Akashic Records

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Akashic Records are, in some New Age circles, held to be a mystical, otherworldly compendium of all knowledge. This is reflected in the etymology: the word "akashic" derives from the Sanskrit "akasha", meaning "sky" or "space". Some even call it the "mind of God". It's been used in mysticism since the nineteenth century.

Fiction, of course, uses it as a cool phrase. See Great Big Book of Everything and Magical Database for a more modern interpretation. Also refer to this entire website.

Examples of Akashic Records include:


Anime & Manga

  • At least two characters in The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer either seek or have access to them.
  • In Digimon Frontier, AncientWisemon has an attack called Laplace's Demon that allowed him to rewrite the past and future by editing the akashic records.
  • In .hack//Link, the story revolves around the struggle to control the Akashic records of "The World", the MMORPG inside the fiction. The manga features rewriting several previous series' character's memories so that they act as their stories began, not as they ended. The game has the character somehow travelling through time by accessing the oversoul memory of everyone connected to The World. Or...something.
  • Mirai Nikki actually uses them in the same way as myth.
  • Code Geass features the Sword of Akasha, which is being used by the Emperor of Britannia to... Well, they kind of forgot about it after the first season. At least it sounded cool. The sword was likely just the name given to the physics-defying place where one could use the power of Geass to access The Collective Subconscious, A.K.A. God.
    • It's eventually revealed to be the key to Emperor Charles' and Marianne's attempted Ragnarok Connection.
  • Zombie Loan has an organization called the "Akashic Record Reform Committee" who seem to want to get their hands on and change the records for some purpose.
  • In Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Yata's alien hand puppet uses the Akashic Records in order to commune with the spirit of a dead goldfish. Yeah.
  • In Outlaw Star the Galactic Leyline is the Akashic Record, among other things.
  • In the Current Psycho Busters story arc the heroes were told they needed to access these in order to reset the world to how it was before it began to fall apart
  • In Slayers, the Claire Bible. It's literally the complete and infinite knowledge of a god, the Water Dragon King.
  • Referenced heavily in the Nasuverse through various means, typically as 'Akasha' or 'The Origin'. Implied to be what most (if not all) magi work towards in their studies, either consciously or not. Those who succeed become Sorcerers, capable of magic that is otherwise utterly impossible. The Grail in Fate/stay night can be used to open a gate to Akasha by sacrificing all seven Servants. Also, at least one of the main characters is implied to even be an avatar of sorts for the Record (Ryougi Shiki, and possibly Araya Souren from Kara no Kyoukai:)


Fan Fic


Literature

  • In the New Age science fiction novel 2150 AD by Thea Alexander (1971), in 2150 AD society is ordered according to a philosophy called the Macro-Philosophy and they have supercomputers with video screens that can access the akashic records.
  • In Mechanicum, the Forge Master Zeth attempts to construct an "Akashic Reader," using a set of psykers to access the Akashic Record in the warp. It doesn't end well.
  • In the Immortals series, there's an akashic library in Summerland that Ever uses to find out what's wrong with Damen in the second book.
  • Jorge Luis Borges' The Library of Babel takes this idea to its most literal extreme. The library contains every possible arrangement of letters, spaces, and punctuation that will fit in a 410-page book. Unfortunately, too much information is just as bad as no information at all - the inhabitants of the library have no way to index the books. In theory, a true index is hiding in one of the books, but so are millions of false indexes.
  • In Mercedes Lackey's Burning Water, psychic expert Diana Tregarde uses her associate, who is by nature a medium, to access the akashic record to get information about the ancient history behind the threat they're facing.


Live Action TV

  • In season two of the television series Eureka, director of Global Dynamics Allison Blake discovers that through a freak accident, her son Kevin is able to access and control what they refer to as the "Akashic Field."
    • Actually, this story element is foreshadowed in the pilot episode. Specifically in the first few minutes. When Susan Perkins is in bed, yelling at her husband, take a look at the topic of her reading material.
  • In the Charmed episode "They're Everywhere", the plot revolves around demons wanting to find the knowledge contained in the Akashic records.
  • In Kamen Rider Double, the Gaia Library which Phillip (and later Wakana) can access is said to be the sum of the Earth's knowledge on all subjects, making it a combination of this trope and The Lifestream.


