Witchgrove - The Akashic Records

Weekly Discussions

Greetings Witchgrovers old and new……I’d like to introduce you all to a new feature that I’d love to see take off! Each week we will be introducing a new topic of discussion and we’d like to spend the week focusing (not entirely, mind) on these in the hopes that we can all learn from each other.

One discussion leader will introduce the topic while during the week people are invited to write their thoughts, questions and even detractions – one of the joys of discussion is that there are times we can disagree and learn new sides to each issue!

The Akashic Records

by Karen

Everybody's got a Book. A List. A Record. In every culture, there is Something that says, 'I was, and am.'

Whether it's St. Peter's Book waiting for you at the Pearly Gates, or the Books of the Persian Judges of the Dead, or Santa Claus's Naughty and Nice lists - everything you do and think and see and feel and ARE, always is. Somebody knows, and watches, and records. And some of us remember, and some of us know how to find out. But everything you are and have been, and will be, is never lost. It may be obscured to the physical eye, but always in existence.

"...twin threads of brilliant silver unreeled in parallel against the expanding ground of his internal vision, fine as spider-silk. One was the silver cord of his own life; the other, he knew, was Peregrine Lovat's. The threads began to spiral as he plunged after them, not falling but flying.
In the still, pristine silence of his own mind, Adam made himself a part of that cosmic spiral. It gathered momentum, whirling faster and faster through gauzy fields of lights like scattered stars. The star-points elongated into other silver threads, all wheeling and spinning. The myriad filaments all converged toward a single distant point, like the heart of a coalescing nebula.
Never relenting, Adam fixed on the unbroken spiral of Peregrine's silver cord and followed it into the shimmering midst of the dance. Anticipated, but never quite expected - as usual - came an icy thrill of disorientation that left him momentarily breathless and slightly dizzy. When the universe righted itself again, he found himself standing in spirit before two immense doors of immeasurable height, robed in white, his feet bared to tread on holy ground. It was familiar ground - the eye of the cyclone, the calm of the center of the storm, the hub of the wheel - but the awe was always new.
Adam had the Word of an Adeptus Major. As he spoke it, the doors opened with ponderous majesty. Beyond it lay timeless vaults of silence: the unmapped and unmappable halls of the Akashic Records, the imperishable archives of all lives for all time. In to the vaults of the future, he might not go; but guided by the silver cord that was Peregrine's connection into the Sephiroth, Adam passed into the vaults of the past, threading a circular, inward-tending course along corridors iridescent as mother-of-pearl. At the heart of the labyrinth lay a convoluted chamber, whorled and curved like the walls of a nautilus shell. And at its center, on a canopied altar, lay a great book. As Adam approached the altar, the book opened of its own accord.
Hands pressed palm to palm in respect, Adam bent his head over the book, framing his intent in wordless query. As if conjured by some mystic wind, the pages began to turn and images be presented for his gaze - the strands of the thread that linked the many lives of the one now known as Peregrine Lovat."
From The Adept - Katherine Kurtz, Deborah Turner Harris copyright 1991. Used with permission of the author.

The word 'Akasha' is from the Sanskrit, and means variously 'breath', 'sky', 'space'. The Akashic Records have been variously described as the very stuff of the universe, imprinted indelibly with all that occurs, a self-aware entity made of the same recording material, an immeasurably giant database, The Book of Life, the collective unconsciousness, the alchemical balance of all the elements, an energy field - however it may be perceived, the constant is that 'it' records and stores all things that have been, are, and will be. Some folk envision it as purely surrounding our planet in a rather Terra-centric viewpoint. But most accounts are of a universal nature, encompassing all beings, all dimensions, Time and Timelessness. While those of us on this plane of existence generally cannot read the records of the future (there are those who get glimpses of the potentials), they exist as well.

All of us access the Akashic Records in some degree, whether through dreaming, 'accidentally' when your intuition tells you something, or consciously as Sir Adam Sinclair, the character in 'The Adept', does above. Edgar Cayce claimed that all his knowledge came from accessing those records. We all access our own prior experiences on some level. Others have developed the ability to access the Records of other individuals - in the fictional case of Sir Adam, and the real life case of Edgar Cayce, the motive for both is healing.

To continue using the fictional example of 'The Adept', Adam Sinclair is trying to help Peregrine Lovat, an artist whose (re)emerging ability to 'see' beyond the surface of his subjects is causing him great distress. After the visit to the Akashic Records to discover the source of Peregrine's gift, Adam then, with Peregrine's permission, gives Lovat a post-hypnotic suggestion to dream how to control his gift. By linking into his previous personas, Lovat first learns how to control himself.

(If you're wondering why I'm using a fictional example, it's because it's a practical application and illustrates how one MIGHT use the Akashic Records. Edgar Cayce 'dreamed' his work as well, so it's not too far off. and besides, Katherine Kurtz writes better than I do.)

