The Akashic Record
Edward Reaugh
Smith
(From Smith's book: "The Burning Bush")
THE BRITANNICA, 1 Brit 185, has this to say:
Akashic
record, in occultism, a compendium of
pictorial records, or �memories,� of all events, actions, thoughts, and
feelings that have occurred since the beginning of time. They are said to be
imprinted on Akasha, the astral light, which is described by spiritualists as a
fluid ether existing beyond the range of human senses. The Akashic records are
reputedly accessible to certain select individuals�e.g., a spiritualist medium
who conducts a seance. Akasha allegedly transmits the waves of human willpower,
thought, feeling, and imagination and is a reservoir of occult power, an ocean
of unconsciousness to which all are linked, making prophecy and clairvoyance
possible.
While not entirely harmonious with Steiner�s comments,
the above does reflect the existence of the concept, though its Oriental origin
is not stated. Around the turn of this century, Steiner sensed that the
Theosophical Society, as it then existed, was the most fertile field in which
his spiritual insights could then be revealed. His most practical course was
simply to adopt the Oriental terminology prevalent within the Society, to the
extent it represented an area of spiritual insight, rather than to coin Western
terms. Thus he continued to use such terminology as Karma, but with substantive
revisions in meaning and application as his spiritual insight demanded. The
term �Akashic record� was such an instance. He specifically did not accept that
such record could be accurately read by spiritualist mediums.
Let us look first at some of the relevant things
Steiner said about the �Akashic� record (generally referred to simply as
�Akashic� herein), and then see what the Bible has to say about it. It is
important in regard to the former to bear in mind the complex nature of the
�Akashic� and that it is beyond the scope or present needs of this work to
attempt a thorough treatment of it here. In her 1939 Preface to the German
edition of what is now Cosmic Memory, a group of Steiner�s essays that first appeared in 1904 in the
periodical Lucifer Gnosis, Steiner�s widow, Marie, stated, �The one who wishes
to obtain a clear idea of the manner in which a reading of the Akasha Chronicle
becomes possible must devote himself intensively to the study of
Anthroposophy.� In the second essay, entitled �From the Akasha Chronicle,�
Steiner says, �Only a faint conception of this chronicle can be given in our
language. For our language corresponds to the world of the senses.� After
pointing out that the script is �not . . . like the dead testimony of history,
but appear[s] in full life,� he goes on,
Those
initiated into the reading of such a living script can look back into a much
more remote past than is presented by external history; and�on the basis of
direct spiritual perception�they can also describe much more dependably the
things of which history tells. In order to avoid possible misunderstanding, it
should be said that spiritual perception is not infallible. This perception
also can err, can see in an inexact, oblique, wrong manner. No man is free from
error in this field, no matter how high he stands. Therefore one should not
object when communications emanating from such spiritual sources do not always
entirely correspond. But the dependability of observation is much greater here
than in the external world of the senses. What various initiates can relate about
history and prehistory will be in essential agreement. Such a history and
prehistory does in fact exist in all mystery schools. Here for millennia the
agreement has been so complete that the conformity existing among external
historians of even a single century cannot be compared with it. The initiates
describe essentially the same things at all times and in all places.
From Occult Science, Chap. 4
When
a being reaches corporeal existence, the substance of his body disappears with
his physical death. The spiritual forces that have expelled these corporeal
elements from themselves do not �disappear� in the same way. They leave their
impressions, their exact counterparts, behind in the spiritual foundations of
the world, and he who, penetrating the visible world, is able to lift his
perception into the invisible, is finally able to have before him something
that might be compared with a mighty spiritual panorama, in which all past
world-processes are recorded. These imperishable impressions of all that is
spiritual may be called the �Akashic Record,� thus designating as the Akashic
essence the spiritually permanent element in universal occurrences, in
contradistinction to the transient forms of these occurrences.
