The Basics of an Akashic Record Reading

The Basics of an Akashic Record Reading is the first chapter of an in-progress book on Akashic Records Case Studies. The intention of this piece is to set the stage for the discussion in the following chapters about the possibilities, content, and outcomes of Akashic Records Readings within a variety of different topics, approaches, and clients.


Within an Akashic Record Reading, there are two people. The Receiver is the person whose Akashic Records are opened. The Reader is the person who opens the Akashic Records for the Receiver. Though, it is also possible that the Reader and the Receiver are the same person as is the case when you open your Akashic Records for yourself.

The Reader is guided by a set of Agreements with the Akashic Records about when and how the Records are opened. The most important is that the Reader will only open for another when asked and will never offer a Reading. This means that the Receiver must make a request to have their Akashic Records opened. The request must be in real life and not, for example, in a dream state or through higher self to high self communication.

Because the Akashic Record Reading is for the Receiver, the Reading is guided by the Receiver’s intention. Generally, intention is expressed in the questions asked or the issues raised. There are no requirements for the questions asked. Nor does the Receiver need to be of any particular spiritual level. All that is needed is for both Receiver and Reader to be open to whatever is transmitted.

The well-trained Reader knows how to keep the focus of the Reading on the Receiver and their intention. This Reader knows to keep their opinions and beliefs out of the Reading for the other person. This Reader stands as witness, speaks truth as received, and holds sacred space for the Receiver.

Within an Akashic Records, the two most common topics raised are: past lives and life purpose.

However, these are not the most common life issues which people seek to resolve. Instead, initially many are limited by the outdated beliefs about what they think is possible within an Akashic Record Reading. Inquiries into past lives and life purpose are raised because most believe that these are the only possible areas to address within the Akashic Records.

Why do these beliefs exist?

Historically, the Akashic Records were thought to be a book stored in a heavenly library. The book only contains what is past and thus a primary source for past life information. The person opening the Akashic Records need only read what has been divinely written.

In the 1800s, as Europe and the United States began to learn of the Hindu concept of karma (the residual of past cause and effect requiring attention in this life) and the Buddhist concept of dharma (conformity to one’s duty), the Akashic Records were deemed an excellent source for determining life purpose and finding one’s path to enlightenment. With the correct information, still-binding past contracts, mistakes, and sins, as well as residual promises and inter-generational curses could be identified and released to ease the burdens of life, attain financial well-being, and guarantee spiritual ascendancy.

Additionally, the old belief also maintained that written in this Book of Life was the reason you were living this life. Known both as life purpose and soul purpose, the goal was to be told what you’re here to do so you can execute the plan and prove your worth as a human being. Achieving your life purpose is thought necessary to achieve the highest spiritual path so a return to the demands of physical life will no longer be required.

In my experience, it’s not that there isn’t past life or life purpose information available within an Akashic Record Reading. This information is available. However, there is much more available, much more. Plus, there is more than information.

Over the years and to move away from these outdated beliefs, I have focused on what is available within an Akashic Record Reading with these two questions:

What do you want to know?

What do you want to let go?

In other words, an Akashic Record Reading in its most fundamental form is about what you can learn and what you can release which no longer serves you and your life. The purpose of an Akashic Record Reading is not limited; it is expansive, broad, deep, and able to encompass the entirety of the human experience and beyond.


What Do You Want to Know?

Most people request an Akashic Record Reading because something is calling to be revealed and understood. People are capable, productive, and intelligent. And we all hit a block, get stuck, and stumble.

When you hit a roadblock or a dead end, you can work yourself into a frenzy of concern and worry. No matter how you might try to intellectualize or rationalize what you think you should know – what you want to know may not show up or make itself known. Both from my personal experience and from what I have observed in others through thousands of Readings, the roadblock is there because either the answer is not what is expected, or the answer is beyond the bias of your rational mind.

There is no limit within the Akashic Records as to WHAT can be known – except the WHAT which comes from another person’s Akashic Records. You may ask about your life purpose, but the life purpose of your friend or partner must come from their Records through their request.

Every topic, issue, or concern which any person has can be explored within an Akashic Record Reading. I could fill this book with a list of possibilities which still would be missing something. Human beings are both complex and simple, both deep and light. Within an Akashic Record Reading, you may examine the depths and touch upon the simple truths of your life which can be overlooked within fearful life moments.

Over the years, I have heard just about anything you might could think of and more. Nonetheless, clients have reveled within a common experience receiving an Akashic Record Reading. These are some of their comments:

“You help me remember.”

“An Akashic Record Reading sheds light on the darkened corners of my life.”

“Here I can learn what it feels like I already knew.”

They share an experience of remembering, of uncovering something known but hidden, of feeling the veil lifted.

