Nowadays, the ”doctrines of the One”, have a much greater following than those of the Many, which are usually seen as primitive, unrefined or allegorical in character. The following doctrines, however, have achieved mainstream appeal. Thanks, in part, to modern media and the presence of these concepts in products conceived for worldwide mass consumption.

According to certain worldviews, every human soul is just a fragment of God or of a higher entity close to God.

We will use the Jewish mystical tradition, the Kabbalah, as a paradigmatic example.

In it, it is taught that every human soul is part of Adam Kadmon, the primordial man. In this mystical tradition, and contrary to the main Abrahamic religions, Adam is an androgynous being equal in size with the universe*. 

*[Androgyny is related with the concept of the unity of opposites, while equating Adam with the whole universe implies a panentheistic outlook in this case, rather than a pantheistic one, as God transcends Adam].

The creation myth of Lurianic Kabbalah, a highly influential version of this tradition, is very illustrative:

In the beginning, God contracted part of His infinite light in order to partially conceal Himself so creation could take place. However, the “vessels” of the attributes of God (Sefirot) could not contain at this stage the fullness of the Divine Light and shattered. The realm of chaos or confusion was born, then, due to a catastrophic event in the Godhead itself.

After the shattering of the vessels, the Divine light was released and re-ascended back to God. The broken fragments of the vessels however, still animated by the sparks of divine light, descended and animated the four lower worlds that were successively emanated from the source and comprise the realm of rectification. Their shards became sparks of light trapped within that realm.

Through prayer and contemplation, especially of the main attributes of God, man can reunify the scattered sparks of God´s light. Each spark is then reunited with God´s essence, thus going back to the One.

During this restoration of the fallen universe, man filters what is holy from what is profane. The physical world then, seen as the impure opposite of soul or spirit, is deprived of the light that supported its existence and is eventually destroyed.

Another version of this theory is that of Gnosticism, where it is taught that within each person resides a portion of God: the Divine Spark.

The purpose of life is then to achieve the release of this spark from the prison of this fallen material world so that it can return to God, the source.

Persons can be classified in three categories: Material, psychic and spiritual. The first ones are thought as incapable of salvation, as no spark is found in them. Only the spiritual type can be sure of salvation, while the psychic person is capable of both ends, depending on his actions in life. Salvation is gained through the knowledge of the presence of the Divine Spark within the soul.

Common symbols representing an alienated soul: Spark of light, shards of a broken vessel, pearl.

Another important metaphysical doctrine based in going back to the One through the reunification of spiritual fragments is that of the unity or coincidence of opposites (Coincidentia oppositorum).

In it, a higher metaphysical reality is obtained through the union of two opposite entities, principles or qualities that nevertheless depend and presuppose each other.

When these principles are separated, as in the material plane of existence where we currently live, there is tension. The energy released by this tension is generative, bringing forth creation. However, to attain a higher state of being, this tension has to be eliminated by merging both complementary entities or principles back into a superior one that is neither one nor the other.

This concept has a special prevalence in alchemy, were it was codified in the figure of the Rebis (meaning dual or double matter), the culmination of The Great Work of the philosophers.

In this case, instead of the liberation of trapped souls that go back to the source as drops of water into the ocean, the mystical reunion is accomplished inside each practitioner.

1. “They conceive, then, of three kinds of men, spiritual, material, and animal . . . The material goes, as a matter of course, into corruption. The animal, if it make choice of the better part, finds repose in the intermediate place; but if the worse, it too shall pass into destruction.

But they assert that the spiritual principles which have been sown by Achamoth, being disciplined and nourished here from that time until now in righteous souls (because when given forth by her they were yet but weak), at last attaining to perfection, shall be given as brides to the angels of the Saviour, while their animal souls of necessity rest for ever with the Demiurge in the intermediate place.

And again subdividing the animal souls themselves, they say that some are by nature good, and others by nature evil.

The good are those who become capable of receiving the [spiritual] seed [and becoming pneumatic]; the evil by nature are those who are never able to receive that seed [and become hylic].”

—  St. Ireneus, Against Heresies or “On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis”. I. 7, 5.

2. In the field of philosophy, G. W.F. Hegel, an influential figure in modern masonry and himself influenced by the hermetic tradition, wrote:

 “The principles of the metaphysical philosophy gave rise to the belief that, when cognition lapsed into contradictions, it was a mere accidental aberration, due to some subjective mistake in argument and inference.

According to Kant, however, thought has a natural tendency to issue in contradictions or antinomies, whenever it seeks to apprehend the infinite. […]

But here too Kant, as we must add, never got beyond the negative result that the thing-in-itself is unknowable, and never penetrated to the discovery of what the antinomies really and positively mean. That true and positive meaning of the antinomies is this: that every actual thing involves a coexistence of opposed elements. Consequently to know, or, in other words, to comprehend an object is equivalent to being conscious of it as a concrete unity of opposed determinations.[…]“

— G.W.F. Hegel. Logic. Part One of The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences .

The Rebis represents the final state of being attained after the stages of putrefaction and purification have been completed. On these stages, opposing spiritual aspects of the practitioner are separated (dissolution stage), purified and reintegrated (coagulation stage).

The state attained once these qualities have been reintegrated into a single, higher order one is symbolized by the divine hermaphrodite. It signifies a union and reconciliation of opposing attributes that are in conflict in our profane world, such as spirit and matter, male and female. A higher order entity is born which transcends and is not limited by any dualistic concept. Once the pieces are reintegrated, the practitioner is able to go back from a state of duality to the original state of absolute unity.