Commencing in the first paragraph of the first lecture of The Gospel of St. John, the first lecture cycle in the so-called �Gospel Series,� we find:
If
Spiritual Science is to fulfill its true mission in respect of the modern human
spirit, then it should point out that if men will only learn to use their inner
forces and capacities�their forces and capacities of spiritual perception�they
will be able, by applying them, to penetrate into the mysteries of life, into
what is concealed within the spiritual worlds behind the world of the senses. The
fact that men can penetrate to the mysteries of life through the use of inner
capacities, that they are able to reach the creative forces and beings of the
universe through their own cognition must be brought more and more into the
consciousness of present day humanity. Thus it becomes evident that a knowledge
of the mystery of this Gospel can be gained by men, independent of every
tradition, independent of every historical document.
In
order to make this absolutely clear, we shall have to express ourselves in
quite radical terms. Let us suppose that through some circumstance all
religious records had been lost, and that men possessed only those capacities
which they have today; they should, nevertheless, be able to penetrate into
life�s mysteries, if they only retain those capacities. They should be able to
reach the divine-spiritual creating forces and beings which lie concealed
behind the physical world. And Spiritual Science must depend entirely upon
these independent sources of knowledge, irrespective of all records. However,
after having investigated the divine-spiritual mysteries of the world
independently, we can then take up the actual religious documents themselves. Only
then can we recognize their true worth, for we are,in a certain sense, free and
independent of them. What has previously been independently discovered is now
recognized within the documents themselves. And you may be sure that for anyone
who has pursued this path, these writings will suffer no diminution in value,
no lessening of the respect and veneration due them.
In the third cycle in the Gospel series, The Gospel
of St. Luke, Lect. 1, we come to those three levels of spiritual perception that
Isaiah (Is 6,10) calls �seeing, hearing and understanding.� For parallel
descriptions of these levels, see I-31. Steiner, as there seen, calls these, �imagination, inspiration and
intuition,� respectively. He says that, of the four Evangelists, only John was
an Initiate in the highest sense, that of having attained to Intuition. The
other three Gospel writers had attained only to the first level of spiritual
perception, that of Clairvoyant Imagination (i.e., �seeing�).2 Steiner asserts that anthroposophy relies �upon no other source than
that of the Initiates� (those having attained to �Intuition,� or
�understanding,��who, the Anthroposophist soon comes to realize, is essentially
Steiner himself) �and that the texts of the gospels are not the actual sources
of its knowledge.� And he continues:
The
truth is that there is only one source for spiritual investigation when
directed to the events of the past. This source does not lie in external
records; no stones dug out of the earth, no documents preserved in archives, no
treatises written by historians either with or without insight�none of these
things is the source of spiritual science. What we are able to read in the
imperishable Akashic Chronicle� that is the source of spiritual science. The
possibility exists of knowing what has happened in the past without reference
to external records. Modern man has thus two ways of acquiring information
about the past. He can take the documents and the historical records when he
wants to learn something about outer events, or the religious scripts when he
wants to learn something about the conditions of spiritual life. Or else he can
ask: What have those men to say before whose spiritual vision lies that
imperishable Chronicle known as the �Akashic Chronicle��that mighty tableau in
which there is registered whatever has at any time come to pass in the
evolution of the world, of the earth and of humanity?
He then describes some of the difficulties involved in
such an investigation, and why one who has not perceived the different elements
of the human being�s nature (see I-9) will normally be led into error.
Again, in the first lecture of the sixth cycle, Background
to the Gospel of St. Mark (BKM), in the Gospel series, the same general predicate is laid, namely, the
independent search of the �Akashic� as the principal source for knowledge of
the original Gospel meaning and content. The importance of this is illustrated
in the eighth cycle, From Jesus to Christ (JTC), Lect. 4:
You
will understand that the anthroposophical interpretation of the Gospels differs
radically from all previous interpretations. Anyone who takes up our printed
lecture-cycles on the Gospels, or recalls them from memory, will see that
everywhere a return has been made to true meanings, which can no longer be
found simply by reading the present-day Gospel texts. From the existing
translations, in fact, we can no longer reach that which the Gospels wish to
indicate. To a certain extent, as they exist today, they are no longer fully of
use.
