Cosmic Picture Gallery

Also known as the akashic records —the scenic representation of every thought, feeling, and action since the beginning of the world. Light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles a second, yet the astronomic distances are so vast that it takes hundreds of thousands of years for light to reach Earth from distant stars. Suppose a person could see, through such enormity of space, what was happening on Earth. At present they could witness only the primeval past. From a great distance the creation of the whole world could be seen as a present reality. Swami Panchadasi, an early twentieth-century writer on astral projection, suggested:

"By travelling to a point in time, on the fourth dimension, you may begin at that point and see a moving picture of history of any part of the earth from that time to the present, or you may reverse the sequence by travelling backwards. You may also travel in the astral, in ordinary space dimensions, and thus see what happened simultaneously all over the earth at any special time, if you wish. As a matter of strict truth, however, I must inform you that the real records of the past exist on a much higher plane than the astral, and that which you have witnessed is but a reflection (practically perfect, however) of the original records. It requires a high degree of occult development in order to perceive even this reflection in the astral light. An ordinary clairvoyant, however, is often able to catch occasional glimpses of these astral pictures, and may thus describe fairly well happenings of the past."

The concept of akashic records derives from Hinduism as transmitted through the Theosophical Society and the teachings of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who claimed that such records were accessible to a gifted percipient.

Sources:

Panchadasi, Swami. The Astral World: Its Scenes, Dwellers, and Phenomena. Chicago: Advanced Thought Publishing, 1915.