Digging Into Our Past, Present, and Future Lives With the Akashic Records

Figuring out our path in life can be really challenging, especially if you’re like me and often become consumed with making the “right” decision. As if one path in life holds the golden ticket, and the other path would turn your life upside down. Over the last several years I've often sought out spiritual healers for guidance during crises of the heart and career. In November 2020, a friend of mine gifted me with an Akashic Records reading. I had never heard of it before, and with a little research I came to understand that it was a living, energetic, and vibrational field of information that could give insight into our past, present, and future lives. Sign me up!

I’ve had a lot of spiritual readings in my day, but not one that has made me cry before the actual reading began. I had zero expectations going into my session with Courtney Cooke, but within several minutes of her opening prayer, tears started streaming down my face. Something about the energy just shifted (and this was over Zoom!), and I had this sense that something very profound was awaiting me. What I heard in my hour-long reading was a true affirmation of the path I was on, and my purpose. It was encouraging and supportive—and really helped me to see that there is no one path in life for us. We all have choices, and no matter what we choose, life will unfold as it is meant to. 

That reading stayed on my mind for a very long time. But there was still a lot I didn’t really understand about what the Akashic Records actually is, and what transpired during my session even though I fully trusted the messages that were delivered to me. So it was an honor to sit down with Courtney to dive deeper into her practice, healing, and her degree from Columbia University’s Mind Body Institute.

Read the edited interview below, or you can listen to our full conversation.

Courtney: I think a lot about childhood, and I try to return back to who I was at 4 or 5 as much as I possibly can. I think that’s part of our spiritual nature, before we’re put through the filter of life and life’s experiences. As a child, I was very much in my imagination. I spent my first 6 years as an only child, so I played alone a lot. I had imaginary friends, stuffed animals. I started dancing at a very young age. I could spend a lot of time being in my creative self, making dances, making music, playing on my own. I was also a very trusting, open-hearted child. I remember the day that shut down, when I started being more social and having friends and feeling like oh my god I can’t handle life. I was incredibly sensitive.

Courtney: I’d say in my younger ages, through childhood I was always interested in the unseen world. My first experience of being able to put language to perceiving energy and the way that we’re all interconnected was with my best friend at about 6 or 7 years old. I could see the lines of energy connecting us. I remember at the end of a playdate I told her, don't worry we’ll always be connected by this line of energy from finger tip to fingertip. 

I actually lean on that image often because it was so clear and it gave me a sense of peace being able to say goodbye to her and go about our days knowing that we’re always going to be connected by this line of energy. I saw it with my naked eye that day. As life went on, the perception moved to more of an internal perception and not always with the naked eye. 

Around 21 is when I started having a deeper confrontation with what I would define as a spiritual awakening or a big resurgence of energy that was coming into my life. I had no language for it. I didn't know what was happening. There were a lot of phenomena that I was experiencing and it took me the better part of a decade to sort through that and begin to figure out what was happening and what it all meant. 

Courtney: I had a deep understanding that I needed to sort through my pain. I could not move forward without identifying what was this source of pain that was nagging at me. First, I started really tending to some of those foundational parts of healing. By the grace of god, I had an amazing situation that placed my therapist in my presence—so I started there. Then when I got the foundational, very ego-based, painful issues out in the open, it allowed me to enter into an understanding of the phenomena that I was experiencing that felt different than pain. For that, I sought out many books, went to tons of healing workshops and trainings. Just becoming totally absorbed into the world of spiritual healing. 

As a dancer, I’ve always found entry into the more somatic yogic principles. The chakra system was the number one teacher for me in the early days. Caroline Myss, The Anatomy of the Spirit, was one of my foundational books. Learning meditation through the yogic practice. I eventually became a certified yoga teacher.

Courtney: It’s huge, and my body was having very strong reactions. I was learning through my body. I remember a dear friend said to me, “your body is screaming. When are you going to listen?” I kept that very close over the years. I’m like, oh can I listen when my body is whispering? Or when my body is silent? I was having a lot of symptoms and a lot of imbalance and illness at that time.

Courtney: I think many people might have a different understanding, but from my perception— the Akashic Records is a living field of information and wisdom that is connected to each and every one of us—both individually and collectively. When we’re working with the Akashic Records, we’re working with our essence, who we are at the soul's nature. So, when we enter into the Akashic Records, we move into a multidimensional understanding which can include aspects of ourselves in terms of past lives, multiple timelines, different incarnations. We can work with the present-day energies and the field of information as it relates to the highest good and best interest of today and this time period. And the Akashic Records give us access to the blueprint of the foreseeable future. How I see it, it’s a holograph of what’s possible. Not just one or two choices, it has many, many different options. The Akashic Records help me to align to the energy that I want to say yes to and welcome into my life. It really helps me look at the patterns or obstacles that I'd like to overcome. The Akashic Records is a field of energy, even in the prayer, you can start to perceive there’s a shift. We’re taken out of how we normally experience human existence, and we’re brought into contact with the transcendent—in contact with the divine. So when we’re working with the Akashic Records, things are moving, even when we’re just having conversations about things. When we’re working in the Akashic Records through our observation, through compassion, we begin to open to receive healing. So working in the Akashic Records is different from other modalities that are considered readings. We're not just reading or hearing information from the Akashic Records—we're activating the field, which opens up the possibility of receiving healing.

Courtney: The Akashic Records led me to the Akashic Records. I feel like, at some point, it really found me. I was open, I was ready to receive it. The narrative of how I got there felt like part of the longer process of that 10 years being exposed to many different modalities. I eventually saved up money and went to yoga school. While I was training in Bolivia and Peru, I had a parasite, so I was really sick. I was taken out of my body in a way that I was not expecting. I thought I would go and be the star yogi. No way, I couldn’t do anything. So, I spent a lot of time contemplating and in meditation. I went very internal. One night we were all in a circle, and the teacher asked if we wanted to do an Akashic Records meditation. This fire lit inside of me. We went through a very simple journey and meditation—and it was like I had arrived home. Everything was so vibrant, so amplified. I got a huge download that night, tons of wisdom, and healing around the specific topic I was working with that night. Afterwards, we were comparing notes and everyone else was kinda like nothing happened, no big deal. I was weeping. Something is here, something is going on here. 

That continued to express itself and unfold to me, as if it were teaching me, over the next several months. I was being brought through this school of Akashic Records. Day in and day out is extremely overwhelming, very disorienting. The Akashic Records are not linear, they certainly don't always make sense in the mind. I was just being schooled on it. It was very disturbing at the time. Now, looking back, I’m like, wow what a beautiful experience. 

It wasn't until a year or so later that I started to learn about the work of Edgar Caycey, and at the time, there was the Edgar Caycey Center in NYC and I started to have some better understanding around what was going on. I was able to name it. I was working within the Akashic Records, and I was channeling the Akashic Records.