Later Steiner gives the following two-phased example:
When
at the condemnation of Christ Jesus He was asked whether He was a king sent from
God, He replied: �Thou sayest it!�3 Now anyone who thinks straightforwardly, and does not wish to explain
the Gospels according to the professorial methods of the present day, must
admit that with this answer of Christ Jesus no clear sense can be connected in
terms either of feeling or of reason. From the side of feeling, we must ask why
Christ Jesus speaks so indefinitely that no one can recognize what He means by
saying �Thou sayest it.� If He means �Thou art right,� there is no meaning in
it, for the words of the interrogator are not a declaration but a question. How
then can this be an answer full of meaning? Or, from the side of reason, how
can we think that He whom we imagine to be possessed of all-comprehending
wisdom should choose such a form for His answer? When, however, these words are
given as they stand in the Akashic record it is not �Thou sayest it,� but,
�This, thou alone mayest give an answer,� which means, when we understand it
rightly, �To thy question I should have to give an answer that no one may ever
give with reference to himself: it can be given only by someone who stands
opposite him. Whether the answer is true or not true, of that I cannot speak;
the acknowledgment of this truth lies not with me but with thee. Thou must say
it; then and then only would it have a meaning.�4
We
can say . . . that the last transcriber or translator of this passage did not
understand it, because of its difficulty, and so wrote down something
inaccurate. Anyone who knows how many things in the world are inexactly written
down will not be surprised that here we have to do with an inaccurate version. Have
we then no right, when a new epoch of humanity is beginning, to lead the
Gospels back to their original form, which can be authenticated from the
Akashic record? The whole thing comes out clearly�and this can be shown even
from external history�if we consider in this connection the Matthew Gospel. The
best that has been said about the origin of the Matthew Gospel may be read in
the third volume of Blavatsky�s Secret Doctrine, a work which must be
understood if we are to judge and value it correctly.5
There
was a certain Father of the Church, Jerome, who wrote towards the end of the
fourth century. From what he writes we learn something that can be fully
confirmed by occult research: the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in
Hebrew.6
In the copy that Jerome had obtained, or, as we should perhaps
say nowadays, in the edition he possessed, he had before him the original
language of this Gospel, written in the Hebrew letters still in use, though its
language was not the customary Hebrew of that time. Jerome�s Bishop had given
him the task of translating this version of the Matthew Gospel for his
Christians. As a translator Jerome behaved in a most singular way. In the first
place he thought it would be dangerous to translate this Gospel of Matthew as
it was, because there were things in it which those who up to then had
possessed it as their sacred writing wished to keep from the profane world.7 He thought that this Gospel, if it were translated complete, would
cause disturbance rather than edification. So he omitted the things which,
according to his own and the ecclesiastical views of that period, might have a
disturbing effect, and replaced them by others. But we can learn still more
from his writings, and this is the most serious aspect of the whole proceeding:
Jerome knew that the Gospel of Matthew could be understood only by those who
were initiated into certain secrets. He knew, too, that he was not one of
those. In other words, he admitted that he did not understand this Gospel! Yet
he translated it. Thus the Matthew Gospel lies before us today in the dress
given to it by a man who did not understand it, but who became so accustomed to
this version that he afterwards condemned as heresy anything asserted about
this Gospel if it was not in accord with his own rendering. These are absolute
facts. . . .
Thus
we have before us the singular fact that the Gospels had to be communicated,
but that Christianity could be understood only in its most imperfect form. Hence
the Gospels have been subject to a method of research which can no longer
determine what is historical and what is not, so that finally everything is
denied. In their original form they must enter our hearts and souls. . . . An
interpretation of the Christ-Event from the occult standpoint is thus a
necessary preparation for the souls that in the near future are to experience
something new, souls that are to look out on the world with new faculties. The
old form of the Gospels will first receive its true value through our learning
to read the Gospels with the aid of the Akashic record; through this alone will
their full value be restored. In particular, thevtrue significance of the Event
of Golgotha can be fully demonstrated only by occult research. Only when the
original significance of this Event is understood through occult research will
the results it can have for human souls be recognized.
