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The Multiple States of Being

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This book has a reputation for being the most difficult of Guenon's purely metaphysical works. Perhaps this is because it is an explanation, or rather introduction, to the totality of Creation- manifest, unmanifest, higher, lower, and probable.

Here are described the manifest worlds of the material plane (the least part of creation), the higher planes of more subtle states (touched upon in _The Symbolism of the Cross_ as lying along the vertical axis), and all the possible, but unmanifested worlds on any plane (which sounds remarkably like the modern conception of the "multiverse.")

Yet, it is pointed out that all of this still falls far short of true infinity- it is a small included subset of the unlimited Source.

The human intersection with creation is also covered. This includes hints of "non-corporeal modalities" of human existence and consciousness. This covers simultaneously existing aspects of human consciousness on higher planes, that ordinary waking consciousness is ordinarily unaware of (yet, which comprise the greater part of consciousness.) Above all, it is emphasized that the human state is in reality only one small state of manifestation among countless others. There are an unlimited number of levels in the hierarchy of degrees of existence. Moreover, the human state occupies no privileged place in the ensemble of universal existence- the human state is in no way "metaphysically distinguished" in relation to other states. It just happens to be the state where most of us find ourselves at the present. That is all it is. If there is anything "special" about the human state, it lies in that spark of the Divine that lies at the heart of all of us, where the divine ray intersects with gross matter. And this intersection can occur at any point on the vertical axis of creation. It is also suggested that nonhuman, never human, entities share this creation with us.

All of this is not just idle "New Age" speculation; these are the conclusions of Guenon, the great metaphysician and mathematician.