Akashic records

Akashic records referred to in parts of the esoteric, especially in the "modern" ( Anglo-Indian ) theosophy and anthroposophy, the idea of ​​a supernatural " Book of Life", which contains in intangible form an all-encompassing world memory. There are also older ideas of such a " world memory" ( as in Neo-Platonism, in the Christian tradition and in the pre- modern esotericism ), the term " Akashic Records " (English akashic records ) but in this form is modern theosophical origin. In the German -speaking world he was familiar mainly by Rudolf Steiner. Mystics such as Steiner and more recently soothsayer took or take claim for themselves, " read" the Akashic Record to.

Etymology

The term Akasha ( Sanskrit: आकाश Akasa also Akasha, akasa and akaça; Pali: Akasa ) stands for sky, space or ether; in Hindu philosophy and in Ayurveda called Akasha ( ' Ether' ) next to Prithvi ( ' earth '), Vayu ( ' air '), Agni ( ' fire ') and Jalam ( ' water ') one of the five elements (see Vaisheshika ). In Buddhism, Akasa is used as a designation for the limited space ( akasa - dhatu ) or unlimited space ( ajatākāsa ).

Conceptual history

The idea of ​​a world memory in Europe has a long tradition and is found for Plotinus (ca. 205-270 ), Marsilio Ficino ( 1433-1499 ) and Paracelsus ( 1493-1541 ) and in approaches even when Agrippa of Nettesheim ( 1486-1535 ) Eliphas Levi (1810-1875) and Eduard von Hartmann ( 1842-1906 ). According to the Indologist and scholar of religion Helmuth von Glasenapp it is original Western origin and regardless of the use of the Sanskrit word akasha the traditional Indian thought strange.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), the founder of modern Theosophy, spoke in the first volume of her published work Isis Unveiled in 1877 ( Isis Unveiled ) of " metaphysical boards ", " daguerreotypes, printed on the astral light ", in the records " of all that was, is or ever will be " are imprinted and the" " would the eye of the seer and prophet portrayed as a living picture.

The use of the term " Akashic Records " ( akashic records ) is first detected at the theosophist Charles W. Leadbeater ( 1847-1934 ) in his 1899 published writing clairvoyance. Among other names (such as " astral projections " or " astral visions " ) were hits on an imagined world memory since the late 19th century in the Theosophical Society and in their environment ( Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn ), a popular subject of esoteric teachings.

Anthroposophy

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), then head of the German section of the Theosophical Society Adyar, the term used mainly in the published 1904-1908 essay series from the Akashic records. The idea associated to be able to perceive past events supernatural, was later much for his thinking, such as "forward- backward [r ] clairvoyant [r ] views ". The reports of some factual details he regarded as a complementary way of what had resulted from the " Akashic Records research ". Primarily, it did not care about "external actual history ", but the " supernatural " itself so he wanted to write in From the Akashic Record a kind of history of the soul, and he claimed that inner truth ( " spiritual knowledge " ) of Christianity looked to have. The inspiration of the Bible as he understood, " that she must have written someone who is able to look into the Akashic Records. "

The "Read" in the Akashic records, according to Steiner is a rise in the sphere of " intuition " forward - at Steiner the highest of three levels of extrasensory perception. It includes memories of previous incarnations and is a self- putting oneself in a " consciousness that goes beyond a single person ." Following on from earlier forms of collective memory so could be extended to a human memory a biographical memory. This would be " the ability to understand the development momentum of human history underlying " and to take responsibility for the future global development.

Steiner reports are the anthroposophical conception according understandable descriptions of - accessible only after meditative training - psychic reality. In his writings, How to Know Higher Worlds (1904 ) or Occult Science in outline (1910 ) raised Steiner 's claim to be able to make this principle of knowledge available to everyone.

Others use

Besides Leadbeater reported more English Theosophists, to read in the Akashic records, including Levi H. Dowling (1844-1911), Annie Besant (1847-1933) and Alice Bailey ( 1880-1949 ). More influential " reader " of the Chronicle were the Rosicrucian Max Heindel (1865-1919) and the " Sleeping Prophet " Edgar Cayce ( 1877-1945 ). Also in the New Age, the term " Akashic Records " was often taken up, so by Shirley MacLaine in Out on a Limb (1983 ), by Janet and Stewart Farrar in The Witches' Way ( 1984) by Marian Green in Experiments in Aquarian Magic (1985) and by Henry Reed in Edgar Cayce on Mysteries of the Mind (1989). Newer artists are Penny McLean and Ulla von Bernus.

In English, today many books on the market that want to provide information from the Akashic records, or provide instructions to read myself in this chronicle. In contrast to the main traditional use of the term, such as Steiner, the "reading " in the Akashic records in today's mystics is also related to the future, for example for reasons of divination or as a background of Indian palm leaf libraries, in which the lives of kept all of their future visits should be.

How to rate

In the opinion of the religious scientist Hartmut Zinser are supposed insights into and out of the Akashic Records statements of faith in the religious sense, their religious character will but denied by this is output as objective facts. This would be subject mystics such as Rudolf Steiner, " one of the fundamental epistemological error of modern occultism: not, at least not sufficiently, between perception ( here: the soul experiences ) and interpretation to distinguish ( as a supernatural world). "

Furthermore, critics complain that many assertions already in hermeneutical text analysis have shown inconsistencies or incompatible with the saved status of relevant specialized sciences. Levi H. Dowling about derive from the Akashic Records from implausible statements about extended trips of Jesus at times of his life, of which both by historical-critical exegesis as well as general science of history nothing is known. Thus, the value of the book only to his poetic power, but not at its reality content could be measured.