains. The Greeks knew the same type of demon who made horses timid and restless and called him Taraxippus. This demon was venerated in the hippodromes in Olympia, on the Isthmus, and at Nemea. As a rule he was considered a hero, i.e., an ill-natured spirit of the dead, but other interpretations took him to be, for example, the giant Ischenus, other giants and titans, and even Poseidon. The question about the nature of Taraxippus entered a new stage through the interesting essay by Pernice on an old Corinthian picture that shows a dwarflike, beardless, and definitely erotic demon who stands behind the rider at the base of the horse's tail and clasps his very prominent phallus with both hands. (An “apelike squatting” teasing spook is said to be found on a vase from Tragliatella, but this was not accessible to me.) He is almost certainly a Taraxippus. We see a demon of similar build on another ancient Corinthian slab in which he stands in front of a potter’s oven. Considering the erotic character of this demon, various completions are possible; most of them would translate as libidinous, wanton; rake and perversion are also possible. Pernice has interpreted this as one of the malicious kobolds who, according to the Homeric pottery blessing (kaminos he kerameis), create mischief in the potter’s oven by wrecking the vessels. Robert [95] already considered these oven kobolds to be a type of satyr. This could be correct, although all the characteristics borrowed from the goat or horse are absent in the demon portrayed on the Corinthian slab. As Furtwängler first recognized, grotesque dancers with conspicuously enormous bellies and pelvis and often a huge penis appear in ancient Corinthian ceramics in place of the here completely unknown satyrs and silenes, who are very like the Taraxippus and this oven kobold. We may, moreover, take this opportunity to recollect that in Sophocles’s satyr play Heracles at Taenarum helots take the place of the satyr. In the Corinthian satyrlike potbellies one automatically thinks of Hesiod’s [96] coarse characterization of the uneducated, uncouth shepherd: “Shepherds sleeping in the open, consisting of stomachs only, dastardly scoundrels.”

Nevertheless we may take it for granted that there was an inner relationship between these two demons based on the common connection to the erotic nightmare and to panicky terrors, i.e., the shying of animals.

In closest association with these views of Pan as a nightmare demon and exciter of panicky terrors as well as certain veterinary diseases is the fact that he was also considered to be the originator of epilepsy and mental illness. Definitive evidence for the ancient beliefs on Pan’s relation to epilepsy is found in the Medea of Euripides where it says of the onset of Creusa’s disease (caused by the poisoned garment of Medea) that to begin with the illness gave the impression of an epileptic attack brought about by Pan, in so far as the sudden rigors, the falling on the ground, and the pallor are the three main signs of epilepsy. The ancient scholiast already summed up the position when he remarked of the words “That frenzy was of Pan or some god sent” that “men assumed from time immemorial that those who suddenly fell (the epileptics) were deranged by Pan or Hecate.”

Recognizing the inner connection between such epileptic attacks and panicky terror and the sudden mental disturbances arising from it, he adds further: “The reason for sudden frights and mental disturbances they ascribe to Pan.” Modern medicine also holds that a sudden violent terror frequently produces spasmodic forms of epilepsy, St. Vitus’s dance, asthma, and indeed even mental disturbance. Abortion following a sudden shock also belongs in this context. This gave rise to the theory that the demons of panicky terror are dangerous to pregnant and puerperal women and that they cause the feared puerperal fever with its attendant delirium. Aretaeus of Cappadocia has observed with remarkable accuracy that many epileptics imagine directly before the attack that they are being persecuted by a horrible wild animal or a ghost and have all kinds of evil and strange dreams as well as peculiar aural hallucinations that remind us of the visual and acoustic phenomena of Pan’s anger in Longus. It is interesting that Hippocrates does not mention Pan among the demons to whom popular belief ascribed the origin of epilepsy (Cybele, Poseidon, Enoida [=Hecate], Apollon Nomios [?], Ares, the Heroes). The reason is probably that in the time of Hippocrates the cult of the ancient Arcadian shepherd god had not yet extended to the island of Cos and the coast of Asia Minor.

