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 ego, 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
