Akashic Records

The "akashic records" were first mentioned in Col. Olcott's The Buddhist Catechism. There, he talks about "a permanency of records in the Akasha, and the potential capacity of man to read the same when he has evolved to the stage of true individual enlightenment." A related reference can be found in one of Master K.H.'s letters, where he wrote:

I have a habit of often quoting, minus quotation marks — from the maze of what I get in the countless folios of our Akasic libraries, so to say — with eyes shut. Sometimes I may give out thoughts that will see light years later; at other times what an orator, a Cicero may have pronounced ages earlier, and at others, what was not only pronounced by modern lips but already either written or printed — as in the Kiddle case.

Mental plane

C. W. Leadbeater wrote:

In speaking of the general characteristics of the plane we must not omit to mention the ever-present background formed by the records of the past — the memory of nature, the only really reliable history of the world. While what we have on this plane is not yet the absolute record itself, but merely a reflection of something higher still, it is at any rate clear, accurate, and continuous, differing therein from the disconnected and spasmodic manifestation which is all that represents it in the astral world. It is, therefore, only when a clairvoyant possesses the vision of this mental plane that his pictures of the past can be relied upon; and even then, unless he has the power of passing in full consciousness from that plane to the physical, we have to allow for the possibility of errors in bringing back the recollection of what he has seen.

Geoffrey Farthing writes:

The higher levels of Akasa concern the spiritual triad of man, his Ego. It is in this way that the Ego can be regarded as omniscient. It has access, in the Akasa, to the noumena of all phenomena. This is properly the seeing into the Akashic records we hear about. Often, however, this expression is used to describe what is really psychic vision, personal clairvoyance, in the Astral Light.

This is far from Egoic omniscience, an important difference that should be noted. Only a high initiate can see into the spiritual levels of Akasa.

Astral Light

The astral light has the ability to receive and store "impressions", and therefore. Thus, it retains a record of everything that happens. Mme. Blavatsky explained:

The Astral Light . . . reflects on its lower individual plane the life of our Earth, recording it on its "tablets".

According to Occult teaching the Astral light is . . . the recorder of every thought; the universal mirror which reflects every event and thought as every being and thing, animate or inanimate. We call it the great Sea of Illusion, Maya.

The astral light not only records present and past events, but also holds a kind of "sketch" of future ones:

It is on the indestructible tablets of the astral light that is stamped the impression of every thought we think, and every act we perform; and that future events — effects of long-forgotten causes — are already delineated as a vivid picture for the eye of the seer and prophet to follow.

As can be gathered from the previous quote, the Adepts can access the "tablets" of the astral light and use them as a source of information. Mme. Blavatsky stated:

All things that ever were, that are, or that will be, having their record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe, the initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know all that has been known or can be known.

Another example based on personal experience is the help Mme. Blavatsky had from the Adepts in writing her book Isis Unveiled. She wrote:

It was neither a “spirit” nor “spirits” but living men who can draw before their eyes the picture of any book or manuscript wherever existing, and in case of need even that of any long forgotten and unrecorded event, who helped “Mme. Blavatsky.” The astral light is the store-house and the record book of all things, and deeds have no secrets for such men. And the proof of it may be found in the production of Isis Unveiled.

These records can also be accessed by the uninitiated, if he or she has developed clairvoyance. Mme. Blavatsky described one of the techniques sometimes used for this purpose as follows:

If the Astral Light is collected in a cup or metal vessel by will-power, and the eyes fixed on some point in it with a strong will to see, a waking vision or “dream” is the result, if the person is at all sensitive. The reflections in the Astral Light are seen better with closed eyes, and, in sleep, still more distinctly.

However, due to its nature, the visions seen by the uninitiated are often distorted reflections of the real:

The Astral Light . . . reflects everything reversed in its treacherous wave (both from the upper planes and from its lower solid plane, the earth). Hence the confusion of its colors and sounds in the perception and clairaudience of the sensitive who trusts to its records––be that sensitive a Hatha-Yogi or a medium.

The prototypes or ideas of things exist first on the plane of Divine eternal Consciousness and thence become reflected and reversed in the Astral Light, which also reflects on its lower individual plane the life of our Earth, recording it on its “tablets.” Therefore, is the Astral Light called illusion. It is from this that we, in our turn, get our prototypes. Consequently unless the Clairvoyant or Seer can get beyond this plane of illusion, he can never see the Truth, but will be drowned in an ocean of self-deception and hallucinations.

For this and other reasons, trying to train oneself into seeing in the Astral Light is not recommended:

Seeing in the astral light is not done through Manas, but through the senses, and hence has to do entirely with sense-perception removed to a plane different from this, but more illusionary. The final perceiver or judge of perception is in Manas, in the Self; and therefore the final tribunal is clouded by the astral perception if one is not so far trained or initiated as to know the difference and able to tell the true from the false. Another result is a tendency to dwell on this subtle sense-perception, which at last will cause an atrophy of Manas for the time being. This makes the confusion all the greater, and will delay any possible initiation all the more or forever. Further, such seeing is in the line of phenomena, and adds to the confusion of the Self which is only beginning to understand this life; by attempting the astral [perception] another element of disorder is added by more phenomena due to another plane, thus mixing both sorts up. The Ego must find its basis and not be swept off hither and thither. The constant reversion of images and ideas in the astral light, and the pranks of the elementals there, unknown to us as such and only seen in effects, still again add to the confusion. To sum it up, the real danger from which all others flow or follow is in the confusion of the Ego by introducing strange things to it before the time.

Memory

The Astral Light records what takes place, not only on a global level, but also at the level of personal experience:

Nothing that takes place, no manifestation however rapid or weak, can ever be lost from the Skandhic record of a man’s life. Not the smallest sensation, the most trifling action, impulse, thought, impression, or deed, can fade or go out from, or in the Universe. We may think it unregistered by our memory unperceived by our consciousness, yet it will still be recorded on the tablets of the astral light.

According to Mme. Blavatsky, the faculty of memory is related to the ability of consciousness to read into the person's record of the astral light.

Memory of past lives

Mme. Blavatsky claimed that the recognition of people and places not known before are not necessarily a proof of the "soul's memory" but the ability to read these things on the astral light:

The well-known fact — one corroborated by the personal experience of nine persons out of ten — that we often recognize as familiar to us, scenes, and landscapes, and conversations, which we see or hear for the first time, and sometimes in countries never visited before, is a result of the same causes [as the near-death review]. Believers in reïncarnation [of the same personality] adduce this as an additional proof of our antecedent existence in other bodies. This recognition of men, countries, and things that we have never seen, is attributed by them to flashes of soul-memory of anterior experiences. But the men of old, in common with mediæval philosophers, firmly held to a contrary opinion.

See also

• Akasha
• Memory