Pan, as author of severe and sometimes fatal epileptic attacks, which occasionally were not convulsive and could then give the impression of death, could eventually become a vicious death demon, as is shown by an incantatory tablet found in a grave near Constantine. These tablets were inscribed with a curse and buried in a grave to establish contact with the Underworld. The inscription says: “He (the one to be cursed) shall be carried away, so that you (the death demon) shall make him devoid of feeling, memory, breath, that he shall become a shadow of himself.” The rest is illegible. The demon portrayed on the tablet is described by Wunsch as follows: “In the ancient times the demon who was invoked had the split hairy hoofs of a he-goat and was armed with two slings and a hook.” Loss of feeling, consciousness, memory, speech, and withholding of the breath are familiar symptoms of epilepsy, and it is therefore my conjecture that it is not improbable to consider Pan, in the form of the goat-footed demon, as the originator of nightmares and epileptic fits. In conclusion we may once again recollect the view of Soranus that the nightmare is incipient epilepsy. This claim, as we have just seen, now appears to be quite natural and also comprehensible from the viewpoint of ancient popular belief.

Thus Pan finally developed into being an originator of mental disturbance (mania). (Incidentally, I would like to draw attention to how closely related the two concepts of mania and epilepsy are.) As such Pan appears in the writings of Euripides, who in Hippolytus makes the chorus say to the lovefrenzied Phaedra:

"Maiden, thou must be possessed, by Pan made frantic or by Hecate, or by the Corybantes dread, and Cybele the mountain mother."

The scholiast adds: “Enthusiasts are those whose reason has been robbed by an apparition and who are possessed by the god who has appeared to them and executed his orders.” This observation of the ancient commentator is psychologically quite correct in so far as hallucinations, visions, and illusions are in fact the surest sign of mental illness and first appear in the dreams of the insane; this fact is in complete harmony with the observation made in ancient times that heavy dreams – and nightmares in particular – precede the onset of epilepsy and insanity. Thus it can be easily understood how Pan, the agent of nightmares, visions, hallucinations, and epileptic attacks had to become the originator of mental diseases. Two further facts contributed to this: the first is the experience of a sudden violent fright, as the phasmata of Pan usually cause, frequently producing not merely epileptic fits but severe mental disturbances as well; the second is the panicky terror of animals and men, interpreted as mania or fits of rage and therefore attributed to the demons who elsewhere, too, induced madness or insanity according to the ancient point of view.

There is the story of Pausanias (10.23.7) about the panicky terror that befell the Gauls under Brennus at Delphi in the year 278 BCE, which was actually called mania. In order to justify further the equal position of panicky terror and insanity in the classical period, I should like to draw attention to the relative frequency of epidemic nightmares and insanity, i.e., that a large number of individuals succumb at the same time, which again resembles panicky terror. In the following passage we learn of such an instance of epidemic insanity in the form of cynanthropy or pycanthropy traced back to Pan, where it says of Pan and Echo: “Pan is enraged with the girl because he envies her music and because he is ugly. He cements the shepherds and goat herdsmen. They tear the girl apart like wolves or dogs and throw her limbs in all directions. The limbs however go on singing.” There is also further evidence of Pan being the inciter of insanity elsewhere." [Pan and the Nightmare]

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"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

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Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:03 am

Hillmand Roscher wrote:: "Of the modern Greek words for the nightmare, mora is by far the most widely used. It seems to have taken its origin from the Slavic because the nightmare is called mora in Polish and mura in Bohemian. Grimm has connected it with the German mar (Anglo-Saxon moere, English “nightmare,” French cauchemar(e) from – “trample upon,” “squeeze” – and mar meaning nightmare).

The name Inuus stands out clearly as the oldest of all the Latin appellations of the nightmare. It first occurs in Virgil (Aeneid, 6.775), but seems to be used here in the sense of the camp of Inuus. Its antiquity is also emphasized by Rutilius Namatianus. The ancients identified Inuus with Faunus (Pan) and liked to derive the name from inire in the sense of concumbere (“to lie together”). This seems hardly plausible on phonetic grounds because in this instance we should expect an earlier form in-i-vus. It seems much more probable that Inuus is no more than a word form that has arisen from the preposition “in” (“on,” “upon,” “to,” “toward'') by means of appending the suffix -vus, which after n had to change to -uus (compare in-gen-uus). One has to take for granted that this word form was employed for the nightmare demons in the very apt sense of “someone squatting or sitting on another,” obviously in an erotic sense.

