The matricide

[M Winther]

"The matricide"

Seth, the dark deity of the Egyptian pantheon, committed patricide. He
murdered Osiris and took over his kingdom. This follows the Oedipal mode
of procedure. Osiris was dismembered by Seth who scattered the body
parts all over Egypt. This is a classical symbol. The dismemberment of
the deity means that he dies and enters the conscious realm. It stands
for a level of culture where people have integrated the cunning of the
agricultural deity, Osiris. They have learnt to till the land, have
acquired technological know-how, and dutifully abide by the law. The
integration of the fatherly deity, besides denoting a phase of personal
development, relates to a legislative society where people dutifully
follow the Law (of Maat), reminiscent of the Old Testamental frame of
mind. This is the phallocentric, paternalistic society, which is
furtively matriarchal, because Isis is still live and well. However, she
keeps herself in hiding, together with her child Harpokrates, who is the
child Horus. Accordingly, women in phallocentric society generally
remain in the background, often hidden under a cloak. Isis had recovered
the bodily remains of Osiris, and enlivened him temporarily in order to
become impregnated with his seed. This seems to be a typical pattern
after the death of a god. It is partially vitalized by another deity,
i.e. it lends energy from another archetype in order to resume its
existence, although it will now remain in the background. Thus she begot
Harpokrates who was a feeble child. He abided for a long time hidden in
the thicket of the Nile delta (i.e., the unconscious), before he was
ready to make his appearance as a contender for the throne.

Whereas Seth is a patricide, Horus is a matricide. When the Mother
goddess is mutilated it implies that the phallocentric deity Seth is
dethroned, and the patriarchal era begins. The motherly wisdom is
integrated with consciousness. From now on the law abides in the heart,
and the guiding rule is to always pave the way for individual
consciousness, to allow the feeble child deity to grow to maturity,
protecting him from danger. This is a motherly characteristic, to
discern the faint voice in the unconscious and allow it to mature. It is
characteristic of individuation, which is halted in phallocentric
society where people blindly follow rules and refrain from choosing a
personal path in life. In keeping with the archetypal revivification
procedure, whatever it means, Isis is revived by Thoth and fitted with a
cow's head. It means that she will continue to have influence from the
unconscious, but won't be a dominant force, anymore. Oedipal patricidal
persons are replete in today's society, to the dismay of the many
individuated individuals. To a degree, it seems a reversion has occurred
in that there are also many people who are under the influence of the
matriarchal archetype of Osiris and Isis. But Western culture can only
be maintained by the matricidal personality, the man who rejects the
goods of life. It is necessary to kill the illusion of society as a good
mother. The welfare society, the orderly machinelike state, and the
caliphate, etc., have today attained proportions of a Mother goddess.
Horus severed the head of the Mother goddess and went into reclusion.
The individuant ought to follow the example of Christian recluses in
history, in some way or another.

Psychoanalysis centers upon the motif of patricide and the Oedipal
complications. It seems the problems associated with the motif of
matricide is being overlooked, despite the fact that the heroic motif is
ubiquitous in history and in modern myth. The lone cowboy who rides into
the desert sunset is essentially an heroic recluse. He sleeps on the
ground and eats a can of beans. This kind of hero, who is a rejectee,
and who is poor and lonely, and goes through great sufferings, but is
victorious in the end, is part and parcel of a Christian consciousness.
It is enormously popular, because he is a Christ figure and a matricide.
I use the term matricide as a *symbol*. Jesus is a matricide in the
sense that he declares his independence of Mother Earth. He said "In the
world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the
world" (John, 16). When being tempted by the devil in the desert, he
rejected all the riches and the power that would befall him if he
accepted a worldly kingship. He also rejected his mother Mary and said
"My true brother and sister and mother are those people that do the
things God wants." (Mark 3). Jesus renounced the world and saw poverty
as ideal. He would not depend on anything worldly and voluntarily
confronts torture and death. He has "overcome the world" and no worldly
allure can ensnare him. Jesus is very radical. He says that one should
have no worldly possessions. "Consider the birds", he says. They do not
store food in barns, for the heavenly Father provides for them (Matthew
6).

