Horus and Ra: Mind and Intelligence

Unlike the neo-Eastern, pseudo-Advaita and similar “psychological” teachings that have become extremely popular and have effectively become mainstream — teachings that indiscriminately declare the subject-object structure of the process of awareness to be a “delusion” or an “obscuration” — the Western tradition treats this duality with greater care.

From this point of view, in the stream of consciousness one can distinguish several levels and layers that are functional and important for the process of imprinting — the mind’s primary function.

The Ancient Egyptians, who, as mentioned, distinguished two basic levels of mind — the ‘perceptual’, based on perception — the “Osirian” or “vital”, and the ‘speculative’ or reflective, whose object is the mind itself — the level of “Ra”, thus distinguishing two components of the “soul” — “ka” and “ba”. Note that this Egyptian teaching about the mind was more complex, and according to it, the ‘soul’ also included a number of other levels or functions: the “heart” (“eb”), which is the ‘knot’ that binds the separate parts into a whole; the “name” (“ren”) — a characteristic of a given incarnation; the “shadow” (“shuit”) — an “energetic echo” or “remnants” of insufficiently conscious or unfinished mental acts, and so on. However, the main process that occurs in the mind’s manifestation is precisely the accumulation and assimilation of perceptual and reflective experience, which must then be integrated into the overall “impression of the incarnation” — “akh”. In other words, ka makes the mind ‘alive’, that is, functional, while ba makes it ‘aware’, that is, differentiating and integrating.

Moreover, in each stream of experience one can find its “inner”, “essential” component, and its active, operative component.

In this sense, the being’s ba — its “psyche” — includes, properly speaking, intelligence — as a system for perceiving and interpreting inner experience, which they personified in the image of the Sun God — Ra, since it is precisely this capacity of mind that “illuminates”, makes the psychocosmos accessible to perception (just as the “physical” Sun makes it possible to see the macrocosm), and — its “bearing” part — the “Solar Barque”, which is a form of existence of the god of space — Shu, and expresses the “support” of intelligence on its own psychic foundations. Accordingly, the main enemy of the god Ra — the serpent Apophis — embodies all the chaotic, anti-creative, and anti-mind tendencies of the psychocosmos.

Similarly, the “perceptual” component of mind includes its own “essential” foundation — deep inner vitality, which is personified by Osiris, and the “active” component, which is represented by an image, or rather, a pair of images of the God of Heavenly Light — Horus.

Horus is the capacity (and aspiration) of mind to maintain its fluidity, coherence, preventing stagnation, interruption, and disintegration. And his main enemy — Situkh (Set) — represents barren tendencies that do not create stable, coherent patterns. In this sense it is important to remember the aforementioned duality of the image of Horus: on one hand, he is Osiris’s brother, an equal force, standing on the Solar Barque and fighting the enemies of the Sun. In this form Horus is the “defender of Ra”, is life as the condition of mind. In another hypostasis Horus is Osiris’s son and fights for his inheritance, is a force of psychic “self-defense” arising from the depths, an inner survival instinct. In this hypostasis Horus is also the “defender of Osiris”, is — life as resistance to entropy.

Thus, the mind’s functioning is described as Ra’s Journey through the Duat, is the passage of the “daytime”, recognizing, and thus — creative intelligence through the “aware” (“daytime”) and “unconscious” (“nighttime”) regions of the psychocosmos. Moreover, this mystery is played out in different “sceneries” and on different levels — at the macrocosmic level it describes the mind’s role in creating the manifested world — from potential foundations; on the level of “living” mind — its constant activity and resistance to destructive tendencies; and on the level of disembodiment and postmortem existence — as a scheme of movement through the Interval.

Since all these processes proceed according to one scenario, studying this myth is essential for their success. It is very important for every being to identify within themselves Osirian Horian Setian components, and then study their relationships.

When we see where and how Ra fights Apophis within us, where and how Horus guards the Solar Barque, where and how Set dismembers Osiris, and how Isis (Wisdom, Gnosis) and Horus restore him — we can check the correspondence of these processes to their ideal (“reference”) scenarios, and if disrupted, restore it.

In addition, we can support forces active in our mind by activating a deity’s matrix within ourselves, that is, by applying ‘inner theurgy’.

Thus, the study of basic Myths, like the one considered, is an important worldview and therapeutic practice that makes it possible to see the wholeness and mechanisms of world and psyche, as well as to find effective paths for healing and development.