In the eleventh and last cycle in the Gospel series, Christ
and the Human Soul (CHS), Lect. 3, Steiner tells us how, when one�s �objective karma� (see
�Forgiven Sins� and �Lord of Karma�) has been taken over by Christ through the
forgiveness of one�s sins, then the occult researcher will not be able to find
those sins in the Akashic record unless and until he or she has become
permeated with Christ.
In Life Between Death and Rebirth (LBDR), Lect. 13, we see:
Between
death and rebirth our perfections and imperfections are faithfully recorded in
the Akasha Chronicle. Certain attributes are inscribed in the Moon sphere,
others in the Venus sphere, others in the Mars sphere, others in the Mercury
sphere, others in the Jupiter sphere, and so on. [See I-33; while in this passage, the �recording� is within our solar system, the
Akashic seems clearly not to be limited thereto but to extend also into the
zodiacal, i.e., heavenly or higher devachanic, region.] When we are returning
to an incarnation in a physical body and our being is slowly contracting, we
encounter everything that was inscribed on the outward journey. In this way our
karma is prepared. On the path of return we can inscribe into our own being the
record of an imperfection we ourselves first inscribed into the Akasha
Chronicle. Then we arrive on the earth. Because there is within us everything
we inscribed into our being on the return journey, and we are obliged to
inscribe a great deal even if not everything, because of this our karma
unfolds. Up above, however, everything still remains inscribed.
Now
these inscriptions work together in a remarkable way.
Here Steiner goes into a discussion, beyond our
present purposes, of how these astrological factors affect our lives in the
unfolding of our karma.
Other comments upon the Akashic can be found in At
the Gates of Spiritual Science (AGSS), Lect. 12 and its �Answers to Questions�; Foundations of Esotericism
(FE), Lects. 10 and 21; Genesis (GEN), Lects. 7 and 10; and Michaelmas and the Soul Forces of Man (MSF), Lect 3. Countless times, of course, Steiner will simply refer to the
Akashic as his source, but one must understand it to be the direct or indirect
source of most of his original comments whether so stated or not. Also it
should be understood that I make no claim to have addressed above substantially
all, or even the major portion, of what Steiner may have said on the subject of
the Akashic. The above references are, however, found in works that seem to
have great relevance to our present task.
Let us now look at what the Bible has to say that
appears to fit with what Steiner has expressed above about the �Akashic� and
even to strongly suggest to the open mind that it is true.
First, a good many passages point generally in this
direction. For instance, consider 2 Cor 3; 1 Cor 13,8c-10; 2 Cor 12,4; Heb 9,5;
Jn 16,12; and Jer 31,31-34.
Even more to our point, however, is the pervasiveness
with which the Biblical account speaks of a �book� in a way that virtually
precludes any thought that it can be anything other than a record in the
heavens. On this particular subject, I believe that Steiner is badly8 wrong in an assertion he makes in ASJ, Lect. 4. He there sets out to
�explain what a book is according to the Bible,� and then says, �The word
�book� occurs in the Bible only seldom. This must not be overlooked. If you
search the Old Testament, you will find the word in Genesis (V,l): This is the
book of the generations of Adam. . . . You may then open the Bible where you
will, you will only [see fn 8] find the word �book� again in the first Gospel
(Matthew I,l): This is the book of the generation of Christ Jesus. . . . And
again the expression �book� appears here in the Apocalypse of John. It appears
where it is said that the Lamb alone is worthy to open the book with the seven
seals. The expression �book� has always the same significance, it is never used
otherwise.. . . By a �book� nothing else is ever meant than the recording of
what follows in time.�
Steiner�s threshold error (see fn 8) in this quotation
is his assertion that �the word �book� occurs in the Bible only seldom� and
then in the instances he cites. If he was unaware of other occurrences, it also
disqualifies his statement that this is the only meaning the word has. This is
not to say he is wrong in the latter, but simply that he has not looked at all
the instances so as to be qualified to make that statement. The reader should
recall, first, that Steiner makes no claim to be a Bible student but only to
have confirmed by independent spiritual research the verity of what he finds in
the Bible and, second, that he only postulates the necessity of redeveloping
the Bible account from such original spiritual source and not that he has
himself had the time to do so from beginning to end. Fortunately, he has done
enough, along with his other pronounced principles, to serve as a guide in the
interpretation of passages that he has not himself separately investigated. Both
Steiner�s investigative reports (and their broader implications) and my own
Bible study, are the basis of this present undertaking.
In fact, there are numerous passages to consider (my
emphasis):
Ex
32,32-33: �But now, if thou wilt forgive their sin�and if not, blot me, I pray
thee, out of thy book which thou has written.� But the Lord said to Moses,
�Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.�
Josh
10,13: And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took
vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar?
2
Sam 1,17-18: And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan
his son, and he said it should be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is
written in the Book of Jashar.
Job
19,23-24: Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!
Ps
40,7: Then I said, �Lo, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of me.�
Ps
56,8: Thou has kept count of my tossings; put thou my tears in thy bottle! Are
they not in thy book?
Ps
69,28: Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be
enrolled among the righteous.
Ps
139,13-18: For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in
my mother�s womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful
are thy works! Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from thee,
when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the
earth. Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every
one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of
them. How precious to me are thy thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If
I would count them, they are more than the sand. When I awake, I am still with
thee.
Is
29,9-14,18: Stupefy yourselves and be in a stupor, blind yourselves and be
blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink! For the
Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes,
the prophets, and covered your heads, the seers. And the vision of all this has
become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one
who can read, saying, �Read this,� he says, �I cannot, for it is sealed.� And
when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, �Read this,� he says,
�I cannot read.� And the Lord said: �Because this people draw near with their
mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and
their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote; therefore, behold, I
will again do marvelous things with this people, wonderful and marvelous; and
the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their
discerning men shall be hid.�. . . In that day the deaf shall hear the words of
a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.
Is
30,8: And now, go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book,
that it may be for the time to come as a witness for ever.
Is
34,16: Seek and read from the book of the Lord; Not one of these shall be
missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the Lord has
commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.
Dan
7,10: A stream of fire issued and came forth from before him; a thousand
thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the
court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.
Dan
9,2: In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the
number of years which, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah [Jer
25,11-12] the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of
Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
Dan
10,21: But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth; there is
none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince.
Dan
12,1-4: �At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of
your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since
there was a nation till that time; but at that time your people shall be
delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of
those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine
like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness,
like the stars for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal
the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge
shall increase.�
Mal
3,16: Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another; the Lord heeded
and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who
feared the Lord and thought on his name.
Phil
4,3: And I ask you also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they have
labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest
of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Heb
10,7: cites Ps 40,7 above.
Rev
3,5: He who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments, and I will not blot
his name out of the book of life;
Rev
13,8: And all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not
been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb
that was slain.
Rev
17,8: . . . and the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the
book of life from the foundation of the world, will marvel to behold the beast,
because it was and is not and is to come.
Rev
20,12-15: And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and
books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And
the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. And
the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and
all were judged by what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into
the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one�s
name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of
fire.
Rev
21,27: But nothing unclean shall enter it, nor any one who practices
abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb�s book of
life.
While Job 13,23-27 does not use the term �book,� it is
clearly implied by reference to an accounting ledger in which �debits� are
recorded to one�s account. In its discussion of Ps 40,7 (there numbered as vs
8), 16 AB 246 says that the Hebrew alay there used in the phrase �in the roll
of the book it is written of me� is the same Hebrew word used in Job 13,26, and
means �in my debit.� With that in mind, one should contemplate the significance
of Job 13,23-27 in the light of Karma and Reincarnation, with the effects the
River Lethe has on human memory of past sin as the Prodigal Son enmeshes itself
in the �Darkness� of materiality and finds the �soles of my feet� bounded by
the earthly circumstantial consequences of its own past. Job 13,23-27 reads:
(23)
How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my
sin. (24) Why dost thou hide thy face, and count me as thy enemy? . . . (26)
For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me inherit the iniquities
of my youth. (27) Thou puttest my feet in the stocks, and watchest all my
paths; thou settest a bound to the soles of my feet.