In psychoanalysis, the term patricide is not interpreted in concrete
terms, either. That would imply a regress to the archaic psychology of
the "Urhorde". It is not necessary to actually kill your father to
overcome the father complex and become a father yourself. The father is
a complex, and not the real father. The integration of the fatherly
principle (as the the Oedipal blood-sacrifice) means that the individual
experiences that he is in control. He will always endeavour to take
charge of the situation. He is himself the father who makes the rules.
That's why phallic-narcissistic people are "control freaks". They see
themselves as "rulers". They are like little kings, if not deities.
That's why the phallic notion is so apt. They are akin to little erect
phalli that are seated upon a pillar. That's why they are always trying
to predict what's going to happen so that they can take relevant
measures and remain in control. They are not prepared to meet reality as
it presents itself, but want to remain in charge of the situation,
because they see themselves as controllers of the universal situation.

In her article, "Towards a structural theory of matricide:
psychoanalysis, the Oresteia and the maternal prohibition", Amber Jacobs
says that "[m]atricide, unlike patricide, has been untheorized in
psychoanalysis. If patricide in the Oedipal myth has been interpreted as
the Name-of-the-Father, allowing for filiation, symbolic loss and
genealogy, matricide in the Oresteian myth has not been translated into
such clear conceptual terms. This means that the mother is not theorized
within the terms of the underlying cultural laws that determine our
socio-symbolic organization." ('Women: A Cultural Review', Volume 15,
Issue 1, 2004). However, she takes the view that the matricidal symbol
allows us to transcend the Western patriarchal paradigm. This cannot be
correct, as the archetype is foundational to our culture. Perseus
severed the head of Medusa, and Horus did the same with Isis. Dragon
killers are ubiquitous in our culture. Nevertheless, Jacobs may be
correct when she says that psychoanalysis is insufficient in this
respect. It is well designed for the portion of the population that has
an Oedipal problem, but it is lacking in the theoretical understanding
of the "normal" Western individual who fulfils the heroic ideal of
individuation. For this reason, there is a tendency in psychoanalysis to
look upon the narcissistic psychic economy as more or less normal. Some
even argue, along with Kohut, that the foremost motivational factor is
narcissism. Although this is relevant to the average member of
phallic-narcissistic culture, it does not suffice as a model for the
average Westerner. Psychoanalysis cannot achieve universality because
the model is insufficient. Amber Jacobs wrote a book on the subject, "On
Matricide: Myth, Psychoanalysis, and the Law of the Mother". She has
published an online article, "Why matricide?":
http://72.52.202.216/~fenderse/WhyMatricide.htm

Horus is an archetype. An archetype doesn't have an earthly mother. So
what does it mean when an archetype kills another archetype? A typical
feature is the severing and the partitioning of the archetype. Osiris
was cut into pieces, too. It seems like the archetype who does the
killing has reached a level of energetic excitation sufficient to push
the older archetype over the edge into the conscious realm. Energy is
transferred from one archetype to another, causing the latter to pass
the threshold of consciousness, where its inner opposites fly apart. It
is immediately appropriated by the ego and undergoes intellectual
abstraction. To an archetype, this is experienced as being torn apart.
In Scandinavian fairytales, the trolls explode when being exposed to
sunlight. They turn to a heap of rocks. Sooner or later it becomes the
fate of all trolls. (There is only one troll who can tolerate sunlight
to a degree. This is Humpe, because he was born with sunlight in his
eyes.) In Egyptian myth, Seth attempted to rape Horus. The transfer of
semen would signify that psychic energy is transferred from one
archetype to another, with potentially fateful consequences for the
latter. However, the act of killing is usually carried out with less
obvious phallic symbols, such as a sword or a spear. In this context,
matricide denotes the death of an archetype. It does not mean the
killing of a human being. The death of the archetype does not seem to
signify repression. Narcissus dies because he becomes conscious. He is
frozen by his own mirror-image. This means that he is caught up in the
self-reflecting realm of self-consciousness. The seer Tiresias
prophesied: "Narcissus will live to a ripe old age, provided that he
never knows himself."

Mats Winther, 2012.
http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-73784/thanatos.htm