This Horus takes up the earthly tasks of Osiris. He is the second
Osiris, still imperfect, but progressing towards the true Osiris.

The true Osiris is in the human soul, which at first is of a
transitory nature; but as such, it is destined to give birth to the
eternal. Man may, therefore, regard himself as the tomb of Osiris. The
lower nature (Typhon) has killed the higher nature in him. Love in his
soul (Isis) must take care of the dead fragments of his body, and then
the higher nature, the eternal soul (Horus) will be born, which can
progress to Osiris life. The man who is aspiring to the highest kind
of existence must repeat in himself, as a microcosm, the macrocosmic
universal Osiris process. This is the meaning of Egyptian initiation.
What Plato (_cf._ p. 80) describes as a cosmic process, _i.e._, that
the Creator has stretched the soul of the world on the body of the
world in the form of a cross, and that the cosmic process is the
release of this crucified soul,--this process had to be enacted in man
on a smaller scale if he was to be qualified for Osiris life. The
candidate for initiation had to develop himself in such a way that
his soul-experience, his becoming an Osiris, became blended into one
with the cosmic Osiris process.

If we could look into the temples of initiation in which people
underwent the transformation into Osiris, we should see that what took
place represented microcosmically the building of the cosmos. Man who
proceeded from the "Father" was to give birth to the Son in himself.
What he actually bears within him, divinity hidden under a spell, was
to become manifest in him. This divinity is kept down in him by the
power of the earthly nature; this lower nature must first be buried in
order that the higher nature may arise.

From this we are able to interpret what we are told about the
incidents of initiation. The candidate was subjected to mysterious
processes, by means of which his earthly nature was killed, and his
higher part awakened. It is not necessary to study these processes in
detail, if we understand their meaning. This meaning is contained in
the confession possible to every one who went through initiation. He
could say: "Before me was the endless perspective at the end of which
is the perfection of the divine. I felt that the power of the divine
is within me. I buried what in me keeps down that power. I died to
earthly things. I was dead. I had died as a lower man, I was in the