Closely related to Inuus in concept are the two terms In-cub-o and In-cub-us, which apparently classify the demon as the “sitter-on,” i.e., a demonic being lying on the sleeper and being a burden. It should be noted at this point that cubare, cubitare, concumbere, concubinus, concubitus, etc., were used primarily for sexual intercourse and that therefore incubo and incubus sometimes have a decidedly erotic secondary meaning. The use of incubus and succubus in the sense of “paramour devil” is known in the Middle Ages. Generally speaking incubus(-o) and inuus stand for an epithet of Faunus (Pan) or of Silvanus identified with Pan (faunus); on the other hand, incubus is also found as an appellative of Hercules in his role as the guardian of treasures and even appears once to have been thought of as a demon completely different from Faunus (Pan, Silvanus), who reveals or betrays treasures to the sleeper – just like the Greek Ephialtes – if the sleeper is able to rob him of his head covering. When incubo is used in the meaning of a guardian of treasures, it is well to note that incubare is often used of zealous watching, guarding money, or treasures, etc.

Since the first century CE, the term fauni (fatui) ficarii is repeatedly found for nightmare demons, as for example Cornelius Celsius in Pelagonius: “The horses are frequently disturbed at night by faunus ficarius; they are then afflicted by the most horrible pains and the restlessness often causes emaciation.” Hieronymus in Esai writes: “Certain people call those whom many call fauni ficarii either incubi or satyres or silvestres (wood spirits).” According to Jordanis (who drew on Cassidor), the race of Huns originated from an intermixture of such fauni ficarii with witch-like women; and in old glossaries the Indo-Germanic word vudevasan is explained with satyrs and fauni ficarii. (Grimm says that the nightmare demons, fairies, and witches appear as butterflies and especially as moths whose caterpillars naturally live on or near trees.) Du Cange correctly relates the adjective ficarius to fig trees in his glossary, while Bochart thinks of ficus in the sense of fig warts (the Greek suke), i.e., the small swellings on the necks of goats and satyrs (pherea, verrucu/ae) which commonly appear in imagery. Du Cange’s view seems to be supported by Sicilian folk songs and Greek superstition, where even today fig trees are reputed to be the seats of evil spirits. Perhaps the indecent meaning of fig (sukon, Italian fica, French figue) is in context here. Compare also the Greek sukazein (“to gather ripe figs”).

That in fact nightmare demons are to be understood in the term pilosi follows not just from: “Fauni, however, are those whom the people call incubi or pilosi and who give answers when consulted by the pagans,” but also from Isidore of Seville (The Etymologies, 8.11.103): “Pilosi (”the hairy ones”) whom the Greeks call panitae, the Latins incubi or inui from indiscriminately copulating with animals, often indeed spring forth shamelessly; also to the women, and have intercourse with them. These demons the Gauls call by the name dusii, since they incessantly perform such filthiness.” In addition, the old Bohemian glosses of Wacerad says:

“The moruzzi pilosi, whom the Greeks call panitae, the Latins incubi, whose form is derived from the human but ends in the extremities of beasts.” We may recollect here that in Polish and modern Greek, mora signifies the nightmare demon. As regards the pilosi, the fact that the fauns or pilosi answer questions put to them shows that they are genuine nightmare demons. Obviously, the term pilosi specifies the nightmare demon as a rough-haired, shaggy being. This representation, as we have already seen, is quite simply explained by the rough-haired bedclothes made out of sheep and goat hides or wool. If these bedclothes impede the respiratory orifices of the sleeper, they will necessarily give rise to the concept of a rough-haired, goatlike nightmare demon. Thus we understand at the same time why the goat-shaped Pans, satyrs, and fauns necessarily came to be considered as nightmare demons: because in those days goatskins or sheep skins or cloaks made of goats’ hair and sheep’s wool were used to protect the sleepers from cold and inclement weather.