On the Book of Jashar, mentioned in the Josh and 2 Sam
citations, see 3 ABD 646. Since this ABD discussion is generally in the vein of
modern Biblical criticism, it does not recognize the heavenly �Akashic�
character implied by Steiner�s work, but is nevertheless helpful for what it
does disclose. The portion most important for our purposes is the sentence,
�The term �Jashar� is a common Hebrew word meaning �one who [or that which] is
straight, honest, just, righteous, upright.�� How could one more accurately
describe the �Akashic,� or heavenly �book�? Or the principle of �Karma and
Reincarnation� that gives effect to the perfect justice such �book� envisions? Another
point is made: �A third probable excerpt appears in 1 K 8,12-13, a couplet
imbedded in Solomon�s prayer at the dedication of the �Temple,� which survives
in fullest form in the LXX [Septuagint] where it appears at the end of the
prayer, directing the reader to the �Book of the Song� (Gk biblio tes odes).� This
excerpt is recognized also in NJB in a footnote on 1 K 8,12-13. With respect to
the putative title of �Book of Song,� the ABD comment goes on to say, �If so
[i.e., if it was called a �Book of Song�], there is some doubt whether the book
ever existed in written form as such.�
The Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, is said to have come
to enlightenment �under the bodhi tree,� 15 Brit 265 and 28 Brit 881. This
occult metaphor, though heretofore unrecognized as such, is used often in the
Bible. See �Under the Tree.� I have noted with considerable interest that the
Song of Songs (Solomon) lists three kinds of �trees��Apple (2,3 and 8,5), Fig
(2,13), and Palm (7,7-8).9 Inasmuch as the Song of Songs seems clearly to be an expression of the
ecstatic reunion of the higher and lower �I Am� in a holy wedding like the one
in Rev 21, these three �trees� could be taken as symbolizing the three stages
of spiritual perception, as set out in I-31. Since these three are the same as Isaiah�s
�seeing-hearing-understanding� (Is 6,10), and since the second of these deals
with �hearing� or �sound,� as in the �Harmony of the Spheres,� the Book of
Jashar, if it is a �Book of Song,� could relate to the second stage, namely,
�hearing� or �Inspiration� (as would perhaps also be true of the �Song of
Songs,� particularly since it is still in the longing state and not yet that of
union in the holy marriage).
Finally, I propose that �Jashar� and �Akashic� are the
same word from different dialects, their essential common root being �ash,�
upon which the emphasis in pronunciation falls. Several factors can be given in
support thereof:
- They both
stand for the highest level of �righteousness.� Thus, in the very section
of the Sermon on the Mount in which Christ refers to this higher �law,� he
says (Mt 5,20), �For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of
the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.�
- They
are both of ancient origin, probably contemporaneous.
- The
roots of the Judeo-Christian religions are �from the east� (Gen 11,2; Mt
2,1-2).
- There
is a tendency for similar sounds of a given word to carry over from one
language to another.
- As an
elaboration on 2 through 4 above, we have already seen (in �Second Coming�
above) how the Oriental term Kali Yuga (�dark age�) was reflected in the
West in the name of the god, Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, the
�kaliyu� and �calio� both carrying forward the same basic sound. The Bible
student should have little difficulty accepting the existence of such
roots as evidence of common meaning (Gen 11,1) or accepting that the roots
of the Old Testament language sprang �from the east� (Gen 11,2). In The
Genius of Language (GL), Lect. 3, Steiner says, �All
across the regions where these languages were spoken, we discover that a
primeval relationship exists; we can easily imagine that at a very ancient
time the primordial origins of language-forming were similar right across
these territories and only later became differentiated.� See also The
Realm of Language (RL), Changes in the Meaning of
Speech (CMS) and 22 Brit 566, �Language.�
In conclusion, it is hard to imagine any serious Bible
student thinking that any of the above scriptural references to �book� are
speaking of a physical writing anywhere. Rather, all such references seem
clearly to refer to a heavenly record of some sort, which is precisely what the
�Akashic� is said to be.
© Edward Reaugh Smith
http://bibleandanthroposophy.org