“My heart knew what my mind could not remember.”

Yes, exactly! The wisdom of body, mind, heart, and soul is there within you always. But life circumstances, the reaction of fear, or freezing in the moment can cut you off from this wisdom.

The sacred space of the Reading creates a moment for you to allow the light of your being to move forward and shine a light on your inherent inner wisdom. A wisdom which can be overlooked or forgotten when circumstances demand an immediate response.

This is not to say that information is not available within the Akashic Records. For just one person the amount of available information is equal to that contained in the largest library you can imagine. Simply, more than you could ever know in this lifetime.

However, there is more than facts in this available information. There is what I call Knowing – the process of how you know. The Akashic Records shares Knowing – a sharing of awareness which sparks your inherent ability to know yourself and to access your personal wisdom. An Akashic Record Reading takes you through a process of how and what you can know in this moment of your life.

This is a process of resonance and alignment. A process which connects with your inner wisdom. This connection hums and dances and strums your awareness. You experience this as an unveiling, a remembering, a revealing of your deepest truth.

Thus, when I say, “What do you want to know?” I realize that at first, this question will be interpreted in a give-me-the-facts perspective. However, by understanding that there are infinite layers available, the possibility exists for the Receiver of the Reading to step into an unexpected depth of resonance which can feel like moving beyond the anticipated within current awareness into a much deeper fount of revelation, expansion, and deepest understanding.

As an Akashic Record Reader, my responsibility is to approach any Reading with an openness to possibility beyond imagination. I think of this as the Dynamic View where perception moves beyond the limits of linear time and space into the infinite and the eternal. Instead of being limited by what is known, the Dynamic View steps beyond limitation of local perception into the infinite and eternal connection of what is nonlocal and transcendent.

Within the Dynamic View is the knowing which touches inner wisdom and lifts awareness into the soul’s truth and the heart’s loving presence. Left on its own, the mind can get trapped in outdated beliefs and the frenzied push to know now.

“Please! Just tell me what I want to know! If I know, I can take care of my problems!”

I hear this from clients all the time. This is a client stuck in their mind, stuck in the need of must-know-now, unaware of or unable to be open to the deeper layers of knowing always available. I’ve been here many times myself within the relentless push which arises while dealing with life. This must-know-now push is fueled by so much including the desire to be perfect and productive, always able to handle all punches without help.

This need-to-know-now is often the primary driver in requesting a Reading. The smart productive part of you is extremely annoyed and hurt that you haven’t been able to find the right answer to solve the problem. This demanding desire pushes relentlessly, sending you to search anywhere and everywhere for the perfect, yet illusive answer.

“I have tried everything. Nothing has helped. I think I must be crazy to get a Reading – but here I am!”

As a new Akashic Record Reader, this type of comment triggered me into a worry about my value as a Reader and whether I could deliver the fervently desired response. However, with experience, I realized I was not responsible for the delivery of the demanded solution.

Instead, as the Reader, responsibility rests in delivering truthfully whatever is received. I learned that if I stayed out of the way – meaning if I understood that as the Reader finding and delivering the answer was not my responsibility – then the flow of the reading would present the desired possibility through a shift in perception within the Receiver, especially in the face of unrelenting demand.

I, as the Reader, could not predict the moment of shift. Nor could I (or should I) predict what word or action would precipitate change within the person before me. Sometimes the shift was as I described a received image. Sometimes it was the words of an offered affirmation which tipped the edge. Sometimes it will be a wispy nuance of awareness or a seemingly off-handed comment. But whatever makes the difference, the person in front me visibly shifts, changes, releases. Their breath will catch. They will pause, some shocked, some amazed, some both.

“Ah! Oh! Wow!”

The push stops. A deep breath. Often tears slipping down cheeks and past the emotional barriers so carefully maintained. A release. A shift. A new view.

A moment before, clouds. Now, clarity. What was filled with static has become clearly tuned in. What was fearfully believed to be impossible to know shifts, changes, and transforms.

The heavy and irksome, the untenable and unbearable in one breath and often with just a few words becomes manageable and understandable. The must-know-now becomes knowing within which shifts, changes, and transforms you.

The demand to know becomes the delight of knowing, of feeling and seeing clearly. The mind clears and the heart feels light. You feel relief throughout and breath comes in easier and deeper.

In an Akashic Record Reading, the soul is seen. The heart is believed. The mind is acknowledged. The body’s wisdom is believed.

By the end of your first Reading, you understand that the purpose of your request was not to get an external data set filled with the perfect solutions.

The result of an Akashic Record Reading is to connect to the depth of your being and hear your truth resonating within. You move from an externalized focus of truth to receiving and recognizing the truth of you, for you, within you.

