ABSTRACT
The masculine became opposed to nature, the realm of the feminine, mythologically portrayed in the dragon fight. The mythological birth of the hero is the bearer of Homo sapiens' consciousness. His destiny is to create civilisation and therefore he deals a mortal blow to the Great Mother, he feels compelled to defeat wild animals and monsters, to decapitate the gorgon, and vanquish the dragon. The emerging individualised consciousness feels trapped in the realm of the Great Mother and its impersonal, collective, animal nature. The dragon is frequently portrayed as hideous. The emergent consciousness, symbolised as masculine, is individualised. The killing of the dragon is an archetypal mythologem of transpersonal significance. Like Icarus, mankind constructs wings to escape confinement. He may disdain his roots and think himself free of his lower nature; he may even boast to have destroyed the dragon.
