Sharon L Coggan, Clinical Associate Professor (C/T) and Director of the Religious Studies program, will soon publish her new book, Sacred Disobedience: A Jungian Analysis of the Saga of Pan and the Devil traces the ancient Greek God Pan. This book follows a Jungian analysis of how Pan became distorted into the image of the Devil in early Christianity. When Pan was demonized, the powerful qualities he represented became repressed, as Pan's visage twisted into the model of the Devil. In ancient Greek religion, Pan was worshiped 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.
University of Colorado Denver