In this moment, through the process of knowing inherent in an Akashic Record Reading, you have remembered and uncovered the WHAT you wanted to know.


What Do You Want to Let Go?

Let go. Two words with infinite possibility to reshape your life and claim new paths and tomorrow’s dream.

These two words hold you as the focus. A focus on whatever may no longer serve the best of you and all the possibilities of your life.

On one hand, the list of what to let go can be very clear. The lingering guilt of stealing that shiny new barrette in second grade. Refusing to help your grandmother the last time you saw her – though, of course, at the time you had no idea it would be the last time. Cheating on a test in college. Lying to a friend. Not showing up for your parents as promised. This is a list filled with many actions and experiences you now regret because you’ve matured and re-thought what’s right and acceptable and moral.

Or there are the self-identified flaws. Perfectionism. Anxiety. Judgment of self and others. Blame. Old habits. Outdated patterns. Stories about yourself and your life which no longer serve. Childhood beliefs. Adult recriminations. This, too, is a long list – some of which may be true and some may be variations of self-judgment, self-doubt, or shame.

What is less clear are the experiences of life hidden in the corners of your mind, harbored in your heart, or jettisoned from your body to stop the pain and reduce the hurt and harm. Events you blame yourself for not having been quick enough or strong enough to ignore or sidestep. Events beyond self-protection. Events of pain and disruption so intense, memory has been banished outside of your awareness.

“How can I let go what I don’t know?”

This is an important question for me to answer for you.

Interestingly, within an Akashic Record Reading it is not necessary for you to know to let go. Usually when it’s time to let go, most any question will fuel the release. Your rational mind will think it has to know to let go. While all that is required is an open heart to do the work. The releasing process will provide the necessary support for the heart work to guide you to your path of release within the Reading.

To get to the deeper layers of how to let go, let’s start with understanding the energy flow of an Akashic Record Reading.

Without getting into the depths, understand that an Akashic Record Reading connects Physical Reality with the origin of the soul within Non-Physical Reality. Physical Reality is our everyday existence held within linear time and space. The emergence of physical light is the beginning of Physical Reality and thus includes all flows of energy within the human energy field and within the energy of the entire universe.

Non-Physical Reality is the arena of divine consciousness which contains Physical Reality. Non-Physical Reality has infinite layers of consciousness from the individual soul to the divine unity consciousness of Eternal Source.

The soul’s intention to experience manifested physical life is what brings you to the Earth as a human being. Within you is the divine potential from which your soul first emerged.

The biggest difference between Physical Reality and Non-Physical Reality is potential. Non-Physical Reality is entirely 100% potential. Whereas Physical Reality is physical form which contains potential and thus by definition is not 100% potential.

In an Akashic Record Reading, your awareness is connected with the consciousness and potential of Non-Physical Reality through the energy of the Akashic Records and the energy of your soul. An energy field is created between you and Non-Physical Reality which wants to come into equilibrium, for there to be balance between the 100% potential of Non-Physical Reality and the form and potential of the Receiver of the Reading.

How is this equilibrium achieved? First, think of what happens when hot water is mixed with cold water. Equilibrium here is warm water – a little bit of hot exchanges with cold and a little bit of cold exchanges with hot to yield warm within the entirety of the mixture. However, the 100% potential of Non-Physical Reality cannot be diluted. To achieve balance, pure potential elevates the potential of the Receiver into alignment and resonance with Non-Physical Reality and the divine potential of the soul’s origin.

This process of balance is experienced by the Receiver as healing. Within the Akashic Records, healing is balance. Within the balance, whatever is no longer relevant or beneficial can be released. Sometimes just the connection which is established within the Reading as the Records are opened is enough to begin conscious release.

When the Receiver asks a question or raises an issue, the release and balance process becomes focused and specific. This motion of energetic equilibrium occurs in every Akashic Record Reading. This motion is the source and the initiation of whatever you want to let go.

If we think back a couple of pages to the difference between know and Knowing, we find the keys to letting go within a Reading.

Stuck in the must-know-now perspective, it is difficult, if not impossible, to get to a place of release. In one way, must-know-now is usually focused on fixing what is broken or wrong or not perfect. There is judgment and blame. There is also the expectation that you and only you must fix what is wrong. Being stuck often comes from the belief that there is only one way to fix the brokenness even when beating your head against the wall of the belief yields nothing but frustration, despair, and self-loathing.

While at the same time, you are afraid that you are not capable or worthy enough to fix what’s broke. Time and again, you have disappointed yourself and others. Plus, this is wrapped up in the hyper-productivity of perfectionism that whatever this is must be resolved NOW as the only way to prove your self-worth. In other words, much is on the line, and you are in your own way.

