Akasha

Blavatsky

Original sense

Akasha is the primordial, homogeneous substance of the cosmos — the fifth element, subtler than air, from which the other elements differentiate. It is not a library and not a personal energy field. In its lower aspect it is related to the Astral Light; in its higher, to the root-substance of manifestation.

Akâsa is the indispensable agent of every Kosmic phenomenon… the Universal Soul, the Matrix of the Universe.

She imported a Vedic/Upanishadic word and welded it to a sevenfold occult physics. Akasha is stuff, not a filing system. The ‘memory’ of events she placed primarily in the Astral Light, a lower and more turbulent register.

New Age

Later sense

A luminous spiritual internet. ‘In the akasha’ usually means a realm you can visit for guidance, past-life data, or downloads. The substance has become a place, then a product: akashic readings, akashic healing.

Typical use. ‘I checked the akasha and your soul chose this contract.’ Also used interchangeably with Akashic Records.