"The tribune's words howled and scattered to the four winds. A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akashic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was."
- James Joyce, Ulysses
A term from
Theosophy referring to the cosmic library in which is stored every thought, experience and perception of every entity in the universe from the beginning to the end of time--essentially
all information. From
Hindu metaphysics,
akasha is the substance upon which all of this information is etched, and is the primary element of nature from which spring the four natural elements of earth, air, fire, water. The Records are the
macrocosmic memory of your individual
microcosmic memory. In certain states of consciousness, whether natural or induced, one may access the Records as one would access one's own memory.
Edgar Cayce is an example of a Westerner who claimed to be able to do this.
Yogis and other mystics have varying degrees of freedom when using their mind as an
Akashic Record Player.
Buddhist literature refers to it as "nature's memory". Carl Jung called it the "collective unconsciousness". Rupert Sheldrake calls it "morphogenetic fields". Saint Peter reads it when you're at the gates of Heaven and it's how Santa Claus knows if you've been naughty or nice.
While in this state I have experienced in lucid detail, what seems to be every thought that has been
formulated in my mind throughout my entire lifetime, as well as each perspective through which I've
viewed life, and each experience I have had. I have seen my entire life laid out in suspension before me,
and I could wander through my previous perspectives as a detached observer. I could view my life
through four dimensions, easily recalling in full detail perspectives and perceptions back through early
childhood. I could see the development throughout my life, of ideas, identity, beliefs, coincidences,
relations, and limitations.
Not only is it a complete depository of my own life's perceptions, it similarly contains all
thoughts and experiences of every human, animal, plant, and molecular life form that has existed in the
universe since time began, including the life experience of individual cells and galactic star systems.
Other lives can be experienced with almost as much detail as one's own, down to a child's wonder
upon first feeling dew on the morning grass, the trace of lipstick left on your lips after kissing a lover
whom you've never before met, or a child's first impression of a pattern on clothing, seen while playing
at nursery school, in a building too modern to have existed during your own childhood. These vivid
impressions can be much more extraordinary! Being in an extraterrestrial body while making love and
enjoying the sensations perceived through a much finer tactile sense than exists in humans, or, the
experience of a planet's soul over millions of years as different groups of plants evolve, flourish, and
give way to their successors upon its surface.
- from The Essential Psychedelic Guide: Psychedelic Reality, by D. M. Turner
E2 has copyright permission to use the quote above.
Thanks to Rictor for the Ulysses quote.