The novella is characteristic of a late nineteenth-century interest in paganism in general and Pan in particular that is found in the works of Florence Farr and Kenneth Grahame.
According to the British scholar of modern literature Roger Luckhurst, Raymond expresses a typical Neoplatonist view of reality in which the true object of study is the revelation of a "higher, hidden spiritual world".
He is therefore "an occultist rather than a materialist scientist."
Neoplatonism is also commonly regarded as the last school of pagan philosophy and Raymond's views therefore relate back to the recurring theme of the death of Pan.

Author Theodora Goss sees The Great God Pan as equating paganism with irrationality and what Carl Jung would call the collective unconscious.
Literary critic Kostas Boyiopoulos reads the story from a Judeo-Christian perspective, arguing that Helen Vaughan embodies a "female version of an antichrist", a perversion of Jesus, as well as the figure of Lilith from Judaic myth, with Helen's mother Mary being a "direct analogy of the biblical Virgin Mary".
Black Gates's Matthew David Surridge believes that the story associates paganism with sex and femininity, while portraying Helen as a female Antichrist, a view shared by James Goho in Journeys into Darkness: Critical Essays on Gothic Horror (2014).
 Surridge adds "from another perspective: [Helen] is the undoing of progress.
Rather than proceeding from paganism to Christianity, as orthodox Victorian belief imagined the progress of history, she is a reversal of time, the revenge of the atavistic."
In keeping with this idea, Surridge sees Mary's name as a reference to Mary, mother of Jesus and Helen's name as a reference to the pagan figure Helen of Troy.
Goho interprets the story as Machen's warning against the abandonment of "true religion" and the embrace of paganism.

At one point in the novella, a Latin creed is recited: "Et Diabolus Incarnatus Est.
Et Homo Factus Est." ("
And the Devil was made incarnate.
And was made man.")
Luckhurst identifies this as a blasphemous rewriting of the Nicene Creed, an early Christian creed which includes the line: "By the power of the Holy Spirit he [Jesus] became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man."
Goho writes that the portrayal of Pan in the novella draws on the mythology of Lucifer and depictions of Pan as "the fetish for evil and suffering and the danger and dread of the wilderness," rather than depictions of Pan as a playful and harmless god.
Surridge sees the book's references to Satan and Nodens as implying that Satan, Nodens and Pan are the same being, while Goho connects the novella to the fact that early Christians associated Pan with the devil.
The novella is characteristic of a late nineteenth-century interest in paganism in general and Pan in particular that is found in the works of Florence Farr and Kenneth Grahame. According to the British scholar of modern literature Roger Luckhurst, Raymond expresses a typical Neoplatonist view of reality in which the true object of study is the revelation of a "higher, hidden spiritual world". He is therefore "an occultist rather than a materialist scientist." Neoplatonism is also commonly regarded as the last school of pagan philosophy and Raymond's views therefore relate back to the recurring theme of the death of Pan.
Author Theodora Goss sees The Great God Pan as equating paganism with irrationality and what Carl Jung would call the collective unconscious. Literary critic Kostas Boyiopoulos reads the story from a Judeo-Christian perspective, arguing that Helen Vaughan embodies a "female version of an antichrist", a perversion of Jesus, as well as the figure of Lilith from Judaic myth, with Helen's mother Mary being a "direct analogy of the biblical Virgin Mary". Black Gates's Matthew David Surridge believes that the story associates paganism with sex and femininity, while portraying Helen as a female Antichrist, a view shared by James Goho in Journeys into Darkness: Critical Essays on Gothic Horror (2014).  Surridge adds "from another perspective: [Helen] is the undoing of progress. Rather than proceeding from paganism to Christianity, as orthodox Victorian belief imagined the progress of history, she is a reversal of time, the revenge of the atavistic." In keeping with this idea, Surridge sees Mary's name as a reference to Mary, mother of Jesus and Helen's name as a reference to the pagan figure Helen of Troy. Goho interprets the story as Machen's warning against the abandonment of "true religion" and the embrace of paganism.
At one point in the novella, a Latin creed is recited: "Et Diabolus Incarnatus Est. Et Homo Factus Est." ("And the Devil was made incarnate. And was made man.") Luckhurst identifies this as a blasphemous rewriting of the Nicene Creed, an early Christian creed which includes the line: "By the power of the Holy Spirit he [Jesus] became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man." Goho writes that the portrayal of Pan in the novella draws on the mythology of Lucifer and depictions of Pan as "the fetish for evil and suffering and the danger and dread of the wilderness," rather than depictions of Pan as a playful and harmless god. Surridge sees the book's references to Satan and Nodens as implying that Satan, Nodens and Pan are the same being, while Goho connects the novella to the fact that early Christians associated Pan with the devil.
The Great God Pan