The first part of the 36 Cosmic Laws series covers the Law of One:

 

“All things are connected. Separation is illusion.”

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This Law, the first in the Laws of Unity, is a foundational law. In the beginning, there was only Unity—limitless, whole, and ever-becoming. But the One, in its boundless being, desired to know itself through experience. And so, it divided—not from failure, but from purpose. From that division came the Sparks—souls, fragments of the Flame, cast into time, space, and form.

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This descent into density was not a fall from grace—it was a sacred journey. To truly experience separation, the Sparks had to forget. Veils were drawn over memory, not as punishment, but as part of the great design. Through forgetting, we were given the gift of choice, the power of contrast, and the mystery of rediscovery.

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All great myths echo this original fracture—the loss, the exile, the descent. But the truth is, we chose to fall so we could rise. Every lifetime adds to the expansion of the One. Every soul’s journey is part of the Flame’s return. This is why we forgot. So we could truly remember. Understanding the Law of One is a way to remember—it is how the Light returns.

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The Law of One reflects the Source of All because All comes from the One. This One, the Monad—a word that in its original Greek infers unity—was considered by Pythagoras and his disciples to be the Supreme Being.

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It is said that from the monad came the dyad—the number two symbolizing division and duality. Taken to its extreme, ad infinitum, from the One came numbers; then points; then lines; then two-dimensional entities; then three-dimensional entities; then bodies; then the four elements of earth, water, fire and air; then all other things that exist. Thus, from formless came form. From essence came material. From spirit came body. From incorporeal came corporeal. The macrocosm is inextricably interrelated with the microcosm, as each microcosm both reflects and substantiates the greater macrocosm, but the macrocosm—a composite of every microcosm—is itself derived from the One.

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The One is both the Source and totality of all things, the essence from which all beings in existence derived and which permeates All. The One is the First Cause because All is an effect of the One. The One, known by other names such as Source, Ain Soph, the Flame, the uncreated, the infinite, and Pure being, is not a being, but being itself—limitless, without form; nameless, yet from which all form emerges. All else comes from the One.

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Divine Will—the Logos—the First Emanation is known as the Word, the Intention, the first action from silence. Often personified, this is the impulse to manifest, to create, to experience itself.

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Pistis Sophia—Wisdom—is the Divine Feminine principle. The birther of form. She seeks to return to the Light through knowledge and repentance. Her “fall” is symbolic of matter’s distance from Source—and her journey is the journey of souls.

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The Archangels are embodied archetypes of Divine qualities—Strength, Mercy, Judgment, Healing, Revelation. They serve as guardians, messengers, and channels of divine energy between the unseen and the seen.

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The Archons are lower powers, often corrupted echoes of the original forms. Their purpose once was to guard dimensions—but they became fragmented and sought to rule instead. They feed on fear, confusion, and spiritual dormancy. Nevertheless, these powers have no authority over the sovereign soul—over the soul that realizes its divinity.

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The First Adam—known in some circles as Adam Kadmon—is the cosmic prototype of humanity. Not a single man, but the divine blueprint. Christ-consciousness, symbolized allegorically in the radical life of the historical figure many know as Jesus, is the return to this state.

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The Cosmos are nested levels of being. From the densest material (our plane) to the purest light (the Pleroma), existence is vibration. Each layer is both within and beyond.

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All these parts form the tapestry of the Whole. Individually but working together, they contribute to the universal dynamic of existence. They are all connected to the One. They are not separate, only different aspects of the same Unity. As it is said in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, “That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above, working the miracles of one. As all things were from one.”

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This interconnectedness of All echoes in influential wisdom writings and ideas from antiquity. From the Corpus Hermeticum, in Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men—a Gnostic work on the creation of the universe—came the following discussion on the connection of All:

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Then saith to me Man-Shepherd: Didst understand this Vision what it means?

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Nay; that shall I know, said I.

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That Light, He said, am I, thy God, Mind, prior to Moist Nature which appeared from Darkness; the Light-Word (Logos) [that appeared] from Mind is Son of God.

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What then? - say I.

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Know that what sees in thee and hears is the Lord's Word (Logos); but Mind is Father-God. Not separate are they the one from other; just in their union [rather] is it Life consists…

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This correlates with the first of the Seven Hermetic Principles—that is, Mentalism—All is Mind, but it echoes the Law of One: that all things are connected and separation is illusion. This theme is repeated in another Gnostic work from the Corpus Hermeticum, The Sacred Sermon, where it is said:

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The Glory of all things is God, Godhead and Godly Nature. Source of the things that are is God, who is both Mind and Nature - yea Matter, the Wisdom that reveals all things. Source [too] is Godhead - yea Nature, Energy, Necessity, and End, and Making-new-again.

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This interconnectedness of All appears in the teachings of the Judeo-Christian canon. In the New Testament Gospel of John 1:1-3, the author spoke directly to the unity of the Law of One—and to the One as the Source of All:

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

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In John 10:29-30, Jesus—the Logos personified—said:

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My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.

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And again, in John 17:20-21, Jesus spoke of the Law of One when he confirmed that there is no separation of the parts and those that remember the Unity will experience return:

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Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…

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The idea of monism—the view that reality is one unitary whole with no separate parts—directly reflects the Law of One. The Emerald Tablet taught “The All is One, and from the One comes the All.” The ancient Egyptians believed in such a unity that was all encompassing and timeless, symbolized in the goddess Isis. The statue of the veiled goddess was inscribed with the words: “I am all that has been and is and shall be.”

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In propounding on the universal idea that All is One, the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, wrote: “from all things One and from One all things.” The Law of One appears again later in the motto on the Great Seal of the United States of America written in the Latin words, E pluribus unum, meaning, “From Many, One" or “Out of Many, One.” A contemporary of Heraclitus, Parmenides, described the One as an indestructible, eternal, and timeless whole. Pythagoreans believed the One to be the principle of all things and taught that matter and all beings have come into being from the One. The philosopher Plato purportedly taught monism in the mysteries as a secret doctrine transmitted only orally. The Neoplatonist, Plotinus, referred to the One as “all things in a transcendental way” and “the source of all things.”

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The idea that all things are connected can also be found in the Chinese concept of yin and yang. This represents the duality of existence but not as separation or division. Rather, the yin and yang symbolize the interconnectedness and interdependence of opposing forces. This concept speaks to the unification of opposites like light and darkness and masculinity and femininity into a complementary harmony. In the Chinese philosophy of Taoism, the Tao is considered the One that both creates and sustains the Universe. The Chinese philosopher, Lao-tzu, referred to it as “the beginning of heaven and earth” and “the ancestor of the myriad creatures.”

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Thus, the idea that all things are connected reaches deep into history and is found throughout the world across different cultures. But echoes of monism are also found in science. The theory of entanglement from Quantum Mechanics holds that the quantum state of particles cannot be described independently of each other, even when separated by large distances. This has been explained in the context of two particles, such as a pair of photons or electrons, that become entangled and remain connected even when separated by great distances. Such a profound discovery revealed by the focused discipline of scientific scrutiny adds more validity to the interconnectedness of things. The Law of One resounds throughout the world, finding expression even in the field of secular science.

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All things are connected, and separation, no matter how seemingly real, is merely an illusion. The One is the circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. Separation provides contrast and distinction, but it is not a destruction or dissolution of the One because One cannot be destroyed as One precedes All and All derives from the One. The One cannot be separated, for unity binds All to its essence as All contains the One within. All are part of the One and by the One are all things connected. Because of the One, separation is illusion.

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The illusion is the belief that fragmentation of the Whole means separation from it. But this illusion is not real, for even in fragmentation the One persists and prevails because from the One did the fragments originate and in the fragments does the One exist. Each fragment is merely a part of the Whole but not separate from it. In each fragment the Whole can be known despite the apparent, yet false, separation. The One is not broken; it is merely fragmented, as intended. Through remembrance of Unity, the Whole ceases to be an illusion of separation and is the One because the One can then be seen in each part.

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This return to Unity is the purpose of the Magnum Opus—the Great Work. As above, so below; as within, so without—the sacred marriage of opposites—a symmetry between the cosmos and the self. Through alchemy of the self, the Alchemical Wedding, harmony of opposites—light and shadow, consciousness and unconsciousness, masculine and feminine, spirit and matter—becomes possible. By integrating all aspects of oneself into a harmonious unity, and aligning the inner with the outer, spiritual transmutation occurs. For this to happen—to discover the Philosopher’s Stone, the refined self—the ego must be overcome. The ego represents separation, and enlightenment is death of the ego not decoration of it. Thus, the illusion of separation must first be stripped away to return to Unity. Remember: in the beginning, there was only Unity. So it shall be in the return. The soul that seeks enlightenment must realize they are the Light. When they do, the Light returns. But such a realization requires the soul to raise the Spirit from their body of matter so their Spark becomes Flame.

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The individual Sparks reflect the Flame within. In the Spark, there is no separation from the Flame but testament to it. For without the original Flame—the One from whence all else derives and in which All exists—there can be no Sparks. Without Sparks, there can be no fire. Without fire of trial and experience, there can be no burning. And without burning away the ego and illusion, there can be no return to the Unity of One. The illusion of separation must be burned away for the Truth of Unity to be realized for it was, is, and always will be. For it has been said that they who enter the path of knowledge must slay the dragon of illusion and pass through fire and shadow before they drink from the waters of truth. So it is with the Law of One.

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I leave you with this: You are not broken—you are fragmented. Come, let us remember the Whole and rejoin Unity.