Akashic records (pronounced uh-kay-shick or uh-caw-shick) refer to a personal spiritual library that captures information and experiences from past lives. Explaining the notion of Akashic records touches on several other major spiritual tenets and I'll try my best to give a sensible perspective upon which you can evaluate what might be true.

When participating in the metaphysical realm, it generally doesn't take very long to be introduced to the Akashic records concept and most accounts compare it to the hard drive and memory aspects of a computer. As you read this, the information currently inside you is considered memory and past-life information is in your hard drive (Akashic records).

Updating your memory with information from your hard drive is usually on a need-to-know basis. Losing a life partner to illness for example, and accessing previous relationship losses from past lives can help one go through the grieving process. Holding that information, years before your partner leaves their body seems inefficient and unproductive.

Maybe you dedicated a previous warrior/soldier life to a cause like 'God save the Queen.' As part of this dedication you did not raise a family or have a satisfying romantic relationship. Now in present day, you might be considering choosing a career path that will require a similar 100% commitment for many years. This is a good example of internally connecting with the past to see if you want a similar level of commitment that foregoes family and relationship or whether now you desire something different. Connecting with your Akashic records in this manner touches you in subtle, undetectable ways and emphasizes emotions and feelings regarding this next career choice Managing your information storage and retrieval smoothly makes moving through life a little easier.

What you hardly hear about is the actual form that the information takes when it is moved back and forth between the hard drive and your memory. When clairvoyantly looking at someone's energetic space one sees mental image pictures. No text, no paragraphs, no spoken words but pictures.

Imagine the translation challenges arising from previous lives in France, Russia, Greece and Ancient Rome if spiritual communication was in the form of words. Upon consideration that the experiences held in Akashic records are in fact a bunch of pictures, moving forward let's retain the concept that this information storage phenomenon is in the form of pictures.

Just to be clear, I have never seen a past-life in one's Akashic records. A past-life reading is a completely different experience yet it also involves retrieving information from the past to use in this lifetime. We will discuss more about past-lives at another time.

Besides discussing the veracity of past lives, the claim that all of your past has been recorded and is accessible to you (on some level) is another component that comes with believing in Akashic records.

Let's start with capturing your past. No one has ever said in a precise manner what is not included in one's records. Is every gesture and all words spoken or heard included? To me, it seems a bit far-fetched that EVERYTHING is recorded. As we all know there is plenty of days that pass with little or no long-term significance. Days that we remember the rest of our life are few are far between. If many yesterdays lose their relevance in this lifetime, why would we hold them eternally?

Keeping track for example, of every step taken in a 5-mile walk seems pointless. I have seen very few, if any pointless pictures or inconsequential energy in anyone's space. Only the pictures that hold a significant emotional charge seem to exist in someone's energetic universe.

It doesn't seem a huge stretch to see the Akashic records working in a similar fashion where the remembered, kept or saved experiences are the ones holding the most energy in them. Maybe one's Akashic records are like a neural network and captures only the energy, information and pictures with the most life charge.

OK, if we can accept the possibility the process works like a big energy sponge, that captures and holds only the most significant energy memories and experiences, let's move to the concept of past-lives.

Here is where we gain some traction. Why bother with past-lives as part of a spiritual journey/existence if we can't use the experiences from one lifetime to the next? What would be the point to go through a full-life only to have it dissolve to nothingness?

If we answer Yes to believing we are on a spiritual journey that spans more than one lifetime and Yes to "getting smarter" from one lifetime to the next, then access to the past becomes sensible. No reason that one shouldn't make use of the past and become a "Been there, done that and apparently I am doing it again!!" person.