"The dream began as though he were waking up from a light doze. He was still in bed in the Blue Room at Strathmourne, but the door was standing half-open, emitting a wedge of unearthly light. Peregrine rose from the bed and crossed to the doorway. When he looked beyond the confines of the room, he realized that he was standing on the threshold of some other reality.
He should have been facing another door, in a corridor papered in a willow-herb pattern designed by William Morris. Instead, he was confronting a square chamber, empty and bare, whose blank walls had the silvery sheen of mirrors. The wall to his right was broken by a high archway, affording him a view of a succession of other rooms beyond. The light that suffused all the rooms seemed to be emanating from somewhere off in the distance, in that direction.
Peregrine was seized by a sudden desire to locate the source of the light. His dream-self stepped out into the middle of the square chamber, and his own reflection sprang out at him from three sides. He fetched up short, for the reflection did not match up with his appearance.
His dream persona was wearing the modern clothes he had worn when he had fled to Adam Sinclair in search of counsel. But the self that gazed back at him out of the mirror was wearing only sandals and a striped woolen chlamys thrown over the left shoulder, in a style that recalled amphorae paintings from ancient Greece. Apart from the differences in clothing and hairstyle, however, the reflection conformed with Peregrine's every look and gesture. It occurred to him, within the framework of the dream, that what he was seeing might be a true, if deeply hidden, part of himself.
He moved hastily through the arch into the adjoining room. This chamber was mirrored too, and in this one, he wore the short tunic and the leather body armor of a Roman centurion. In the room after, he was greeted by a long-haired image of himself in a rich Byzantine dalmatic of embroidered silk. More images followed, detailed like a fantastic display in a museum of historical costume. But the face was always his own.
The strange gallery of mirrors brought him at last to the foot of a tall door. Ornately carved as the entry port of a church, it yielded smoothly when Peregrine gave a tentative tug at the latch. He felt no sense of danger, so he stepped across the threshold and paused to look around.
The chamber in which he found himself was vaulted like a Greek Orthodox chapel, its curving dome overlaid with mosaic work in marble and gold. Light spilled down from a glowing filigree lamp suspended on golden chains from the ceiling. Directly below the lamp, on an upraised dais of white marble, a curiously fashioned pedestal supported a shimmering globe the size of a royal orb.
Aware that he was still dreaming, Peregrine gazed at the orb in wonder. It had a nacreous sheen, like a great pearl. The silken beauty of it drew him like a magnet. Without pausing to consider his actions, he strode across the floor and mounted the dais, hands reverently outstretched to touch it.
The instant of contact brought a radiant flash, like a surge of heat lightning. Reeling, Peregrine flung up his arms to shield his dazzled eyes.
He took his hands away to find the chapel gone, himself suspended in an iridescent sea. Fear of falling gripped him, and he kicked out frantically in an attempt to find the floor. His violent and instinctive movement sent a wave of color surging through the opalescent matrix surrounding him. The wave folded back on itself, fragmenting in a kaleidoscopic explosion of fractured light.
Straightaway Peregrine was swallowed up in a polychrome tempest. He thrashed about in the eddying tides like a swimmer in danger of drowning, becoming more and more disoriented by the second. Panicking, he choked out a gasping cry for help.
A chorus of voices answered him, calling out reassurance and encouragement. The spoke in different languages, but he understood all of them. In that Pentecostal moment, he realized that they were all echoes of his own voice, all telling him the same thing: Be still, and know that thou art lord of all.
He stopped struggling. At once the wild fluctuations of light became less erratic. Holding himself motionless, he willed the storm to subside. By degrees, the warring colors resolved in to a unified field of light, like a pearly lake - and he could walk upon it! Awed and astonished, he set off in perfect silence."
From The Adept - Katherine Kurtz, Deborah Turner Harris copyright 1991. Used with permission of the author.

Through this lesson, Peregrine begins to learn how to control the visions that have until now been haunting him by first learning to control himself and reach into a stillness and center. The knowledge is indeed within him, and through the Akashic Records, he can link to his past incarnations to unlock it.

This is simply one version of what the Akashic Records may look like, act like, and how they may be worked with. In Akashic Records: Collective Keepers of Divine Expression, as channeled by Lumari, the Akashic Records themselves speak as a collective entity. Remember, in all libraries there is a Librarian. In this account, access to knowledge and information is limited to the vibrational level an individual can reach. (Incidentally, as I was reading this, I was reminded of a book that I had started but had had some trouble with - Being and Vibration by Joseph Rael. Apparently it's time to give it another go.) When you resonate at a certain level, certain knowledge may become available to you - hence those flashes of brilliance and intuition that are not easily replicated or sustained. Because all dimensions are recorded, it is possible that you may subconsciously connect with an alternate self at certain points.

The Akashic Records are a deceptively simple idea with increasingly complex implications the more you dwell upon them. In modern metaphysical writing, Rudolf Steiner and Helena Blavatsky are mentioned in connection with the Records; however I have to admit I haven't had the time to actually read anything they have written (I still have Isis vols. I and II sitting here, as well as an Introduction to Theosophy I have yet to get around to).

In the short time left to concentrate on this topic, I would like to ask you all these few things:

1. Have you ever experienced something akin to accessing the Akashic Records?
2. Have you ever deliberately attempted/accessed the Akashic Records?
3. How did you perceive it?
4. What use did you make of the visit?
5. Have you been able to access on behalf of someone else, or only for your own self?
6. How does the idea of an eternal record make you feel?