Pan, Christ & the Green Man: Our Lost Connections to Faeries and a Holy World with Michael Martin
Did the Great God Pan really die—or has he just been forgotten?
Pan: a myth, a god, a devil—or something wilder? I asked Michael Martin about the mystery of Pan, his misunderstood role in history, and his strange connection to Christ.
From ancient myths to modern encounters, we track the lingering presence of the Green Man, fairies, and nature spirits in our world.
What do mystical traditions and lost folklore reveal? With stops at the Findhorn community, literary references, and firsthand experiences, this conversation unpacks the thin veil between myth and reality—and why paying attention to the land might be the key to seeing a lot more than we expect.
ABOUT MICHAEL MARTIN
Michael Martin, Ph.D. is a philosopher, poet, musician, songwriter, editor, and biodynamic farmer. He spent sixteen years as a Waldorf teacher and Master Teacher, and taught at the university and college level for over seventeen years. He began biodynamic farming in 1990 and currently raises dairy goats, bees, and other animals while managing a market garden with his wife and some of his nine children. His poetry and scholarship have appeared in many journals and he is the editor of Jesus the Imagination: A Journal of Spiritual Revolution.
Follow on Substack:
Sophia in Exile | The Secret Commonwealth | Encounters with Nature Spirits by R. Ogilvy Crombie | Nature Spirits & Elemental Beings | Pan Worship & Other Poems by Eleanor Farjeon | The Fairy Census | Rudolf Steiner on the Plant World & Elemental Nature Spirits
Can’t wait to listen! Well yes I can, because the sun is out and I need to walk the beach first. I don’t know if you mention the work of R. Ogilvie Crombie and his encounters with Pan and elementals. Two amazing excerpts:
“…the nature spirits were choosing to communicate with me. Here was a step towards the reconciliation of Pan and the world of the nature spirits with humanity.
Because I had been able to respond to him without fear, Pan could communicate with me and use me as a mediator between humanity and nature. This does not make me important in myself—I am simply a channel for his work.
Vital to this reconciliation is the recognition of Pan's true nature. He is a great being, the god of the whole elemental kingdom as well as of the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. People may feel uneasy in his presence because of the awe he inspires, but there ought to be no fear.
'All human beings are afraid of me," he had said at our first meeting, not as a threat but with sadness. 'Did the early Christian church not take me as a model for the devil?' That is why Pan is feared-because of the image projected onto him. This stigma must be lifted in order to re-establish the true link between humanity and nature.
Pan has said to me he would prefer not to be represented in any material form at all. Yet, if he must be, he insists on being accepted, in our culture, as the Greek…..”
“The next significant meeting was early in May on Iona in the Hermit’s Cell, which is a ring of stones, all that is left of the cell where Columba used to go in retreat. It is about half way across the island almost on a level with the Abbey. I was there with two friends (Peter and Kathy). I was standing in the centre of the ring facing in the direction of the Abbey which was hidden from sight by rising ground. In front of me was a grassy slope and I became aware of a large figure lying in the ground – right in the ground. I could see him through the grass. It was a monk in a brown habit with the hood pulled over the head so that I could not see the features. His feet were towards me.
As I watched he raised his hands and rolled back the hood. It was Pan. He rose up out of the ground and stood facing me, an immense figure at least twenty-five feet tall. As he did so, the habit fell away. He was smiling and he said:
“I am a servant of Almighty God and I and my subjects are willing to come to the aid of mankind in spite of the way he has treated us and abused nature, if he affirms belief in us and asks for our help.”
I knew then that this was the beginning of a reconciliation between Pan, the Nature Spirits and man.”
Pagan Christs--J.M. Robertson (1911)
https://sacred-texts.com/bib/cv/pch/index.htm