Atlas›Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements›Guide 112
Guide XIV-112

Akashic-record readings

Linda Howe1996
A 29 · L 59 · M 1214 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: the contemporary reading-and-training model published by Linda Howe and the Center for Akashic Studies (Pathway Prayer Process; How to Read the Akashic Records, Sounds True), with Theosophical origins and the Edgar Cayce / A.R.E. Press presentation as background. Readings are described here only in outline: no opening prayer, invocation or access wording is given.

What it is. An Akashic-record reading is a session in which a reader says they open and consult a non-physical archive of a soul, called the Akashic Records or the "Book of Life", and relay guidance to the person asking. In Theosophy the idea is linked to akasha (Sanskrit, roughly "ether" or "space"). A Theosophical reference source traces the first printed mention to Henry Steel Olcott's Buddhist Catechism (1881), which speaks of "a permanency of records in the Akasha". The Mahatma letters to A. P. Sinnett refer to "Akasic libraries". C. W. Leadbeater later called the mental-plane record "the memory of nature" and warned that astral-plane impressions were fragmentary and unreliable [source: theosophy.wiki, Akashic Records]. Secondary accounts add that Sinnett spread the idea in Esoteric Buddhism (1883), Leadbeater's Clairvoyance (1899) fixed the term, Rudolf Steiner wrote on it in Lucifer-Gnosis (1904–1908), and Edgar Cayce claimed access to the records [uncertain: secondary, unverified]. The A.R.E. Press book on Cayce's teaching (Todeschi, 1998) calls the Book of Life a storehouse of information for every soul that has lived on earth. It presents the records as a way to explore past lives, present experience and possible futures [source: Todeschi 1998, publisher description].

Core idea of change, as practitioners state it. Howe presents the Records as a living archive of the soul. It is said to hold the person's past thoughts, words and actions, possible futures and a "soul blueprint" of life purpose. Reading them is said to bring inner peace, fulfilment and a person's own spiritual authority. Howe states that the Records were once reserved for spiritual masters and are now open to anyone. Her Pathway Prayer Process is said to quiet ego and fear and lift the reader into an expanded state of awareness [source: Pan Macmillan listing of Howe; LAPL OverDrive listing of Howe 2009 audio course]. One practitioner's published FAQ says readings are "not psychic reading", that answers arrive as words, feelings and pictures, and that the Records hold "future probabilities" [source: Akashic Studies Australia FAQ]. These are the tradition's claims, reported here without endorsement or dismissal.

Evidence status (one line). No controlled test of Akashic-record readings is documented in the sources cited here. A general reference work states that, apart from anecdote, there is no evidence that the records exist [uncertain: secondary, unverified]. Grief research on psychic events reports felt comfort, not accuracy [source: Durham University 2024].

What this guide covers. Akashic readings are a divinatory and spiritual practice, not a psychotherapy. The guide therefore describes (a) how readings and reader training are published, so the therapist understands what a client went through, and (b) the psychotherapist's own work with a client who has readings or trains as a reader. That work covers meaning, assessment, decisions made by readings, dependence and reassurance-seeking, costs and exploitation, past-life content and false memory, the psychosis differential, and referral. The therapist never performs or interprets readings as an authority [synthesis].

2. Framework

2a. How readings and training are published [source: per section]

  • Training route (Howe model). Howe has taught the practice since 1996, holds a Doctor of Spiritual Studies, and founded and directs the Center for Akashic Studies [source: Pan Macmillan listing]. Her 2009 audio course (Macmillan Audio) centres on the Pathway Prayer Process and contains 19 guided practices and meditations [source: LAPL OverDrive listing]. One adult-education listing for a certification course using her method gave 11 hours over two sessions and $195. It covered opening one's own records, others' records and "non-human" records (pets, places), and led to certification from the Linda Howe Center for Akashic Studies as an "Akashic Records Practitioner". It was open from age 16 with no prerequisites [source: CourseHorse / Infinity Foundation listing]. Other schools exist; their curricula are [uncertain: not verified].
  • Reading format (one published practitioner example). One-hour sessions on video call, paid in advance, $175, no refunds (rescheduling only). Reading types offered: general, healing, past-life and ancestral-pattern. Clients prepare open "what, how, where, why" questions on areas such as career, relationships, finances, health, creativity and spiritual path. Clients must be 18 or over. Frequency is left to the client, from once in a lifetime up to weekly or monthly "during a crisis" [source: Akashic Studies Australia FAQ]. The typical structure across practitioners is: the client sets an intention and questions, the reader "opens" the records using a prayer or protocol, relays impressions, then "closes" the records. The prayer and protocol wording is not reproduced here [synthesis from the listed sources].
  • Self-reading. Howe's books and courses teach people to read their own records and those of others [source: Pan Macmillan listing; CourseHorse listing]. So a client may arrive having read for themselves, as well as having paid a reader.

