In the religion of Theosophy and the spiritual movement called Anthroposophy, the Akashic records are believed by Theosophists to be a compendium of all universal events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future in terms of all entities and life forms, not just human. They are believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the mental plane. There is no evidence for the existence of Akashic records, and rigorous scientific research in this field has seen little traction.[1][2][3]
Akasha (ākāśa आकाश) is the Sanskrit word for "aether", "sky", or "atmosphere".[4]
History
editTheosophical Society
editThe Sanskrit term akasha was introduced to the language of theosophy through Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891), who characterized it as a sort of life force; she also referred to "indestructible tablets of the astral light" recording both the past and future of human thought and action, but she did not use the term "akashic".[5] The notion of an akashic record was further disseminated by Alfred Percy Sinnett in his book Esoteric Buddhism (1883) when he cites Henry Steel Olcott's A Buddhist Catechism (1881).[6] Olcott wrote that "Buddha taught two things are eternal, viz, 'Akasa' and 'Nirvana': everything has come out of Akasa in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it, and, passes away. No thing ever comes out of nothing."
By C. W. Leadbeater's Clairvoyance (1899) the association of the term with the idea was complete, and he identified the akashic records by name as something a clairvoyant could read.[5] In his 1913 Man: Whence, How and Whither, Leadbeater claims to record the history of Atlantis and other civilizations as well as the future society of Earth in the 28th century.[5][7]
Alice A. Bailey wrote in her book The Light of the Soul on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – Book 3 – Union Achieved and Its Results (1927):[full citation needed]
The akashic record is like an immense photographic film, registering all the desires and earth experiences of our planet. Those who perceive it will see pictured thereon:
- The life experiences of every human being since time began,
- The reactions to experience of the entire animal kingdom,
- The aggregation of the thought-forms of a karmic nature (based on desire) of every human unit throughout time. Only a trained occultist can distinguish between actual experience and those astral pictures created by imagination and keen desire.[8]
Rudolf Steiner
editThe Austrian theosophist, and later founder of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner used the Akashic records concept mainly in a series of articles in his journal Lucifer-Gnosis from 1904 to 1908, where he wrote about Atlantis and Lemuria, topics related to their purported history and civilization.[9] Besides this, he used the term in the title of lectures on a Fifth Gospel held in 1913 and 1914, shortly after the foundation of the Anthroposophical Society and Steiner's exclusion from the Theosophical Society Adyar.[10]
Other
editEdgar Cayce claimed to be able to access the Akashic records.[2] Musician Prince used references to akashic records as a storytelling device throughout his album The Rainbow Children, particularly in reference to the history of slavery in the United States. The character Obadiah Archer from the Valiant Comics universe series Archer & Armstrong is able to access the Akashic plane to mimic all known human and superhuman abilities since the 2012 reboot.[11][full citation needed]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Ellwood, Robert S. (1996). "Theosophy". The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. pp. 759–66. ISBN 978-1-57392-021-6.
- ^ a b Regal, Brian (2009). Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-313-35507-3.
Other than anecdotal eyewitness accounts, there is no evidence of the ability to astral project, the existence of other planes, or of the Akashic Record.
- ^ Drury, Nevill (2011). Heaven: The Rise of Modern Western Magic. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 308. ISBN 978-0-19-975100-6.
- ^ Rowell, Lewis (1 January 1998). Music and Musical Thought in Early India. University of Chicago Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780226730332. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
- ^ a b c Brandt, Katharina; Hammer, Olav (2013). "Rudolf Steiner and Theosophy". In Hammer, Olav; Rothstein, Mikael (eds.). Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Leiden, NL; Boston: Brill. pp. 122–3. ISBN 9789004235960.
- ^ Sinnett, Alfred Percy (1884). Esoteric22 Buddhism (5th ed.). Houghton Mifflin. p. 127.
- ^ Besant, Annie; Leadbeater, C.W. (1913). Man: How, Whence, and Whither?. Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House.
- ^ Bailey, Alice, ed. (1997) [1927]. The Light of the Soul: Its Science and Effect: A Paraphrase of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. New York: Lucis Publishing Company. pp. 275–276. ISBN 978-0-85330-112-7. OCLC 415484607.
- ^ Aus der Akasha-Chronik. Partial edition of the work in English:
- Steiner, Rudolf (1911). The Submerged Continents of Atlantis and Lemuria, Their History and Civilization. Being Chapters from The Âkâshic Records. London: Theosophical Publishing Society.
- Steiner, Rudolf (1959). Cosmic Memory. Englewood, New Jersey: Rudolf Steiner Publications.
- ^ Steiner, Rudolf (1950). The Fifth Gospel. Investigation of the Akasha Chronicle. Five lectures given in Christiania, 1913. London: Rudolf Steiner Publishing.
- ^ Archer & Armstrong (2012 Valiant series)