Finally there remain the Gallic dusii. These were first mentioned by Augustinus and were characterized as nightmare demons lying in wait for women. Since almost all the evidence for these has already been carefully assembled by Alfred Holder (Altceltischer Sprachschatz, I: 1387ff.), I can justifiably dispense with reproducing it here. The dusii were thought to live in woods and on hills like the Pans, fauns, and sylphs. Dusius has now become “deuce.” The word dus-ii is probably connected with the Greek dus-, Sanskrit dus-, Parsee dush-i-ti (“misery”), old Irish du-, and denotes the nightmare demons as wicked spirits." [Pan and the Nightmare]

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"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

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Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:05 am

Hillman and Roscher wrote:: "I shall conclude this consideration of Pan-Ephialtes with its expressed objective of specifying as completely as possible the reasons why the ancient Arcadian shepherd god became a nightmare demon – by alluding to the erotic impulse attributed to him at all times and especially in innumerable sculptures. One should remember his roughhaired, he-goat image, which he shares with other nightmare demons, because, as we have seen, the usual bedding in ancient times was the skin of a goat or cloth made of goat's hair, which by its very nature must have conjured up the appearance of goatlike nightmare demons in the person afflicted with the nightmare. We may think of the appearance of the he-goat to Sinonis, the satyr in Philostratus, appearing as a nightmare demon – probably also in semi-goat form – and finally we may remember the Germanic Bocksmahrte (lit. “he-goat nightmare”), the Hafergeiss (lit. “oat-goat,” presumably from the erotic connotation of oats; cf. the English “to sow wild oats”), and lastly the he-goat as the mount of the Murawa and Trude.

The satyrs sometimes appear as nightmare demons in absolutely genuine erotic nightmares. This is easily understandable because in this respect as in many other ways the satyrs are closely related to Pan whose image they represent, distorted into the vulgar, comical, burlesque, and mischievous. The satyrs also originated in Argos. Like Pan, they are goatshaped demons; their relation to him is virtually the same as that of the little Pans who – as is evident from Wernicke’s collection of illustrations on vases – are visually completely identical with the satyrs and are constantly mistaken for them in modern descriptions. The word he-goat is equally suitable for both of them. The position is similar with the so-called “horned satyrs” who frequently cannot be differentiated from the human-legged Pan. They have the partial or complete shape of a goat in common with Pan, as is evident from their permanent designation he-goat or titiros (actually a long-tailed monkey) and from their representation on ancient Attic vases with red figures, which have been excellently dealt with by Wernicke (Hermes XXXII, 297ff.). Furthermore, they are shaggy and possess an irresistible erotic impulse. These characteristics are all common to other nightmare demons, too. Compare also the satyr Lasios of the Munich drinking bowl, and the names of satyrs found on vases: Peos (“phallos”), Sybas (“sybarite”), Stygon (“erector”), Poston (“little tail”), Eraton (“lecher”). In other respects, however, they closely resemble the kobolds of the Germans and other northern races, who also frequently appear as nightmare demons. Here belongs their pronounced propensity to all kinds of practical jokes and pranks which they would even play against the mighty Hercules. Moreover, there is their passion for stealing, plundering, and deceiving, just like the wicked kobolds are wont to do. The cercops are very similar in their nature. They are also incapable of any work; they are plunderers and thieves. Their lasciviousness is probably expressed in their very name (kerkos = phallus).

How old and widespread was the belief in Faunus as a sender of prophetic dreams appears evident from the incubation rites described by Virgil about an oracle of Faunus in a sacred grove that surrounded the source of the Tiburtine sybil Albunea. Likewise in Ovid these rites had to be observed if a revelation in a dream was desired from Faunus: First of all, sheep had to be sacrificed and then the pilgrims had to lie down to sleep on the skins of the slaughtered animals in the grove sacred to Faunus. In addition, a coronation with beech leaves, chastity, abstinence, and the removal of finger rings were necessary. In most primitive races a frugal diet or fasting is the chief means for securing visions and prophetic dreams, as is evident from the excellent observations of Tylor. This ritual, as Preller rightly notes, gives the impression of being very ancient indeed and agrees strikingly with the Greek customs of incubation.