2b. The psychotherapist's work: phases [synthesis]

No source gives a session count or protocol for therapy with clients who use Akashic readings. The phases below are clinical synthesis. They fit inside whatever modality the therapist already practises; no session numbers are implied.

  1. Engagement and cultural assessment. Goal: understand what the readings mean to the client without judgement, using the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) core and its Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions module. Move on when the therapist can state in the client's words what the practice gives them and what it costs them.
  2. Differential assessment and risk. Goal: separate a culturally held spiritual practice from psychosis, mania, dissociation, OCD-type reassurance-seeking, complicated grief or exploitation. Move on when risk (financial, safeguarding, self-harm, psychiatric) has been screened and any urgent issue routed.
  3. Working phase. Depending on the formulation: reflective use of reading content; decision-making review; reducing compulsive consulting; grief work; financial-protection planning; handling past-life material without memory-recovery work. Move on when the client's agreed goals are met or the problem is stable.
  4. Review, referral and ending. Goal: consolidate the client's own authority over decisions, link to community or specialist services where wanted, and agree how the client will notice relapse into dependence.

3. Guiding principles

  • Attribute, do not adjudicate. Describe the records, guides and past lives as the client and tradition hold them. Practical meaning: say "in your reading, the records said…", never "the records say" or "that isn't real" [synthesis; source: APA Ethics Code Principle E on bias based on religion].
  • Client-led meaning. The client's own language and purposes lead. Practical meaning: ask what the reading meant to them before offering any frame [synthesis; source: CFI supplementary modules].
  • The therapist is not a reader. No readings, no opening of records, no interpreting "what the records really meant" as an authority, even if the client asks or the therapist privately practises. Practical meaning: decline warmly and redirect to the client's own sense-making [synthesis; source: APA Ethics Code 3.05 multiple relationships].
  • Competence or referral. Where religious or spiritual factors are central, build competence or refer. Practical meaning: learn the tradition's basic terms from the client and published sources, and seek consultation [source: APA Ethics Code]. Vieten et al. (2013) spiritual and religious competencies are a further framework [uncertain: not verified].
  • Function over content. What matters clinically is what consulting does: comfort, meaning, avoidance of uncertainty, outsourcing decisions, a stand-in relationship. Practical meaning: map triggers, frequency, costs and after-effects before judging [synthesis].
  • Belief is not a symptom. Holding a belief in the records is not evidence of psychosis. Practical meaning: assess form (fixity, idiosyncrasy, functioning, other symptoms), not content [synthesis; source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8 includes "Religious or spiritual problem" as a non-disorder code].
  • Protect autonomy in decisions. Major health, financial, legal and relationship decisions stay with the client and the relevant professionals. Practical meaning: explore how a reading influenced a decision; never advise for or against following it [synthesis].
  • Suggestion awareness. Vivid past-life or "soul" material produced in readings or self-reading can be shaped by suggestion and expectation. Practical meaning: treat such material as meaningful narrative, not recovered history; do no memory-recovery work (cross-refer Domain VI 110 and XIV 113–114) [synthesis].
  • Watch the money. Paid readings can escalate into exploitation, especially in crisis or grief [source: NPR 2018]. Practical meaning: ask about spending routinely and without shaming.
  • Informed consent. Explain how spiritual material will be handled in therapy [source: APA Ethics Code]. Practical meaning: say at intake that readings can be discussed freely, that the therapist will not read or rule on them, and that risk may be raised.
  • Community on the client's terms. Practical meaning: involve teachers, community leaders or a trusted fellow practitioner only if the client wishes and consents [synthesis; source: CFI spirituality module on community ties].

