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Theosophy's word, his readings

What do the Cayce readings say about the akashic records?

The akashic records are a Theosophical idea: a record of every thought, word and act a soul has ever made, held in the akasha, the Sanskrit word for aether or space. Edgar Cayce's readings took the idea in after 1923 and made it the source of every life reading. The word itself is rare in them. We count 25 uses in his own words, the first on March 15, 1928. Far more often he simply said he had the records, or that they were written on what he called the skein of time and space.

See the words arrive How a reading got there

Subject card · readings 1923 to 1944

Akashic records

How akasha became a record

Akasha is old. In Hindu cosmology it is one of the five great elements, the aether that fills space, and the one whose quality is sound. The idea of a record kept in it is far younger and comes out of Theosophy, the movement around Helena Blavatsky and Henry Olcott.

Blavatsky wrote of indestructible tablets of the astral light that keep every human thought and act, though she never used the adjective. A. P. Sinnett put a record in the akasa into his 1883 book, citing Henry Olcott's Buddhist catechism. By 1899 C. W. Leadbeater was writing about what clairvoyants could read from the akashic records, and he admitted the name was loose, since in his scheme the records only become workable on the mental plane. Rudolf Steiner wrote his own account in a run of articles later collected as Aus der Akasha-Chronik, about Atlantis and Lemuria.

Reincarnation and karma were already being sold to American readers in plain English by then. William Walker Atkinson published Reincarnation and the Law of Karma in Chicago in 1908. The man who brought these questions to Edgar Cayce in 1923 was reading from this shelf, which you can trace on our map of the hidden mystics.

AncientAkasha in Sanskrit: aether, space, the element whose quality is sound
Before 1883Blavatsky: tablets of the astral light that record thought and act
1883Sinnett, Esoteric Buddhism: a record in the akasa
1899Leadbeater, Clairvoyance: the akashic records, read by clairvoyants
1904 to 1908Steiner, twenty articles in Lucifer-Gnosis, from July 1904 to May 1908
Oct 11, 1923Reading 5717-1 for Arthur Lammers, Phillips Hotel, Dayton
Mar 15, 1928Reading 169-1, the first akashic in his own words

Dayton, October 1923

The vocabulary switches on

Arthur Lammers was a Dayton printer with money and a taste for metaphysics. Thomas Sugrue's biography, as quoted in the Psi Encyclopedia of the Society for Psychical Research, has him asking about Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy. On October 11, 1923, at the Phillips Hotel, Cayce gave him a horoscope reading. It runs through his planets and his disposition, then says in two short lines that this is the man's third appearance on this plane and that he was once a monk. The first life reading in our sorting followed on November 16 (583-1).

Each panel is one word or phrase. The line is the share of dated readings, quarter by quarter from 1909 to 1944, that use it in his own words, with the conductor's suggestion, the questions and the editorial notes taken out. Every panel has its own scale. The dashed line marks the Lammers reading, and blank stretches are quarters with fewer than ten dated readings.

Move across any panel to read a quarter.

entity His word for the soul. Six of the 477 dated readings before 1923 use it, loosely. From 1925 to 1944 it is in 31 percent, and in the last quarter of 1923 it is already in 42 of 123.
sojourn, appearances None until reading 288-1 on November 20, 1923. Thirteen percent of readings after 1925, rising to nearly one in five by 1939.
astrological One earlier reading, 254-2 of March 19, 1919, given on a date astrologers had written to recommend. Eleven percent after 1925.
Atlantis By name from February 22, 1924 (779-5), though 288-1 already places a past life in Poseidia. The full story is on our Cayce and Atlantis page.
karma One use in Birmingham in November 1922, then under 2 percent for two decades, jumping to about 6 percent in 1943 and 1944.
reincarnation Rare as a word, in only 24 dated readings in his own words, the first in 1925. He preferred appearances, sojourns and entrances.
body The control. Ninety three percent of readings before 1923 and 92 percent from 1925.

Counting the names

What he called the records

The full text of the readings has akashic 34 times in 28 readings. Seven of those uses are in questions people put to him and two are in notes the secretaries added later, which leaves 25 uses in 23 readings that are his. Reading 169-1, given to a student in March 1928, is the first. It speaks of the akashic record each person makes for himself.

