Akashic records
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In theosophy and anthroposophy, the Akashic records are a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future. They are believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the etheric plane. There are anecdotal accounts but there is no scientific evidence for the existence of the Akashic records.[1][2][3]
Akasha (ākāśa आकाश) is the Sanskrit word for 'aether' or 'atmosphere'. Also, in Hindi, ākāsh (आकाश) means 'sky' or 'heaven'.
Theosophical Society
The Sanskrit term akasha was introduced to the language of theosophy through H. P. 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".[4] The notion of an akashic record is attributed to Alfred Percy Sinnett, who, in his book Esoteric Buddhism (1883), wrote of a Buddhist belief in "a permanency of records in the Akasa" and "the potential capacity of man to read the same."[4][5] 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.[4] In his 1913 Man: How, Whence, 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.[4][6]
Alice A. Bailey wrote in her book Light of the Soul on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – Book 3 – Union achieved and its Results (1927):
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. Herein lies the great deception of the records. Only a trained occultist can distinguish between actual experience and those astral pictures created by imagination and keen desire.
Rudolf Steiner
The 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 civilisation, etc.[7] 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.[8]
Aquarian Gospel
Levi H. Dowling's Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ (1908) offers a version of the youth of Jesus Christ ostensibly based upon "akashic record" material.
See also
References
- ^ Ellwood, Robert S. (1996). "Theosophy". In Stein, Gordon (ed.). The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. pp. 759–66. ISBN 978-1-57392-021-6.
- ^ Regal, Brian (2009). Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-313-35507-3.
While it is not possible to measure or confirm the existence of the akashic records or akashic field via the scientific method, many independent eyewitness accounts corroborate one another in specific detail.
- ^ Drury, Nevill (2011). Heaven: The Rise of Modern Western Magic. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 308. ISBN 978-0-19-975100-6.
- ^ a b c d 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). Esoteric Buddhism (5th ed.). Houghton Mifflin. p. 127.
- ^ Besant, Annie; Leadbeater, C.W. (1913). Man: How, Whence, and Whither?. Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House.
- ^ 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. First complete English edition: 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.