Carl Jung and the Ego – Lexicon
Ego:
The central complex in the field of consciousness.
The ego, the subject of consciousness, comes into existence as a complex quantity which is constituted partly by the inherited disposition (character constituents) and partly by unconsciously acquired impressions and their attendant phenomena [“Analytical Psychology and Education,” CW 17, par. 169.]
Jung pointed out that knowledge of the ego-personality is often confused with self-understanding.
Anyone who has any ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows himself.
But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents.
People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself, but not by the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them.
In this respect the psyche behaves like the body, of whose physiological and anatomical structure the average person knows very little too. [“The Undiscovered Self,” CW 10, par. 491.]
In the process of individuation, one of the initial tasks is to differentiate the ego from the complexes in the personal unconscious, particularly the persona, the shadow and anima/animus.
A strong ego can relate objectively to these and other contents of the unconscious without identifying with them.
Because the ego experiences itself as the center of the psyche, it is especially difficult to resist identification with the self, to which it owes its existence and to which, in the hierarchy of the psyche, it is subordinate.
The eg0 stands to the self as the moved to the mover, or as object to subject, because the determining factors which radiate out from the self surround the ego on all sides and are therefore supraordinate to it. The self, like the unconscious, is an a priori existent out of which the eg0 evolves.[“Transformation Symbolism in the Mass,” CW 11, par. 391.]
Identification with the self can manifest in two ways: the assimilation of the ego by the self, in which case the eg f0alls under the control of the unconscious; or the assimilation of the self to the eg0, where the ego becomes over-accentuated. In both cases the result is inflation, with disturbances in adaptation.
In the first case, reality has to be protected against an archaic . . . dream-state; in the second, room must be made for the dream at the expense of the world of consciousness.
In the first case, mobilization of all the virtues is indicated; in the second, the presumption of the eg0 can only be damped down by moral defeat.[“The Self,” CW 9ii, par. 47.]
The hero is an ego hero
The patriarchal father-son relationship ousted the once dominant mother figure, Isis, in the religious, psychological, social, and political spheres.
Vestiges of the original matriarchal rule still remained, but in historical times they were already overshadowed by the father-king.
The investiture and enthronement of the son are based on the resurrection of Osiris and the defeat of his enemies. Horus’ struggle with the principle of evil -Set-is, in a sense, the prototype of “God’s holy war” which each of his sons has to wage.
With this, the ring closes and we come back to the hero myth and the dragon fight.
Only, we must read the Osiris myth in such a way as to include Horus, the hero, as part of Osiris.
We have seen that certain elements of the hero myth belong essentially together.
The hero is an ego hero; that is, he represents the struggles of consciousness and the ego against the unconscious.
The masculinization and strengthening of the eg0, apparent in the hero’s martial deeds, enable him to overcome his fear of the dragon and give him courage to face the Terrible Mother-Isis-and her henchman Set.
The hero is the higher man, the “erected phallus,” whose potency is expressed in head, eye, and sun symbols.
His fight bears witness to his kinship with “heaven” and to his divine parentage, and sets up a dual relationship: on the one hand he needs the support of heaven in fighting the dragon, and, on the other, he has to fight it in order to prove himself worthy of such support.
As one regenerated through the fight, the hero is ritually identical with the father-god, and is his incarnation.
The reborn son is child of the divine father, father of himself, and, by fathering the rebirth of the father in himself, he also becomes his father’s father.
Thus all the essential elements of the her0 myth are to be found in the myth of Horus and Osiris.
There is only one qualification, and that has to do with the patriarchal conquest of the Terrible Mother.
The myth contains traces of the terrible Isis, But the fact that Horus beheads her and commits incest with her in the Memphis festivities is clear proof that she has been overcome.
In general, however, her negative role is taken over by Set, and Isis becomes the “good mother.” ― Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, Page 251-252
