EDITORIAL NOTE

THE PAST CENTURY HAS WITNESSED an erosion of earlier cultural values as well as a blurring of the distinctive characteristics of the world's traditional civilizations, giving rise to philosophic and moral relativism, multiculturalism, and dangerous fundamentalist reactions. As early as the 1920s, the French metaphysician René Guénon (1886–1951) had diagnosed these tendencies and presented what he believed to be the only possible reconciliation of the legitimate, although apparently conflicting, demands of outward religious forms, 'exoterisms', with their essential core, 'esoterism'. His works are characterized by a foundational critique of the modern world coupled with a call for intellectual reform; a renewed examination of metaphysics, the traditional sciences, and symbolism, with special reference to the ultimate unanimity of all spiritual traditions; and finally, a call to the work of spiritual realization. Despite their wide influence, translation of Guénon's works into English has so far been piecemeal. The Sophia Perennis edition is intended to fill the urgent need to present them in a more authoritative and systematic form. A complete list of Guénon's works, given in the order of their original publication in French, follows this note.

The Multiple States of the Being is the companion to, and the completion of, The Symbolism of the Cross, which, together with Man and His Becoming according to the Vedānta, constitute René Guénon's great trilogy of pure metaphysics. In this work, Guénon offers a masterful explication of the metaphysical order and its multiple manifestations—of the divine hierarchies and what has been called the Great Chain of Being—and in so doing demonstrates how jñāna, intellective or intrinsic knowledge of what is, and of That which is Beyond what is, is a Way of Liberation. Guénon the metaphysical social critic, master of arcane symbolism, comparative religionist, researcher of ancient mysteries and secret histories, summoner to spiritual renewal, herald of the end days, disappears here. Reality remains.

Guénon often uses words or expressions set off in 'scare quotes'. To avoid clutter, single quotation marks have been used throughout. As for transliterations, Guénon was more concerned with phonetic fidelity than academic usage. The system adopted here reflects the views of scholars familiar both with the languages and Guénon's writings. Brackets indicate editorial insertions, or, within citations, Guénon's additions. Wherever possible, references have been updated, and English editions substituted.

The present translation is based on the work of Henry Fohr, edited by his son Samuel Fohr. The text was checked for accuracy and further revised by Marie Hansen. For help with selected chapters and proofreading thanks go to John Champoux, and, for final reviews, to John Herlihy and Allan Dewar. A special debt of thanks is owed to Cecil Bethell, who revised and proofread the text at several stages and provided the index, and to Prof. Jocelyn Godwin, who generously put his earlier (1984) translation at our disposal for purposes of comparison. Cover design by Michael Buchino and Gray Henry, based on a drawing of a knot-motif by Guénon's friend and collaborator Ananda K. Coomaraswamy