His usual word was plainer. In 901 readings he says he has the records, and in 132 he speaks of the records of the entity. From 1936 a phrase of his own appears in 49 readings, the record written upon the skein of time and space, and in March 1944 one life reading stacks three names in a sentence, the skein, the akashic records and God's book of remembrances (3902-2).

He was firm that these were not documents. In 1931 he said the records are “not as written words, but are as active forces in the life of an entity” (reading 288-27, September 25, 1931).

Name in his words	Readings	First	Last
we have the records	901	900-6, Oct 1924	5392-1, Aug 1944
the records of the entity	132	691-1, Oct 1934	5368-1, Jul 1944
skein of time and space	49	540-4, Feb 1936	5356-1, Jul 1944
book of life	24	900-220, Apr 1926	2533-8, May 1944
akashic	23	169-1, Mar 1928	5253-1, Jun 1944
book of remembrance	14	1158-6, Jan 1937	5231-1, Jun 1944
records of time and space	5	490-1, Jan 1934	1473-1, Nov 1937

Trance, suggestion, journey

How a reading reached the records

A life reading started with the conductor, nearly always Gertrude Cayce, reading a fixed suggestion over him. It asked for the entity's relation to the universe, its personalities latent and exhibited, its former appearances in the earth and what it could attain. It did not ask for any records. Out of 1,914 life readings in our sorting, just 15 suggestions mention a record at all.

The records came from his side, and the way he opened changed in the mid 1930s. Through 1935 a life reading usually began with him saying he had the entity. From 1936 it began with him saying he had the records here, and by 1944 that is how 198 of 222 life readings open.

Year	Life readings	Opens on the entity	Opens on the records
1925	63	39	1
1930	62	56	0
1934	97	81	0
1935	107	73	15
1936	113	34	62
1938	105	10	79
1940	125	2	103
1944	222	5	198

Awake, he described the trip. In a lecture at Norfolk on December 14, 1933, called Continuity of Life, he told an experience he said had come to him many times since the early 1920s while giving a life reading. The association kept the account in the notes to reading 294-19, and later variations in the notes to 294-161 and 294-185. In our own summary, it runs from the dark upward.

He sees himself as a tiny dot outside his own body, which lies still. It is dark and he feels very alone.
A white beam of light appears, and he follows it up, knowing he would be lost if he left it.
The lowest levels hold vague and horrible shapes, then human forms with some part of the body swollen out of proportion.
Figures in gray hoods move downward, grow paler and turn to move up.
Houses, walls and trees appear without any motion, and then towns where things move.
Sound comes in, a rumble first, then music, laughter and birds, with the light and color growing.
He reaches a hall of records with no walls and no ceiling. An old man hands him a large book, the record of the person he is reading.

Jul 12, 1933 After 373-2 he said he had traveled as a bubble through water to the same place.
Nov 28, 1934 During 752-1 he climbed a great column that wound around like a Rotary wheel and passed the dark things without touching them.
Apr 22, 1936 During 1151-1 the keeper of the records spoke to him for the first time and wanted the book back.
Aug 26, 1936 During 1256-1 he rode a blue, purple and silver light straight to the house of records.

“The record that the individual entity itself writes upon the skein of time and space, through patience ... may be read by those attuning to that consciousness.”

Reading 2533-8, May 3, 1944, answering a question about the Book of Life

That is the closest the readings come to a definition, and it puts the weight on tuning in. A 1933 reading says the same about interpreting any such record, that success hangs on the reader meeting the same force or vibration. His hall of records in these trance trips is not the Hall of Records he placed in Egypt, a chamber of Atlantean documents, which belongs to the Atlantis story.

Exodus to Revelation

The book of life, in the Bible and in the readings

The Bible never uses the word akashic. What it has is a book kept by God. Moses asks to be blotted out of it if his people cannot be forgiven, Malachi has a book of remembrance written for those who fear the Lord, and in Revelation the dead are judged from the books, with the book of life opened beside them.

The readings drew the line between the two ideas themselves. Asked in 1937 whether the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in Revelation 15:5 meant the akashic records, he answered, “That as you may term the Akashic Record, or the Book of Life, or the Book of Revelation” (reading 281-36, July 28, 1937). In May 1944 a list of questions took him through the Book of Life, God's book of remembrances and the akashic records in turn, and he answered that the second is the first and the third is the record the individual makes (2533-8).

