Sacred Disobedience: A Jungian Analysis of the Saga of Pan and the Devil

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Sacred Disobedience: A Jungian Analysis of the Saga of Pan and the Devil traces the ancient Greek God Pan, who became distorted into the image of the Devil in early Christianity. When Pan was demonized, the powerful qualities he represented became repressed, as Pans visage twisted into the model of the Devil. This book follows a Jungian analysis of this development. In ancient Greek religion, Pan was worshipped as an honored deity, corresponding to an inner psycho-spiritual condition in which the primitive qualities he represented were fully integrated into consciousness, and these qualities were valued and affirmed as holy. But in the era of early Christianity Pan dies, and the Devil is born, a twisted inflation, possibly due to an underlying repression. In the Jungian system, repressed psychic contents do not disappear, as proponents of the new order tacitly assume, but distort and grow more powerful, or inflate, to cripple the psyche that refuses to incorporate these split-off elements. Repressed contents will expand to explosive force as the repressed elements eventually return regressively from below. It becomes important then, to understand what qualities the primitive Goat God carried, to appreciate what was repressed in the Western psycho-spiritual system, and what subsequently needs reintegration.

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Sacred Disobedience is just the right title for this substantive book. Sharon L. Coggan calls for differentiation of the Pan archetypethe love for and joy in nature and of nature in us as our bodyfrom the contaminating overlay of the Devil. Recognizing that Pan is at once 'benevolent protector and savage predator,' and using Jung's emphasis on our conscious relation to such intensity of power rather than identification with it or repudiation of it, Coggan argues for the inclusion of Pan energies in ourselves and in society. We may thereby embrace the sacred in our material world. Her extensive research includes varied areasAxial cultures, Platonism, Stoicism, the Grail, exorcism, Elvis, jazz, disobedience, the Council of Elvira. Her extensive footnotes offer the reader even more resources. A generous and passionate offering. -- Ann Belford Ulanov, author of The Psychoid, Soul and Psyche: Piercing Space/Time Barriers

Author Bio

Sharon L. Coggan is associate professor, Clinical Teaching Track at the University of Colorado Denver and serves as Director of the Religious Studies Program, which she created.