Pan oil

Our word “panic” comes from Pan: the sudden, groundless terror that could sweep through a herd or an army was blamed on the god of the wilds.

Origin & Traditional Use

Pan was the god of shepherds, flocks, mountain pasture and the wild, born in Arcadia in the Greek Peloponnese and shown with the legs and horns of a goat. He was worshipped in caves and open country rather than great temples, with offerings of milk, honey and young animals. This oil is a modern blend used to honour him and to call up his earthy, unashamed energy.

Uses by Tradition

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Dress a red or green candle with the oil and burn it outdoors or by an open window for lust and vitality.
• Anoint yourself before a ritual held in woodland or open country to honour the spirits of the place.
• Add a drop to a pan pipe, a horn or a pine cone kept on an altar to him.

Ceremonial & Occult Magick

• Anoint the forehead and heart before reciting an invocation such as Aleister Crowley’s “Hymn to Pan”.
• Dress a candle at the start of Beltane or other fertility rites in which Pan is honoured as the horned god of nature.

A Simple Working

• Go outdoors at dusk with a red chime candle, a small cup of milk and the oil.
• Dress the candle with the oil from base to wick to draw desire toward you.
• Stand it in the earth and light it.
• Pour the milk on the ground as an offering to Pan.
• Say aloud what you want to feel or draw in your body and your life.
• Let the candle burn out and bury the stub where it stood.

Pairs Well With

• A red chime candle: for lust and vitality.
• Milk: an old offering to the shepherd god.
• Pine cones: for an outdoor altar to him.
• Patchouli oil: for earthy attraction work alongside his.

Lore & History

According to Plutarch, a sailor named Thamus was ordered by a voice from the shore to announce that “Great Pan is dead”, a story later read as marking the end of the pagan gods. Pan was revived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by poets and occultists as a figure of nature and liberation, and Crowley’s “Hymn to Pan” was published in 1919.

What You Receive

Pan oil, available in 2 dram, 1 oz and 16 oz.