Common symbols representing the Rebis are: Hermaphrodite, The sun (male) and moon (female); the Red King and White Queen.

This ancient concept was widely popularized by important figures in different fields,  such as Nicholas of Cusa (Catholic cardinal and theologian), Mircea Eliade (history of religions), Carl Jung (psychoanalysis), Henry Corbin (Islamic mysticism) and  Gershom Scholem (Jewish mysticism), among others ². 

This popular doctrine can also be found in worldviews where after attaining insight into the true nature of reality, our lower plane of existence is eventually discovered to be the same as the highest reality, hence achieving liberation. This view represents absolute unity through immanence, and is found in different non-dualist traditions (for example, Mahayana Buddhism, including Zen Buddhism).

The idea that we are fragments of the Ultimate Reality that need liberation or reunification is not the only solution proposed by the followers of the One to achieve absolute unity. We may already be there, but we are not aware of it.

This is the core message of most religions born in India and Far-Eastern spirituality (e.g. Hinduism, Vrajayana Buddhism).

The Upanishads, one of the most important and authoritative texts in all Hindu traditions, conclude with the formula that Atman equals Brahman (e.g. hymn 4.4.5, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad). Or, in other words, that the individual self or soul is the same as the universal soul. We have arrived at our destination before starting our journey. We just are not aware of it.

Other traditional metaphysical concepts taught via initiations involve how the world came to be.

For some worldviews, the answer is through successive emanations from the One (e.g., Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism). In this view, all things flow from the highest reality, or First Principle. Each emanation is usually progressively less perfect than the one before, as it is further away from God or the Source.

For this doctrine there are no gaps in creation, every level of reality being a continuous gradation from absolute perfection to absolute non-existence, usually associated with matter as the lowest and most dense plane of existence.

Once it has begun, it can be understood as an automatic process. It follows the notion “nothing comes from nothing” (Parmenides), meaning that everything comes from a pre-existing substance. The logical implication is that everything can go back to the One by a process of reversal, or de-creation.

To the contrary, the theistic doctrine of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo, e.g., Abrahamic religions) explains that creation came to be through some divine creative act willed by God. Between creation and God there is a discontinuity, as there is no continuous gradation of being. God´s will is enough to bring forth creation. There is an unbridgeable chasm between the transcendent God and His creation. Therefore, this doctrine implies that no “process” of auto-deification can be true without God´s collaboration (synergy), as there is no continuity between the created and the transcendent Creator.

Some common traditional symbols of creation: The world egg, the cosmic waters, embryo symbolism.

Time is usually thought of as a linear or cyclical phenomenon.

The concept of cyclical time is prevalent in Indian religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), with popular and well known concepts such as reincarnation / transmigration and karmic bonds. There also were, and still are, Western and near-Eastern proponents of re-incarnation, such as the Orphic mystery religion, Platonism, Manichaeism, Gnosticism, Lurianic Kabbalah and Theosophy.

The cyclical nature of all life (e.g., samsara) is a fundamental belief of these worldviews. According to it, individuals pass through a long series of deaths and rebirths until they are able to liberate themselves from the aimless wandering around this mundane existence, thus breaking the cycle.

Individuals can re-incarnate in different places, including our world and the realm of the Gods, demj-gods, animals, hungry ghosts and hell, depending on their actions in life (merit) and the attained wisdom and insight regarding the true nature of reality.

The cyclical nature of time is not reserved only for living beings. In traditional worldviews the world undergoes cycles formed of different ages of increasing decadence and ignorance, until a new cycle begins anew and truth and virtue are restored again. The whole universe itself also undergoes continuous cycles of creation and destruction (yuga and kalpa).

Some common traditional symbols of time: Ouroboros, spiral, Wheel of Time.

Figure 3. Ouroboros dragon as a cyclic symbol. Note the dualities in the painting: Winged dragon versus ground serpent, two main branches in the tree, going in opposite directions. Dead tree versus sprouting one.

3. “Alchemists such as Gerhard Dorn, in his work ‘The Speculative Philosophy,’ referred to this next alchemical stage [inner healing] as Unus Mundus, where splits are healed, duality ceases, and the individual, the vir unus, unites with the world soul.”

― Monika Wikman, Pregnant Darkness

4. “With the two of you then made one, you will have peace in union. … O admirable efficacy of the fountain, which makes one from two and brings peace between enemies. …[I]t makes one man from Mind and Body.]

― Gerhard Dorn, Speculative Philosophy

5. “The Hindu doctrine teaches that a human cycle, to which it gives the name Manvantara, is divided into four periods marking so many stages during which the primordial spirituality becomes gradually more and more obscured; these are the same periods that the ancient traditions of the West called the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages.

We are now in the fourth age, the Kali-Yuga or “dark age”, and have been so already, it is said, for more than six thousand years, that is to say since a time far earlier than any known to “classical” history. Since that time, the truths which were formerly within reach of all have become more and more hidden and inaccessible; those who possess them grow fewer and fewer, and although the treasure of “nonhuman” (that is, supra-human) wisdom that was prior to all the ages can never be lost, it nevertheless becomes enveloped in more and more impenetrable veils, which hide it from men’s sight and make it extremely difficult to discover.

This is why we find everywhere, under various symbols, the same theme of something that has been lost—at least to all appearances and as far as the outer world is concerned—and that those who aspire to true knowledge must rediscover; but it is also said that what is thus hidden will become visible again at the end of the cycle, which, because of the continuity binding all things together, will coincide with the beginning of a new cycle.”

― René Guénon, The Essential René Guénon: Metaphysical Principles, Traditional Doctrines, and the Crisis of Modernity