Ryan Maher – Madness, Wildness, and Pan’s Return
April 9, 2025 at 02:27AM
It’s been roughly 2 millennia since the death of the great god Pan – the only god in the Greek pantheon to die. Pan’s death heralded the demise of a polytheistic consciousness rooted in the anima mundi and marked the ascension of a monotheistic, patriarchal order that considered the earth as separate from the sacred. The implications of this shift are coming into alarming focus as we reach global tipping points in the life-sustaining balance of the earth’s ecological systems. In this time of great uncertainty, our individual and collective psyches are under immense pressure, resulting in pervasive anxiety and sometimes panic – areas that fall within Pan’s domain. Through exploring the themes of madness and wildness within Pan’s mythology, we discern deeply embedded self-regulatory patterns emergent in constellated experiences of fear and desire. Pan, god of the periphery and a symbol for untamed wilderness, can help us understand our responses to existential threats and integrate a different consciousness that moves us toward a greater relatedness to each other, our own nature, and the earth.
Ryan J. Maher, MA, LMHC, is a psychotherapist, writer, and presenter. He is a graduate of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology where he studied clinical counseling with a focus on trauma. His interests include dreamwork, liminality, and depth/relational approaches to psychotherapy. He has appeared on the Myth Salon and the podcast Jung in the World. In 2018, he completed a certificate program in Jungian Psychotherapy through the Jung Institute of Chicago where he is an affiliate member. Ryan is also a member of the National Board of Certified Counselors, The Breath Network, and the Jungian Psychotherapists Association.
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