Tabletop Games


Video Games

  • In various media by Type-Moon the ultimate goal of the magi of the Mage's Association is to find a path to obtain the Akashic Records. Another name for this in the Nasuverse is The Origin, and also the goal of every magus. Fundamentally, the Akashic Records is a database for the world's history, and serves as a place where souls are recycled. The reason why no mage has ever reached Akasha is mainly due to the Counter Force, a protective energy that repels and destroys those who attempt to interfere with the balance.
    • Close contact with the Akasha through near-death experience may provide that person with an extremely rare ability called "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception", which currently, only two characters in the multiverse possess. Specifically, it allows the user to see the Akashic record of the predetermined "death" of a person or object in the form of lines and cut the object in pieces by tracing the line with a cutting tool of any size and/or sharpness, even hands, or outright kill the object (or person) by stabbing them in their "point of death", erasing them from existence.
    • The original goal of the Holy Grail War was to reach "the origin" which, unsurprisingly, is Akasha. The Holy Grail is a means to channel The Origin's powers by pulling Heroic Spirits from the Akashic Records and make them fight as Servants in the war. When all seven Servants are returned to the Grail, it will access the Akashic Records and allow the granting of one wish through the temporary omnipotence of the Grail.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II there is a weapon called the Akashic Record, which appears as a book with a handle, wielded like a shield.
  • In Persona 3 and Persona 4, there is a physical skill called "Akasha Arts" that can be used in combat. It doesn't really have anything to do with the Akashic Records, it just hits things.
  • Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne has Hijiri, who actually finds the Akashic Records and thoroughly studies them to gain knowledge about the demonic realm. At first he just does this for survival and to help you out, but eventually he becomes drunk with power and declares his intent to use what he's learned to create a Reason, thus entering the competition to make a better world. Unfortunately his attempt to backstab you is cut short when he is suddenly captured by Isamu, then used as a sacrifice to empower his Reason.
  • Devil Survivor 2 has the Septentriones be the servants of the Keeper of the Akashic Records. Depending on player choices, one can either create a new world through the power of the Records, boot the current Keeper into oblivion, set someone else in his place or outright rewriting reality back to how it was before the Keeper decided to start messing with the world.
  • In Super Robot Wars, the Super Robot Cybuster, aside from being able to access the Akashic Records via the in-built Laplace Computer, has a Limit Break known as the "Akashic Buster", which, mind you, probably has nothing to do with the actual records themselves. But, hey, it sounds cool... Actually elaborated upon in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3; various infinite energy sources like Getter Rays, Ide, and Psychic Power are aspects of the Akashic Record...also known as Fate.
  • The song Almagest in Beatmania IIDX 17th style SIRIUS has this as its genre title. Considering how quite a few bemani songs have ridiculous genres as it is, it really didn't register on the fandom's radar.
  • In Tales of the Abyss, "Akashic Torment" is one of Sync's mystic artes.
  • In Dominions 3, this Astral spell reveals all magical sites within a province.
  • In No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, Akashic Points are used to travel to other dimensions to fight certain assassins.
  • The records also appear as an item available for points scored in multiplayer games in Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light.


Webcomics

  • The Dragon Doctors had this; Kili the shaman accessed the specific Akashic records used by the long-dead first incarnation of the Hearts Society to research what happened to their patient, an unfortunate young woman who'd been trapped in a cave and turned to stone for 2000 years.


Western Animation

  • One season finale of Jackie Chan Adventures featured the already defeated Big Bad going after a literal and physical version of the Records and rewriting it so that they were never defeated in the first place thousands of years ago. The good guys are only able to undo (or detect) the damage because sneaky little Jade accidentally tore out a physical piece of the Records just before the change was written into it; the piece just happened to contain the description of her becoming a force for good against the Big Bad.
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