Faunus – just as Pan – displays himself in optical and acoustic phenomena of all kinds, which for the most part produce horror. The main passage on this point is found in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and runs: “For the Romans attribute panics to this divinity; and whatever apparitions come to men’s sight, now in one shape and now in another, inspiring terror, or whatever supernatural voices come to their ears to disturb them, are the work, they say, of this god.”

The characterization of Picus and Faunus given by Plutarch (Numa, 15) in connection with the familiar ancient Roman legend where Numa overpowers these two demons, says that, as genuine nightmare demons, “they renounce their own nature by taking up various forms and shapes and conjure up terrifying visions before men's eyes. They predict much of the future and inform men about it,” particularly when they are sodden with wine and held fast. Similarly, Ovid says of the dream god Icelos or Phobetor: “[He] takes the form of beast or bird or the long serpent. Him the gods call Icelus, but mortals name him Phobetor.” Compare also Ludwig Laistner’s Riddle of the Sphinx, vol. 1: 62ff., 87ff., 92f., and vol. 2: 4f., on the metamorphoses of nightmare demons. Other nightmare demons can also be induced to prophesy and impart useful instruction or perform useful services if they are intoxicated with wine or are seized and held fast. That these concepts of Faunus are not borrowed from the cult and myth of the Greek Pan, but are of genuine Italian origin is primarily guaranteed by the very old historic legend of the battle in the wood Arsia where either Faunus or Silvanus –like to him in nature and therefore identified with him – inspired the enemy with panicky terror by nightly acoustic phenomena and thus decided the issue in favor of the Romans. The belief of the Roman people in the acoustic and visual phenomena of Faunus was indeed so deep-rooted that one could even venture to explain the name of the god on this basis: According to Servius, Faunus was to be derived from the Greek phone = “utterance,” while Hesychius interprets the name from phainon anion = “the one who shows himself.” Other sources attribute the same significance to the visual as to the acoustic phenomena of Faunus. We have already seen that attempts were made to derive Pan from phainein = “show” on the same grounds. Certain equine illnesses with emaciation and nocturnal unrest for symptoms were also attributed to Fatuus ficarius, i.e., Faunus, as a nightmare demon.

The following prayer of Horace directed to him shows that he was generally thought of as both sender of and protector against animal diseases, in particular those of young sheep and kids:

"Across my farm in sunshine bright
Come gently, and retire from sight
Kind to my cattle's young."

Porphyrion explains here: “He invokes Faunus who is said to be a low and pestilential god.” Compare also Acron on this passage: “the young calves, which the Fauns are said to harm most” and Servius: “Horace represents Faunus as injurious, saying: “Come gently.’ ”
There is no direct tradition that Faunus was like Pan held to be the producer of insanity, but this is not improbable when we consider that the mantle ecstasy or divination inspiration was at all times interpreted as “frenzy” (furoris divinalis), just as prophecy through dreams was always connected with Faunus (Faluus) and his wife Fauna (Faina). Faunus therefore received the appellatives fatidicus, Fatuclus, and Faluus (“prophet”); and the oldest sayings and prophesies of the inhabitants of Italy in the saturnal or “faunish” scansion were attributed to him. I have perceived in this a definite parallel to Pan, who dispensed oracles “from time immemorial” and whose prophetess is said to have been the nymph Erato, the wife of Arcas. A collection of prophecies comparable to those of the sibyls circulated under her name even as late as Pausanias that Dionysius Periegetes claimed to have read himself.

We cannot prove definitely that Faunus, even before being equated with Pan, was represented as a mixture of goat and man (that is, with a goat's horns and legs) like Pan, but it is certain that his ancient Roman “wolf priests”, the Luperci, were called “creppi,” i.e., he-goats, because they were clothed only in goat skins, and that Faunus himself was represented pictorially in this attire, which reminds one of that of the satyrs who were equally called he-goats. The sacrifice of male and female goats which was customary in the cults of both Pan and of Faunus is of course closely associated.

