I've been thinking about a better understanding of the "ego" lately, and how it relates to the Triune Soul. I no longer consider the ego a "thing," but a process, something we do.
So, I think the ego is one’s identification of the Self with the mind-stream, the river of endless thoughts that flows through our waking consciousness. If we become too strongly identified with the mind-stream, we become less permeable, less flexible and resistant to the Flow of Power. We can become stuck because we are separated from the transformations of life, over-identified with who we think we are, afraid to become who we must as life continues on and we are immersed in new experiences. We keep resisting change. Over-identification with the mind-stream acts like a shell or barrier that keeps the Waking-Self and the Dreaming-Self disconnected. We become lost in the delusion of thinking that the mind-stream is the whole of who we are, which I call the "fog of human confusion."
But something must give rise to, and contain this stream. It lives somewhere within us, and that place must be the waking consciousness itself, the Aura or "Breath Soul.” This is the Shining Life within us that inspirits our waking existence. And it is part of the immortal Breath of God (Herself) that puts all things into motion in and between the worlds.
And even deeper in us lies the dreaming-self, the Fetch, which will live on in the Underworld with the Ancestral Host after our bodies expire. This is a physical reality, as our bodies will decay and our energy will be consumed by other life to continue. And still further in, deep down at the foundation, is the Daimon. This is the True-Self that is beyond Life and Death. It exists in the perpetuity of the Eternal Moment of Creation, the rapture of wholeness.
In practicing "cracking" or destroying the ego, over and over, we learn to become more and more permeable. We must willingly unidentify with the mind-stream, and we can do this simply by observing it and not attaching ourselves to the observations. The ego, idenitfying with our mindstream, doesn't seem like it can be "beaten", so we must continually practice until we die. I do not think the ego survives death, because in dying we enter into the eternal dream of unconsciousness and the waking mind is flooded with the reality of the invisible world that is "under" and "inside" of creation.
But perhaps in the alembical process of knowing ourselves in all our parts, the vitality of our waking lives can become the materia through which our Daimon may wed the Fetch, and we may become "justified" or one of the Mighty Dead. We can realize we are dying and pass by the waters of forgetfulness, and drink from the Well of Memory. If we can not identify with the mind-stream, then the unconsciousness of dream/death will not confuse us.
This requires that we follow our passions fully, living our lives to their fullness. We can't sleep-walk through our lives. We must reconcile the waking and dreaming parts of us. We must realize all in the world that appears to be "opposite" as actually unified into a deep wholeness and completion. Truly, the Adversary is the guardian of this process.