An Encounter With the Great God Pan Among the Stars

This was my introduction to the supernatural, on February 6th, 2011, Province of Québec:

After a six-hour long near-death experience, I was very slowly emerging from something similar to a coma, brief moments of consciousness here and there, but I didn’t remember any of it, and I apparently never said anything. My mother told me that the first time she came to visit me at the hospital, not long after surgery when I was still practically comatose, she clearly heard her sister’s voice in the room with us. My aunt was telling her “I’m so sorry, I was so selfish, I’m so sorry…” over and over again. That freaked my mother the hell out, so much so that she was still very deeply disturbed even a year afterwards.

I naturally DIDN’T tell her about my whole experience on the other side. The very beginning of my NDE was literally falling into darkness, until there was nothing but… “negative existence”. Then there were stars, and more stars, until I was able to see what was perfectly rendered in the picture I made (I felt like a spec of dust floating in space compared to HIM). I entered a state of indescribable communion with the *Great God Pan*, in his highest cosmic form, looking as if he was made of all of the stars and galaxies in the Universe. I was raised Christian, but I never possessed the Faith. All I knew of Pan was the Classical notion of the god of shepherds playing the pan pipes.

When I was finally there, in front of HIM, at the edge separating existence and negative existence, there was no need for words, I KNEW, there was… some sort of spiritual osmosis? Pan looked at me from the corner of his eye and smiled upon me knowingly, and I then fell into his endlessly spiralling ram’s horns, literally made of the fabric of the cosmos, and ended up walking down a spiral staircase made of black stone. Not a proper staircase really, simply steps made of probably onyx, floating above oblivion. After quite some time walking down the onyx steps, I found my aunt completely listless on the stairs (she had tragically put an end to her own life five years earlier), and she said “I’m more lost than ever, this is the Abyss, I’m more lost than ever”. Without thinking, I took her hand and replied “You’re not lost anymore, I’ve found you.” She looked up, her eyes full of life again, and that was it, next thing I remember was waking up at the hospital days later.

About a month later, I was at the public library (reading up as much as possible about Pan, mythology, occultism, near-death experiences… trying to get the big picture by comparing my experience to others), when I noticed a tall, young, beautiful woman looking at me, smiling. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember who she was. It suddenly hit me that she obviously was my aunt, looking as she did in my childhood, when she was in her twenties. When I turned around, she literally disappeared. I rationalized it as an unintentional “Orpheus travelling to the Underworld to rescue the soul of a loved one” sort of journey. In this day and age, for heaven’s sake. I haven’t seen her since. And my life now, from waking to sleep, is devoted to the mysteries of Pan.

I’ve found purpose in my life, and I feel the deep-seated need to be “evangelical” about it, to tell others, to tell the whole world. Through the internet and various small niche publications (seven magazines so far), I’ve told my story to over 22,000 people in various languages, especially in Pagan communities.