4. Intervention inventory

These are the psychotherapist's procedures with a client who uses Akashic readings, reads their own records, or trains as a reader. The readings themselves are not an intervention for the therapist to deliver. Unless a source is given, each item is clinical synthesis [synthesis]. No published therapist use of Akashic readings is documented in the sources cited here [uncertain: not verified].

4.1 Opening the topic and setting the frame

  • Purpose / when: At intake, or when the client first mentions readings, "my records", guides or soul purpose. It signals that the topic is welcome and sets boundaries early.
  • Steps: (1) Thank the client for raising it. (2) Ask open questions about what they do: self-reading, paid reader, course, or certification. (3) Explain your role: you will explore what the readings mean to them, you will not read or judge the records, and you may raise money, decisions or wellbeing if relevant. (4) Record consent to discuss it. [source for consent: APA Ethics Code]
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm glad you told me about your readings. I'd like to understand what they mean to you. I won't be reading your records or telling you whether they're right. My job is to help you think about how they fit with the rest of your life."
  • Watch for: Visible relief or testing ("you think I'm crazy"). A client who hides the practice later has usually met judgement before. It is working when the client brings readings up spontaneously.

4.2 Cultural Formulation Interview with the spirituality module

  • Purpose / when: Early assessment, and whenever spiritual practice seems central to the problem or the coping.
  • Steps: Use the CFI core interview, then the Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions supplementary module. Its domains cover: traditions the person identifies with, including community and family background; the role of practice in daily and family life; how the tradition helps them cope (leaders, texts, practices); and stresses linked to it (distress, discrimination, conflict) [source: APA CFI supplementary modules]. Add the Coping and Help-Seeking and Social Network modules where readings function as help-seeking. Use the APA's published forms with patients as permitted. Do not paraphrase items into a new questionnaire.
  • Example language (illustrative): "How did you come to the Akashic Records? Who else in your life shares this, and who doesn't? When things are hard, how does it help, and has it ever made things harder?"
  • Watch for: Family conflict over the practice, isolation from non-believers, and teacher or community ties. It is working when you can write a cultural formulation the client recognises.

4.3 Using a reading as reflective material

  • Purpose / when: The client brings a reading's content (soul purpose, blocks, guidance) and wants to make sense of it. Treat the content as a narrative the client resonates with, the way any meaningful story or image can be explored, without claims about its source.
  • Steps: (1) Ask the client to describe the passage that struck them most, in their words. (2) Ask what feelings and memories it stirs. (3) Ask what in their current life it seems to speak to. (4) Ask what they already knew or suspected that the reading put into words. (5) Link it back to their own values and goals. (6) Ask what they want to do with it, if anything.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Of everything in the reading, which line has stayed with you? … What does it say about what you want right now?"
  • Watch for: The therapist sliding into interpreting "what the records meant". Keep the question on the client's meaning. It is working when the client voices their own view ("I think I already knew I wanted out of that job") rather than quoting the reader.

4.4 Reviewing decisions made by readings

  • Purpose / when: The client has made, or is about to make, a significant decision on the strength of a reading: leaving a partner, quitting work, moving, spending, a health choice.
  • Steps: (1) Map the decision: options, the reading's role, other inputs. (2) Ask what the client would choose if the reading had said nothing, and what they would choose if it had said the opposite. (3) List the practical facts and the professionals who should inform it (doctor, lawyer, financial adviser). (4) Separate reversible from irreversible steps. (5) Agree a pause before irreversible ones if the client wants that. Never tell the client to follow or ignore the reading. For any health matter, route the decision to their doctor; never advise on medicines.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Suppose the reading hadn't mentioned this at all. Where would you be leaning? … Who else would be useful to talk to before the parts that can't be undone?"
  • Watch for: Decisions framed as "I have no choice, it's my soul contract". Watch for health decisions such as delaying medical care or stopping treatment; raise these directly. It is working when the client describes the decision as theirs.

4.5 Mapping frequency, function and cost

  • Purpose / when: The client consults often, or describes anxiety before and relief after readings.
  • Steps: (1) Build a timeline over recent weeks: each reading or self-reading, its trigger, the emotion before, the emotion after, how long relief lasted, and the cost. (2) Total the money and time. (3) Identify the function: reassurance, avoiding a decision, grief contact, loneliness, crisis. (4) Compare it with the client's own stated preference for frequency. One published practitioner FAQ leaves frequency to the client and mentions weekly or monthly readings "during a crisis" [source: Akashic Studies Australia FAQ]; ask how the client's pattern compares with what they want.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Let's sketch the last month of readings, just the facts: what was going on, how you felt before and after, and what it cost. Then you can decide what you make of it."
  • Watch for: Relief that fades within hours or days, followed by another reading, the pattern typical of reassurance-seeking. Watch for hiding spending from family, and debt. It is working when the client sees the pattern themselves.

4.6 Reducing compulsive consulting and reassurance-seeking

  • Purpose / when: The map (4.5) shows a reassurance cycle, especially in OCD, health anxiety or generalised anxiety, or "manifestation anxiety" about getting the soul path wrong.
  • Steps: (1) Share the formulation: uncertainty, then anxiety, then a reading, then short relief, then stronger need. (2) Agree a client-chosen target (for example a set gap between readings, or no readings for a defined type of question). The client sets it; the therapist does not prescribe abstinence from the practice. (3) Build tolerance of uncertainty with the client's usual evidence-based method (for OCD, exposure and response prevention as OCD specialist bodies describe it [uncertain: not verified]). (4) Plan alternatives for urges: journalling the question, delaying, talking to a person. (5) Review urges and outcomes each session. Obtain consent and agree stop rules before any exposure work, and pace it to the client's distress.
  • Example language (illustrative): "It sounds as if each reading settles the worry for a little while, then it comes back stronger. Would you like to experiment with sitting with one question a bit longer before checking?"
  • Watch for: The cycle moving onto other sources (tarot apps, other readers, the therapist). Treat reassurance-seeking from the therapist the same way. It is working when urges peak and fall without consulting.

4.7 Financial-exploitation screen and protection plan

  • Purpose / when: Any rising spending, pressure to buy more sessions, packages or "healing" add-ons, or a reader warning of curses, blocks or danger that only paid work can lift.
  • Steps: (1) Ask routinely about total spend and how payment is requested. (2) Name the published fraud pattern neutrally. Reporting on fortune-teller fraud describes a cheap first reading, a reader discovering a problem in love, money or health, a claimed curse with paid rituals to lift it, rising payments in cash, jewellery and gift cards, and worsening outcomes. People in hard or uncertain times are targeted [source: NPR 2018]. (3) Distinguish a fixed-fee reading from escalating, fear-based demands. (4) If the client wishes: stop payments, keep records, involve a trusted person, contact the bank, and report to police or consumer-protection authorities. NPR notes that police responses vary and may treat cases as civil [source: NPR 2018]. (5) If the client may lack capacity or is an adult at risk, follow local safeguarding procedures.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Some readers charge a set fee and that's that. Others start small and then say something bad will happen unless you pay more. Has anything like that happened to you?"
  • Watch for: Shame and secrecy, which often delay disclosure. Watch for fear the reader has instilled ("if I stop, the curse returns"); treat that fear as a clinical target in itself. It is working when spending stops and the fear lessens.

4.8 Past-life and ancestral content: suggestion and false memory

  • Purpose / when: The client has had a past-life or ancestral-pattern reading (both are published reading types [source: Akashic Studies Australia FAQ]) or a self-reading, and now holds vivid "memories", trauma attributions or explanations of current symptoms from it.
  • Steps: (1) Explore the material as meaningful narrative: what it explains, what it comforts, what it frightens. (2) Give psychoeducation: expectation, suggestion and imagination can produce vivid, emotionally convincing images that feel like memory, so strength of conviction does not show where an image came from [synthesis; for the evidence base see Domain VI 110 and XIV 113–114]. (3) Do not use hypnosis, guided imagery or any technique to "recover" further material. (4) If the client attributes present abuse or trauma to past-life content, assess present-life trauma history in the usual way, without suggestion. (5) Where dissociation is present, screen formally and treat within a phase-oriented trauma framework before any processing work.
  • Example language (illustrative): "That image clearly carries a lot of feeling for you. Our minds are very good at building vivid scenes from what we expect or fear, so I'd rather work with what it means to you now than try to dig up more."
  • Watch for: New "memories" appearing between sessions after further readings; growing conviction of present-life abuse with no prior memory; family estrangement based on reading content; dissociative symptoms (depersonalisation, derealisation, identity confusion). Refer to Domain VI 110 for the regression-harm account. It is working when the client can hold the material as meaningful without needing it to be literal history.

4.9 Psychosis, mania and dissociation differential

  • Purpose / when: The client reports hearing guides or the records continuously, receiving messages outside deliberate practice, special missions, or rapid escalation of spiritual activity, or others are worried.
  • Steps: (1) Establish the practice's normal form in this client's tradition, from the CFI and published descriptions: deliberate opening and closing of a session, impressions as words, feelings and pictures, asked-for questions [source: Akashic Studies Australia FAQ]. (2) Compare: is the experience voluntary and bounded, or intrusive and continuous? Is it shared by the community, or idiosyncratic? Is it fixed against all evidence? (3) Screen for other symptoms: sleep loss, pressured speech, grandiosity, disorganisation, functional decline, command content, persecutory themes, substance use. (4) Screen for dissociation and for trauma. (5) Use ICD-10-CM Z65.8 "Religious or spiritual problem" where spiritual distress is the focus without a mental disorder [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM Z65.8]. DSM-5-TR wording for the category is not quoted here [uncertain: not verified]. (6) If psychosis or mania is suspected, arrange urgent psychiatric assessment, involving family or community with consent where possible. Assess suicide and self-harm risk in the usual way.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you open the records in a reading, how does that usually feel? … And these messages lately, do they come only when you open the records, or at other times too?"
  • Watch for: Mistaking belief for delusion (over-pathologising), and its opposite: letting the spiritual frame mask emerging illness (under-recognition). It is working when the formulation fits the client's own account and functioning.

4.10 Grief-related readings

  • Purpose / when: The client consults readers or the records after a death, to contact or hear about the person who died.
  • Steps: (1) Acknowledge the comfort sought. A 2024 study of psychic nights in English pubs reported initial findings that over half of attendees felt it eased their grief, with hope, comfort or closure even among sceptics. The benefits were limited and did not reduce fear of death [source: Durham University 2024; findings preliminary, not yet peer-reviewed]. (2) Explore the continuing bond: what the client hoped to hear and what they received. (3) Use the client's usual grief interventions alongside. (4) Screen for prolonged grief, depression, suicide risk and exploitation (4.7).
  • Example language (illustrative): "What did you most hope to hear from her? … What would you say to her yourself, if you could?"
  • Watch for: Consultations replacing mourning; distress when messages disappoint; repeated paid contact. It is working when the bond feels sustainable without frequent readings.

4.11 Clients who read for others or train as readers

  • Purpose / when: The client has completed or is considering certification (some courses certify after brief training [source: CourseHorse listing]), or reads for friends or paying clients.
  • Steps: Explore motives, identity, and the client's ethics around consent (whether they read others' records with permission). Explore boundaries around health, legal and financial questions, emotional load, and any business or income pressure. Help the client think through when to direct people to clinical services.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When someone comes to you very distressed, what do you do? … Where do you draw the line between a reading and something that needs a doctor or counsellor?"
  • Watch for: The client taking on a rescuer role, distress from others' disclosures, and identity built on the reader role. It is working when the client can name clear limits and referral points for their own reading practice.

4.12 Boundary management when asked to take part

  • Purpose / when: The client asks the therapist to read, open the records together, confirm a reading, or join a practice. Or the therapist practises readings privately.
  • Steps: Decline any reader, healer or guide role and explain why in terms of the client's autonomy. Keep any private practice entirely separate, with no cross-referral or dual relationships [source: APA Ethics Code 3.05]. Limit self-disclosure about your own beliefs to what serves the client. Seek consultation if pulled in.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I can see why you'd want a second opinion on the reading. If I gave one, my view would start to carry weight it shouldn't. I'd rather help you work out what you think."
  • Watch for: Idealisation of the therapist as a spiritual authority, and a rupture after a refusal (see 5).

4.13 Children and young people

  • Purpose / when: A minor's "records" are read by a parent or reader, or reading content is used to explain a child's behaviour or difficulties. One published practitioner reads only for adults aged 18 and over [source: Akashic Studies Australia FAQ]; a certification course accepted students aged 16 and over [source: CourseHorse listing].
  • Steps: Explore the family's meaning respectfully. Make sure developmental, medical or psychological concerns get standard assessment (for example ADHD or autism) and are not replaced by spiritual labels. Obtain parental consent and the child's assent for any work. Follow safeguarding procedures if needed care is refused or the child is frightened by reading content.
  • Example language (illustrative, to a parent): "The reading has given you a way of thinking about her. Alongside that, I'd like her to have the standard assessment, so nothing that could help her gets missed."
  • Watch for: A child distressed by past-life or ancestral narratives, and assessment being delayed. Name no minors in records shared outside the care team. It is working when assessment proceeds and the family's spiritual frame and the clinical plan coexist.

4.14 Referral and community liaison

  • Purpose / when: Needs exceed scope: psychiatric, medical, legal, financial, or OCD-specialist. Or the client wants involvement from their teacher or spiritual community.
  • Steps: Agree the referral's purpose in the client's terms. Share only consented information. Brief any receiving clinician on the cultural formulation to prevent pathologising belief. Involve community figures only at the client's request.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it help to bring in someone who knows this tradition? We'll do that only if and how you want."
  • Watch for: Referral felt as rejection of the client's spirituality; frame it as added support. It is working when the client attends the referral and the receiving service engages respectfully with their practice.

5. Handling problems

All guidance in this section is clinical synthesis unless a source is given [synthesis].

  • The client fears the therapist will judge or diagnose them. Restate the frame (4.1). Show curiosity using their terms. Say plainly that holding a belief is not a diagnosis. Do not debate whether the records exist.
  • The client wants the therapist to rule on whether a reading is true. Neither confirm nor refute. Return to what the client believes and what they need the answer for (4.3, 4.12).
  • The client is stuck in a "soul contract" frame and passive about change. Explore which parts of the narrative bring hope and which bring helplessness. Use their own values to define small, chosen steps. Avoid arguing against fate beliefs.
  • Resistance to discussing spending. Normalise: ask the same money questions you would about any service. Proceed gently and repeatedly. Note that shame and fear of the reader can drive secrecy (4.7).
  • Non-adherence to agreed consulting limits. Review the urge log without blame. Check whether the target was the client's own or felt imposed. Lower the step, and look for a crisis driving consultations.
  • Overwhelm after a reading (fear, a curse warning, disturbing past-life content). Stabilise first with grounding, sleep and support. Avoid exploring the content in depth until settled. Screen for risk and dissociation. Do not use regression or imagery to resolve it (4.8; Domain VI 110).
  • Rupture after declining to take part in readings. Name the disappointment. Explain the boundary as protecting their own authority. Invite feedback on how it landed.
  • Splitting between therapist and reader. If the reader contradicts therapy or discourages it, explore the client's experience of both relationships. Do not criticise the reader. Keep focus on the client's goals and safety.
  • The reader gives health guidance. Route all health decisions to the client's doctor. Never advise starting, stopping or changing medicines. If the client is delaying needed medical care, discuss risks directly and, where appropriate, involve their physician with consent.
  • Family conflict. Use the CFI social-network material. Offer family sessions if wanted, helping members voice concern about money or wellbeing without attacking belief.
  • Suspected emerging psychosis or mania. Follow 4.9. Act urgently rather than waiting to see whether "spiritual awakening" settles.
  • The therapist's own reactions. Monitor scepticism, fascination or shared belief, and take them to supervision. Keep personal practice out of the room [source: APA Ethics Code 3.05].

Sources

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