The One
The monad
Unity, before and after the many.
The One: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
One is the number of unity: the undivided beginning and the goal of wholeness. In his last great work Jung took from the alchemist Gerhard Dorn the idea of the unus mundus, the one world underlying both psyche and matter, and read the final stage of the coniunctio as a return to it.
The One: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The Pythagorean monad, the One of Plotinus from which all flows, the Shema, “the Lord is one,” and the Greek alchemists’ “One is the All.”
From the Sources
Timaeus says that, so that the world might be solitary like the perfect animal, the creator made not two worlds or an infinite number, but 'one only-begotten and created heaven'.
“In order then that the world might be solitary, like the perfect animal, the creator made not two worlds or an infinite number of them; but there is and ever will be one only-begotten and created heaven.”
Plato, Timaeus, Timaeus's account of the one world. Translated by Benjamin Jowett (Project Gutenberg eBook #1572). The text, read in part
In the same passage Silberer writes that, as the circle stood for the celestial unity of the all, the number one, the single line, staff or sceptre stood for its earthly copy: the ruling, sustaining power of the personality that has attained freedom on earth.
“…so the number one, the single line, the staff or the scepter, represented the terrestrial copy of the power, the ruling, guiding, sustaining and protecting force of the personality that had attained freedom on earth.”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (originally published as Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism), Part II, Section IV, "Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry". Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.; Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1971, an unabridged republication of the work published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York, in 1917 (Project Gutenberg eBook #27755). The text, read in part
The Emerald Table, as translated in the Hermetic Museum, says that as all things were created from the Mind of One, so all things arose by modification of this One Thing.
“As all things were created from the Mind of One, so all things arose by modification of this One Thing. It is so with our Substance.”
Michael Sendivogius (author of the tract read), The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged, "The All-Wise Doorkeeper": "The Emerald Table of Hermes", pp. 320-321. Now first done into English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678; in two volumes, Volume II; London: James Elliott and Co., 1893 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “The Conjunction,” in Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Numbers
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The One.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/one.
Nearby in the alphabet: Night: The dark from which the day is born. The Night Sea Journey: Swallowed in the dark, carried to the east. The Orphan: Alone and without origin: the lonely beginning of the self. The Owl: Wisdom that sees in the dark.