The difference is who holds the pen. In scripture God writes the names and can blot them out. In the readings each soul writes its own record by what it does, and anyone attuned enough can read it.

Exodus 32:32 to 33Moses offers to be blotted out of God's book; God answers that he blots out whoever sinned
Psalm 69:28A prayer that enemies be blotted out of the book of the living
Daniel 12:1Those written in the book are delivered at the end
Malachi 3:16A book of remembrance for those who fear the Lord and think on his name
Philippians 4:3Paul's fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life
Revelation 20:12The dead judged by what is written in the books, by their works

The flat answer

Is any of it true?

No test confirms that the akashic records exist. Regal's 2009 reference on pseudoscience, as cited by Wikipedia, finds no evidence for them beyond anecdote. A reading of the records, Cayce's or anyone's, can be checked only where it happens to name a fact that is on paper somewhere else.

He was cautious with other people's claims to the same source. In 1940 a Quaker teacher wanted to know if the Aquarian Gospel had been taken straight from the akashic records. He answered that it was the author's own experience and real to him (2067-2). In 1941 another asked about a prediction from an akashic reading by Bertine Powers, and was told the outcome depended on her own choices (1472-13).

The machine question was put to him too. In January 1934 a member with a Theosophist background and her son brought him questions about an etheronic instrument built by a Dr. Paul E. Cold, and asked whether, since the records are on the ether, an instrument could tap them. The reading said it would have to run the other way from this one, and that it might eventually be done (443-5). Nobody has built one.

Look one upBy reading number

Every number on this page is a reading you can read in full. Members of the A.R.E. can search them all at edgarcayce.org, and our finder is a good place to start.

Open the reading finder

Questions

Akashic records and the readings

Does the Bible mention the akashic records?

Not by that name. The nearest biblical idea is the book of life, which runs from Exodus to Revelation, plus the book of remembrance in Malachi. The readings joined the two ideas on their own: in 1937 the akashic record was equated with the book of life, and in 1944 God's book of remembrances was called the book of life as well.

Is an akashic records reading real?

Nothing outside the reader can confirm one. No test has shown the records exist, so a reading of them, his or anyone's, rests on testimony plus whatever checkable facts it happens to name.

How did Cayce reach someone's akashic record?

In trance, after the conductor read a set suggestion naming the person. Awake, he described rising along a beam of light past dark levels to a hall where an old man handed him a book.

How much did a Cayce life reading cost?

A 1923 letter filed with reading 4861-2 complains of a $25 fee. A 1926 circular asked $15 for membership and $10 a reading. In June 1944 the price was $25 for membership, $35 with the first reading and $20 for later ones.

Can AI or a machine read the akashic records?

In 1934 one member asked whether an instrument could tap records on the ether, and was told it might one day happen. No device has done it, and software has no proven record to read.

Who first used the term akashic records?

Theosophists. Sinnett wrote of a record in the akasa in Esoteric Buddhism in 1883, and Leadbeater's Clairvoyance of 1899 treats the akashic records as something a clairvoyant reads.

Sources

Where these facts come from

The readings themselves, counted across all 14,301 texts: 169-1, 288-1, 288-27, 281-36, 294-19, 443-5, 583-1, 779-5, 1472-13, 2067-2, 2533-8, 3506-1, 3902-2, 4492-1, 5717-1, 254-2. The trance-journey accounts are in the A.R.E. notes filed with 294-19, 294-161 and 294-185; fees are in the notes to 4861-2, 2842-1 and 254-115. Every number can be checked via the A.R.E.
Wikipedia, Akashic records (Blavatsky, Sinnett 1883, Leadbeater 1899, Steiner, Regal 2009) and Akasha, read November 14, 2026.
C. W. Leadbeater, Clairvoyance, read in the second edition.
Rudolf Steiner, From the Akashic Record, GA 11, for the Lucifer-Gnosis articles of 1904 to 1908.
K. M. Wehrstein, Edgar Cayce, Psi Encyclopedia, Society for Psychical Research, for Lammers and Sugrue.
Wikipedia, Edgar Cayce, for Lammers as a printer and student of metaphysics; Book of Life for the verse list, checked against the King James Version.