The rise of Pan in the fiction of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries is often linked to fin de siècle sexual anxieties. While such readings certainly capture the sexual panic associated with the Greek god, they often neglect the broader context of nature and Pan’s role in protecting it. In this paper, I will consider the use of Pan in early twentieth-century literature as an example of eco-occultism, whereby the supernatural is evoked as a means of defending the environment and the natural state. In texts such as Algernon Blackwood’s “The Touch of Pan” (1917) and Lord Dunsany’s The Blessing of Pan (1928), the worship of Pan and Pan himself are emblematic of a conflict between the natural and the artificial, the ancient and the modern. As a symbol of the environment itself, Pan serves as a reminder of nature’s power and the inability for man or systems, such as religion, to conquer it. Both texts address the separation of culture from nature, and it is only through the use of the occult that the physical and spiritual body can return to harmony with nature. Here the panic caused by Pan is not exclusively external, but is also internal, indicating the disconnection between man and nature. In the texts, the process of restoring nature is ritualistic and linguistic: the pagan ceremony of worshiping Pan serves to reestablish the environmental language that empowers nature and connects the human (heart) with the natural (wood)-—a stark contrast to the rising technology, particular in the context of WWI. In reinstating Pan as defender of the environment and emphasizing the need for spiritual, physical, culture, and environmental renewal, these texts demonstrate an ecological function within occult studies, one that aligns the natural with the supernatural.
About the presenterAmanda Mordavsky Caleb
Amanda Mordavsky Caleb is an Assistant Professor of English at Misericordia University, specializing in nineteenth-century literature, science, and medicine. She has published several articles on Arthur Machen, H.G. Wells, and Wilkie Collins, and edited (Re)creating Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007) and Teleny (Valancourt, 2010). She is working on another monograph, Londonphobias, which considers the rise of city-specific phobias in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain.