Linda Howe is the founder and creator of the Center for Akashic Studies and author of the first book ever published on how to read the Akashic Records. Linda discusses her experiences accessing what she calls “the records,” a dimension of consciousness that holds the vibrational archive of every soul in its journey. By exploring the records, which she refers to as “this point of light that opens within itself.” We learn who we are, to what we connect and how we can enter into a conscious relationship with our own soul.
Tami Simon: Linda, you’ve written a new book, and there’s also an audio series on “How to Read the Akashic Records.” To begin with, what are the Akashic Records?
Linda Howe: That’s a great question. The Akashic Records are a dimension of consciousness. That’s really what it is, and what’s held within the Akashic Records is a vibrational archive of every soul and its journey.
Tami Simon: That’s interesting because a topic like the Akashic Records both brings up for me a ton of intrigue, but also a certain amount of skepticism. So whenever anyone says it’s a dimension of consciousness—anything—whatever, UFOs, how do I know it’s a real thing.
Linda Howe: It’s really natural to be skeptical about anything that we can’t see. There are so many unseen dimensions of consciousness. The most simple, and one of my personal favorites, is sleep—a dimension of consciousness where there’s so much activity occurring, but we don’t see it in the physical. Another dimension of consciousness is memory, and we all have memory and we have our own selection of experiences that we carry within us. Like you have your own memories of your own life. You have your memories. I have my memories, but there’s something about the sharing of those memories. Like if you were to start telling me about something that happened when you were young. If it’s a real memory, in the telling of it there is—it’s like it rings true. There’s a sense that it speaks to us. The truth always goes into our hearts. We always absorb the truth, and it registers. And so even though I wasn’t there with you in third grade, you can tell me about what happens from this memory that you had, and I will know, just by you speaking it to me that it’s true. And in the speaking of registered impressions, as we speak about things in the records, we know they’re true, because human beings always recognize the truth. It’s within us to know the truth. So I don’t even know if I’m answering your questions, Tami.
One is the issue of skepticism, and that skepticism is really valuable when we approach these deep internal regions. We have the skepticism to protect ourselves from being, you know, bamboozled or taken or something. But it’s also important to know—you can be in a roomful of people, and when someone speaks the truth—Ahh!, you know it. And that’s how human beings know the record.
Tami Simon: Maybe you could tell me how you first encountered what you’re calling the records, the Akashic Records, and how the truthfulness of the records was revealed to you.
Linda Howe: When I was in my twenties, I was on the great search, along with many people, and I was looking for two things. I wanted wisdom and I wanted power, energy, access, really, to the vital life force. And I wanted the two together. I was a pretty smart person, I went to college, did all the things we all do, and I seemed to have a lot of knowledge, and I even had some self-knowledge. But there seemed to be some built-in limitations. Knowledge was great, but it just didn’t seem to go far enough for me.
And energy and power—as a person I have a lot of energy—but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was useful to me, like it could help me get up off the couch and move in the direction of achieving my life’s dream. So in my journey I was looking, and I went to readers, classes, self-help workshops—a lot of things—and they were all fabulous. At one point a friend of mine said, “You want to have a reading with this woman who works in the Akashic Records, and she will let you know your life’s purpose.” So this was it. I was on.
So I called the woman for this reading, and what was very interesting—she had a really strong Texas accent—and I really didn’t understand her very well. She told me she was reading my Akashic Record, and what happened in that hour of my life is I had an overwhelming sense that she got me. She knew me. She accepted me. And it was amazing, because she was giving me information that seemed really secondary—like I should be on TV or something. But what was primary was this very strong sense that she knew who I was and who I am in my life and within the bigger picture.
It went in so deep and it rocked my world. Whatever this Akashic Records thing is—and I had no idea—whatever it is, that’s what I want. I want to be able to do that. So in my own journey I spent some years doing Tarot card readings. That was fabulous and what happened is I saw more knowledge, not much power. From that I went on to work in classic core shamanism, lots of power, lots of wisdom, but it wasn’t really the best fit. And I ended up on a panel in a workshop with a woman who was teaching the Akashic Records. She was so esoteric that I had no idea what she was talking about, but there was a quality that she had. And I took her class and again had this very distinct experience of being really known, completely. There was this sense of being very intimate, yet very open and that anything was possible all at the same time.
That was it. I was on my way with this Akashic Record. It’s the point where knowledge and power converge–wisdom and energy—now it’s empowered. It’s at that convergence point where those things are all available. I’ve seen in my own experience that one of the great things about working in the record—whether my own record or others—it reminds me of when you fall in love and you feel that you can do anything. That’s how I’ve experienced working in the record.
Tami Simon: Now you’re talking about working “in” the records. How do you know when you’re “in the records?”
Linda Howe: I’m working with a specific code, this pathway prayer process that will access that particular dimension. Two things happen: the reader gets moved into a very receptive state of consciousness—very open, very allowing, very receptive. We call forth one set of records. At the same time within this specific space it’s very protected and reverent space. Some people experience physical sensations, maybe like warmth in the heart or in the head. There’s an atmosphere or climate of peace and safety and great compassion and understanding.
Sometimes when I’m in the records and asking about things and doing some journaling I think, “what’s the big deal, what is this?” But after I close the records, I come back to an ordinary state of consciousness. It then occurs to me, Oh yes, that really was different than this. It’s a perceptual shift, and it can be very subtle.
It’s in the family of conscious channeling. We’re channeling energy and information. We are not channeling entities, so there are no personalities coming through and using our vehicle. The energy flows through us. The wisdom flows through us.
Another way we know we’re in the records is we bring our questions into the records. I might have a question about how to be a better parent—I have a teenage son, so this is the question on my mind six out of seven days. In my ordinary state, I have stacks of parenting books and great ideas, but when I go into the record and ask how can I parent this boy, it’s really very different. I often get calmed down and trust that he is loved and a child of the universe and that he has his own path. Know that the same force that is with you, Linda, is with him.
Tami Simon: But that advice seems very general. Do you get advice that’s specific to the soul of your son and his . . .
Linda Howe: Yes, yes, yes, and specific to our relationship and our roles. I have a nontraditional family. My partner is a woman and my son is an adopted African American. So when I have gone into the record and asked about raising this child, I get information not only about this lifetime, but about the many lifetimes that we’ve know each other and what we are doing as a group, and how in this lifetime we are working with finding love and making peace within ourselves with regard to many stereotypes—the experience of being outsiders. And so, yes, there is the more specific information.
Tami Simon: You mentioned the pathway prayer process, that specific entryway into the records. So it sounds like there are lots of different ways that people enter the records, but that’s the way that works for you and the way that you teach? So tell us what the pathway prayer process is.
Linda Howe: There are many ways to access the records and people are naturally attracted to a way that will work for them. It’s really pretty simple. The way this prayer works—it’s within the sacred prayer tradition. There are people who get into the records through hypnosis, through many years of meditation and fasting and prayer. But there is a sacred prayer tradition, and in that tradition the vibration of the words of the prayer, the structure of the prayer lays a track in consciousness. It’s like an energy track or a pathway from an ordinary state of consciousness to a nonordinary state of consciousness.
The saying of the prayer and the repetition of words build a bridge of light. It’s almost like weaving this bridge that allows a person to shift into a different part that is both within themselves and beyond themselves, because the record is truly within us. It’s in our DNA and it’s beyond us. It’s both. And the prayer provides for the human vehicle to move into that place. On this track, energy and information move through. Does that make sense?
Tami Simon: Are you able in the course of an interview like this to tell us what the pathway prayer is?
Linda Howe: I certainly could, can I tell you Tami, I have a little problem with this. On one hand I want to say, Yes, here take it! Because I really believe anybody who wants it should have it. But I also know that there’s a responsibility that comes with this, which is why the book, the CDs, because in these tools—two different ways of learning, two different ways of transmission—the supporting information that an individual needs are contained within them. Kind of like the rules of the road. I don’t know, do I hand you the keys to my car if you haven’t read rules of the road. So I don’t know.
We’ve just taken a big leap from no one knowing about the records to now, anybody can access them, but we’re in a learning, training state. Twenty-five or fifty years from now people will access the records consciously, deliberately as a matter of just that moment of choice, a moment of volition. We’re just not there yet.
Tami Simon: What gives you confidence that that’s going to be true in decades?
Linda Howe: (laughs) Got it in my records. It’s the time we’re in. We’re in the most wonderful time. This is a period of a spiritual revolution, the likes of which we haven’t seen. We only see this every few hundred years or even more. We are moving into the time when individuals are waking up to knowing who they are as divine beings, but also knowing that they have the right of being human to have access to their own spiritual authority; to have conscious relationships with our soul. This is the real buzz of what’s happening, and that’s where we’re headed.
Tami Simon: Your work is the first work that I’ve seen that has publicly and widely said anybody can read the Akashic Records. Can really anybody listen to an audio series or read a book and be able to read the Akashic Records? Is this a skill that’s that achievable by anybody who wants to learn?
Linda Howe: Absolutely. It’s within each of us. Everybody has a soul. Every human being has the potential to know themselves at the soul level consciously. This is not just for a select few, for just a group of spiritual elders. Anyone who wants to can learn to do this. Practice will take you deeper. With these tools people get in the front door, they can get into the building. They can come inside where the light is on. And from there they will be led. I have no doubt. It’s built within us. It’s part of who we are.
Tami Simon: You mention that there are rules of the road, certain prerequisites to read the records. Do you have to have a certain purity of heart or sincerity? Can anybody just learn how to do the pathway prayer, and you’re in?
Linda Howe: On one hand, the records will meet you where you are. There are many people who have been on the path and are really very sophisticated spiritually. The records will meet them where they are. There are also people who are just becoming aware of the spiritual dimension of life. They’re just stepping onto their path. The records will meet them wherever they are. There’s no studying. What is required is a sincere desire to know your self and to know the truth more. There’s a natural protection within the record. The record will not be corrupted. So that even if someone with a little malice or ill will tries to use the records they won’t be able to.
One of the ways we know we’re in the records is by the kind of results they’re producing. We know by the communication, the messages, and the energy. So when there is ill will or the desire to manipulate or control, the records aren’t going to participate. They just don’t play.
Tami Simon: So in the records all the information about my past lives is held, but also all the information about my future lives as well?
Linda Howe: Yes, yes, yes. When we move into this nonordinary state of consciousness time collapses. There’s only now, but in the records there’s really only now—you can feel it much more strongly than in the physical plane. The other thing that’s important, it’s not a parlor game. These other expressions of our past or future lives reveal themselves as they support us now, in the present. So if there’s something beneficial from a future or past incarnation that will be brought to me.
Tami Simon: It sounds like you’re describing it more in terms of what might be needed in the current situation than just all the possible information I could have about the past and the future.
Linda Howe: Well, that’s how it’s revealed. If you go to a department store, the place is filled with a million different things and a number of different departments. If you need shoes, you go to the shoe department. The fact that there’s a lawnmower in the building really doesn’t make much difference. It’s nice to know there’s a lawnmower for when you need it. [With the records] you may think you need shoes, but really what you need is a coat, and someone will bring you a coat.
Tami Simon: Now it seems paradoxical when you talk about everything in the records being in the now and yet there is information about our past and future lives. How do you understand that when you’re in the records themselves? I’m in the now, but yet I’m seeing all this information about my own or someone else’s past or future lives?
Linda Howe: The point where we are now, this very moment, every expression of my soul . . . everything that I have had in the past or will have in the future . . . everything from every corner of the universe is directed toward me in this moment. If there is anything interfering with my ability to experience the present fully, that can be cleared, brought to mind by having the records open and looking. So what is interfering with my ability to experience the present moment fully and completely?
Now in the moment is being supported by all other nows.
Tami Simon: If someone really doesn’t connect with reincarnation and past lives, how would they make sense of the records? Is there any other way to make sense of it?
Linda Howe: That’s a great question. Actually, there is. For people who understand that there is a spirit of God, of the universe, a great mystery—but there is a spirit to it—but this spirit is an all-loving, all-knowing presence, that is an angle on the Akashic Records.
We don’t even have to go into past or future lives. What’s really important in the record is that experience of the infinite moment. That in this moment being wholly and completely loved and enjoyed and appreciated and at peace—access to that dimension of that eternal peace.
Some people are very interested in other lifetimes and other people aren’t, and that’s okay. As a tool of consciousness development, what seems to be true is that when we are in the state of compassion, nonjudgment, it’s easier to let some of the shadowy parts of ourselves come up and release them. In the space of love everything becomes possible—all healing and transformation. People work in the records because there’s a strong sense of dignity there.
Some people will open the records and read poetry or scriptures, it’s a very enriching, deep experience.
Tami Simon: It’s sounding like there are different aspects to being in the records. The first sounded like being in some huge Library of Congress, where you could get all the information you wanted to know, but now it’s sounding more like a feeling zone that you can be in where healing is available, so I’m getting a little confused.
Linda Howe: Well, actually, both are true. There is an atmosphere or climate in the records, and that is a zone of infinite peace. So in that place these other pieces are available as needed. The Akashic Record is the vibrational record of everything, every soul and so everything is in there, but we don’t need everything right now.
When we look at what the record is composed of there are two parts. The first is that there is the essence—the soul-level essence of who you are. It’s a point of consciousness, the soul-level of who you are as a soul as a being throughout time, and that’s fixed, set. And then there’s another dimension to the record, which is much more active and that is like the catalog of life experiences that you have as you become aware of who you really are. They’re related, but different aspects of the same thing. We have the fixed part and the responsive part that is available as we grow and change throughout our lifetime.
Tami Simon: You said that it’s a vibrational record of every soul. Does that include animals, cities, nations, planets, video cameras?
Linda Howe: I would draw the line at video cameras, but you know everything’s alive, so sure. Yes, yes, yes. There is a record of the planet, of the solar system. Every star has a record. Animals definitely have records. Absolutely. You know the energy of Chicago is different from the energy of Santa Fe, and opening the records of a place will give some insight into what’s really the purpose there. What’s the original intent? People can open the records of their house.
There’s also a sanctity here. You don’t go around opening records without permission, so I’m not going to open your records unless you ask.
Tami Simon: It’s one thing to think of the soul of an animal, but another thing to think I’m going to read the records on a house. What do you mean? The soul of a house? How does a house have a soul? What is meant by a soul?
Linda Howe: At the level of a dwelling, the molecules are moving very slowly. There’s a quality of aliveness, even though it’s not moving vibrationally as fast as a bird or a human. That house is the convergence of all the materials, the ground where it sits, all the people who have helped to build this house. It is a physical manifestation that holds possibilities. You walk into some houses and they feel great and into others and they feel terrible.
Like some people are very connected to different elements and different parts of nature, like some people are really connected to animals and can communicate and receive insights from them, but somebody else might not get much at all. A lot of this is who are we and to what do we connect. What is most real for us?
I had a student who had an affinity for crows. Through her work in the record she developed a sanctuary for crows. It would not occur to me to open up the Akashic Record of crows. And it turned out to be a beautiful resource for her and her service to the planet, and to that animal group. Not everybody is going to open up the Akashic Record of crow and get anything. We’re all here to do different work. One of the great things about working in the record is you follow the light and it will take you where you can be most useful.
Tami Simon: What do you mean by that—follow the light?
Linda Howe: When we work in the record there is a sense of light or aliveness. It’s almost like it has a pulse. When you start to follow that and tune in and follow the guidance, it gets stronger. If something is not right for an individual there won’t be a lot of energy on it. It’s not like tapping into a healthy vein. We want to follow the energy in the direction it’s going, and then more comes.
Tami Simon: What do you think is the best metaphor for the Akashic Records? Meaning, you can think of it like the Library of Congress or a huge computer with infinite storage space. Yet we’re talking about it more like a room with endless rooms that you can enter. What metaphor works the best for you?
Linda Howe: Hmmm, I don’t know. On the one hand I want to say, a point of light within a great sphere of light. That might be the best.
Tami Simon: In your book you mention that there are lords of the records—sort of keepers of the records, guards of the records. What are they like?
Linda Howe: Sure, sure, sure. There’s this group called the lords of the Akashic Records. Their job is to protect the sanctity of the record itself, so that the record doesn’t get corrupted. The lords of the records don’t reveal themselves, like they don’t have names and they don’t visit with us. They’re not like spirit guides. We’re talking about a body of consciousness, a group of beings whose purpose is to maintain the essential nature of the records and also to determine who gets in, what information comes through, what energy gets transmitted. They’re like an operational team, but also keeping the record from intrusion or corruption or being used for ill purposes.
Tami Simon: How can someone corrupt the records?
Linda Howe: Well they can’t. People will try. The record itself is indestructible.
Tami Simon: Now Linda, you’ve written the very first book on how to read the Akashic Records. When did you know in your own life that this would be what was called for?
Linda Howe: When I was in my twenties and I was on the search, along the way I recognized that there were so many wonderful ways of knowing truth, of knowing light, of knowing divine presence and they were all good. What I also noticed was that mainstream religions—you know, I’m from the Midwest—were not giving me or my friends or the people I knew much of what they needed. I would go to different churches or religious groups and always get something good, but I saw, this is great if you’re a white, American male with a certain income.
The days of spiritual theory have worn thin. There has to be a way for individuals to have a direct spiritual access to their own authority that stands on its own and doesn’t have to stand within a religion. This doesn’t conflict with any religions. But for individuals to do this on their own and to find their way.
When I had this reading with this woman, Terri, from Texas it blew me away. It touched me in such a profound way.
Tami Simon: Thank you Linda.
