The Seba library treats Ra in 8 passages, across 6 authors (including Jung, Carl Gustav, Banzhaf, Hajo, Greene, Liz; Sasportas, Howard).
The ‘true name’ is Ra’s soul and magic power (his libido). What Isis demands is the transference of libido to the mother. This request is fulfilled to the letter, for the aging god returns to the heavenly cow, the symbol of the mother.
Jung reads the Isis-Ra myth as a psychological allegory in which Ra’s ‘true name’ represents libido itself, and Isis’s demand enacts a forced regression of psychic energy back to the maternal principle.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952thesis
Here, at the deepest point of his journey, Ra encounters the greatest of all dangers. Apophis, the snake of the nighttime sea, sucks dry the underground Nile… Seth conquers Apophis and forces the snake to spit out the water so that the barque can continue its journey.
Banzhaf deploys Ra’s night-sea barque journey to argue that at the psyche’s midnight nadir, the shadow figure (Seth) becomes the paradoxical agent of solar renewal, inverting ordinary moral categories.
, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero, 2000thesis
Ra himself, one of the most ancient of solar gods, is more characteristic of the Sun’s symbolism; he is the world creator and dispenser of jus[tice]… the Egyptian solar goddess Sekhmet, daughter of the Sun god Ra, who was called the ‘Eye of Ra.’
Greene identifies Ra as the canonical archetype of the solar creator-god, whose emanations — including the destructive Sekhmet — illuminate the full spectrum of solar symbolism in astrological depth-psychology.
, The Luminaries: The Psychology of the Sun and Moon in the Horoscope, 1992supporting
the Abydos emblem is also held to symbolize the ‘Head Soul’ of Ra, and his worshipers are depicted as Horus-he[ads]… Osiris, Osiris’ head, and Osiris the sun all go together, for sun and head reflect his spirituality.
Neumann traces the syncretism between Osiris and Ra through the ‘Head Soul’ concept, arguing that both solar and spiritual-intellective dimensions converge in Egyptian consciousness symbolism.
, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting
On the tablets, the symbol stood for the Sun, which was worshipped as the god named Ra. In later tablets, the symbol also represented the king; powerful kings were given the title Ra and regarded as divine.
Cunningham situates Ra at the origin of solar symbolism in astrology, tracing the identification of Sun-god, king, and divine authority across cultures to this most ancient stratum.
, An Astrological Guide to Self-Awareness, 1982supporting
Midnight, when the sun is at its lowest point and begins to rise again, is the turning point from death to life, from yesterday to the next day… the rebirth of consciousness after the ‘night sea journey.’
Von Franz contextualizes Ra’s solar journey through the underworld via the Aker symbol, reading the sun’s midnight nadir as the archetypal moment of death-and-resurrection that structures the night-sea journey motif.
, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, 1980supporting
The Egyptian symbol of the ‘living sun-disc’ — a disc with the two intertwined Uraeus serpents — is a combination of both these libido analogies. And the sun-disc with its fructifying warmth is analogous to the fructifying warmth of love.
Jung reads the Egyptian living sun-disc, associated with Ra’s iconography, as a composite libido symbol uniting the serpent (phallic) and solar (fructifying warmth) analogies of psychic energy.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952supporting
The name Rahab is frequently used for Egypt in the Old Testament… and also for dragon; it therefore meant something evil and hostile. Rahab appears here as the old dragon Tiamat, against whose evil power Marduk or Yahweh goes forth to battle.
Jung notes the Old Testament’s use of ‘Rahab’ as a name for Egypt and dragon, implicitly linking this hostile power to the same mythological complex that Ra confronts in the serpent Apophis.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952aside