Release will come from the unexpected and beyond the limits of self-judgment. Your mind is stuck and only able to see one way – a way which is filled with that continual head banging which is getting you nowhere fast.

Sound familiar? Even after all these years as an Akashic Records Reader, I do this to myself and get stuck in the mud and muck of must-know-now. From my experience with thousands of clients, four out of five people who show up are in the same boat: stuck and judging self for failure.

Release happens when your view changes. When you go from seeing only bad, impossible choices – or none at all – to an array of possibility. Your question is what initiates the release. Your question indicates self-responsibility and readiness to do whatever work is required to let go and move on.

Luckily, you do not have to ask the “right” question. You only need ask the question which calls to you to ask. There’s a nudge, a sense, a feeling. You may not understand why this is the question. But you don’t need to know. This is a question coming from your knowing. This is a question where you have let go of expectation, judgement, or the requirement to know where the question will lead.

Clients struggle mightily sometimes trying to resist that which feels silly or unexplainable. However, there are no silly questions. No wrong questions. No wrong-time issues.

There is only the question you feel is the question to ask now.

“Why have I been afraid of spiders since I was a little girl?”

“I have constant pain in my lower back, and nothing helps. Why?”

“Why is it that I think my best friend hates me?”

“How come I feel like I don’t belong on Earth?”

All these questions were asked with hesitation and embarrassment. Each question led to an incredible path of release, balance, and healing for each person.

When they asked, neither of us knew what was ahead or how the Records might respond. Courage is needed to step into the unknow like this. Often it doesn’t feel courageous. Rather you feel desperate because you have been pushed into a place of hopelessness where nothing else has helped. But that last wisp of hope leads you to ask, to venture into the unknown where it doesn’t matter if you are afraid or less than perfect or wrong. You gotta ask no matter what.

Then what happens?

You let go.

The Akashic Records guides you through a process of release. This process is based on the truth of who you are and how your truth has gotten mangled, displaced, or denied within the events and experience of your life.

Often there is a message or gift of awareness which has been waiting, often impatiently, to be delivered to you. Often your understanding of the events is limited, missing key pieces and at the root of what is out of balance and key to restoring balance.

Release comes from seeing the big picture, letting go of self-judgment, and creating a new path forward for your healed self.

There is no one way to restore your awareness of equilibrium. There is only your way in this moment. You do not need to get there on your own.

The Reading is there to provide support and sacred space for you to claim release. The Reading shows how to get out of your head where you are stuck. The Reading stands witness as you open your heart to new possibility while you release the outdated, the no longer helpful, and the old you.

For ultimately that’s what you let go: the you filled with blame and judgment. The you drowned in sorrow and the hardships of life.

This old you goes in the release as your knowing helps you become the highest expression of you in this moment, capable of letting go again and again what no longer serves.

In the following chapters of this book, I will describe many different aspects of this process of knowing and letting go. This is a process which is beneficial and applicable to all aspects of your life, both personal and professional. As you will see, this is a process which has applications in the creative aspects of your life as well as in the tender and the painful.

In any Akashic Record Reading, there are no limits, only possibility.


The Basics of an Akashic Records Reading is one excerpt from a book I am currently writing about case studies in the Akashic Records. For other excerpts go here: Case Studies. For other writing about Readings, start here: About Akashic Records Readings.

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Cheryl Marlene
Cheryl Marlene, Akashic Mystic, is unafraid of the tough, the raw, and the real aspects of doing deep work. She is the world’s authority on the Akashic Records and consults in the Akashic Records with clients around the world through readings, research, and executive programs. Student learn to access the Akashic Records through ZENITH, her comprehensive four-level learning program, and her signature classic, The Akashic Records Masterclass. In the field of consciousness, she is known as a futurist, innovator, and master teacher who delivers life-changing lessons with warmth and humor. Her powerful exploration is cutting edge -- providing you with deep insight today to ignite your vision for tomorrow.

Headshot of Cheryl Marlene, Spiritual Guide in the Akashic Records

A mystic, futurist, and trailblazer in spiritual consciousness and the Akashic Records, Cheryl is unafraid of the tough, the raw, and the real aspects of doing deep work.

Cheryl has expanded the collective understanding of the Akashic Records beyond the outdated myths of yesterday into a dynamic healing spiritual practice of divine and human consciousness. She consults in the Akashic Records with clients around the world through one-on-one sessions, extensive research, and future-driven, strategic business development.

Cheryl’s clients and students know her as a relatable, funny, everyday person who loves red dresses, urban fantasy books, and skinny margaritas. When she is not hard at work on her next book, she is on the hiking trail listening to the beauty of nature and the heartbeat of the mountain.

Through her journey, she has distilled her intention for life to these seven words: BELIEVE. Laugh. Learn. Love. Be. Become. Always.