Again, like Pan and Faunus, Silvanus was held to be an originator of panicky terror, particularly through acoustic phenomena; hence the terror-awakening call in the battle in the Arsian wood was sometimes ascribed to Silvanus and sometimes to Faunus. Varro (as quoted by Augustine) suggests the belief that Silvanus also brought about the terrifying visions and dangerous deliria of puerperal fever when he says: “Post-parturient women are watched over by three gods so that Silvanus should not break in at night and vex them. In order to signify these guardians, three men patrol the threshold at night and first hit the threshold with an axe followed by a pestle and finally sweep the threshold with a broom. These signs show that the house is occupied and should prevent Silvanus from entering. For neither can trees be felled and cut without iron, nor can corn be prepared without a pestle, nor can the harvest be heaped up without the broom. From these three things the gods derive their names: Intercidona from the fall of the axe, Pilumnus from the pestle (pilus), and Deverra from the broom. The powers of these three gods guard the post-parturient woman from the god Silvanus.” Augustine adds further: “Therefore the watch of the just would not prevail against the wrath of the malicious god if there were not several against one to repulse him, who is rough, uncultivated, and repugnant, as from the woods, with the signs of cultivation which are opposed to his nature.” (Possibly the “certain illnesses” of the moonstruck [somnambulists] in Macrobius [120] partly relate to puerperal fevers, inparticular where fatal illnesses are concerned. The belief that post-parturient women were especially endangered by wicked demons and must be protected against them is very widespread indeed.) It was obviously taken for granted that the same demon who importuned women in nightmares also appeared to them in the deliria of puerperal fever and could become dangerous. The same is true of the goat-shaped koutsodaimonas of the modern Greeks, who most probably corresponds to the ancient Greek Pan. He has “a very long chin with a beard (goat’s beard), his eyes are embedded in wiry hair, and he has the voice of a goat. He not only assaults young girls, but is also dangerous to post-parturient and pregnant women because he butts their abdomens with his horns”.

Not only the post-parturient women but also the newborn infants were believed to be in danger from Silvanus, as is evident from a fragment of Varro: “If the child is born alive and has been picked up by the midwife, it is laid on the ground to ensure favorable auspices; an offering is prepared in the house for Pilumnus and Picumnus, the gods of matrimony.” Servius comments on Virgil, Aeneid 10, 76: “Varro attests that Pilumnus and Picumnus are the gods of newborn infants and that an offering is prepared for them in the atrium on behalf of the post-parturient woman to enquire whether the newborn baby is fit to survive.” We see here that Pilumnus and Picumnus had to protect not only the mother but her newborn infant as well. There would also seem to have been a belief that Silvanus abducted and exchanged children (changelings), which is supported by the superstition still current in the South Tyrolean Fassa Valley that the Salvegn (= Silvani) frequently exchange children. As a final point it is worth noting that Silvanus also corresponds to Pan and Faunus in that he, too, sometimes takes on the form of a he-goat, receives goats as sacrifical victims, and is roughhaired and shaggy; all these characteristics have contributed to no small degree to his development into a nightmare demon.

The old Indian nightmare demons, the Gandharves and Rakshas, show a remarkable similarity to Pan, Faunus, Silvanus, and the satyrs. Covered in hides and skins, they dance and rage in the woods in the evening, they avoid the daylight; they skip around the houses, braying like a donkey.Taking on the shape of a brother or father, or muffled up, or in hideous deformity, they appear hunchbacked and humped, flabby bellied with excessive torso, black hair, bristly, unkempt, and with the stench of a goat. The most effective antidote against them is a yellow, strong-smelling herb – Baja or Pinga or Ayacringi (goatshorn) – which plays the same part as the peonies in Greek and Roman superstition. They lie in wait for sleeping women, at the wedding procession, at the first nuptials, and just after childbirth; they haunt the women as licentious, permanently excited sex spirits with large testicles, and they enjoy killing newborn infants. They abide in darkly shaded places (cf. Silvanus) and they are capable of driving women into a frenzy. They are rough-haired and hence compared with monkeys and dogs. Their female counterparts are the Apsaras, who are comparable to the elves, nymphs, and sirens and are almost the same as the Gandharves." [Pan and the Nightmare]

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"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*

Subject: Re: Pan in Arkadia Sun Sep 25, 2022 8:17 am

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