Words matter, especially when a familiar word begins
defining an experience that isn't actually the same.
Over the years, people have sometimes referred to my work
with the Hall of Records® as Akashic Records work. I understand why.
The term Akashic Records is widely recognized in
spiritual communities. When people hear about accessing records, receiving
information beyond ordinary awareness, exploring other lifetimes, or
encountering information held within consciousness, the Akashic Records are
often their closest point of reference. So, it becomes an easy comparison. But
it has never felt accurate to me.
I don't use the term Akashic Records to describe the
Hall of Records® Method because that isn't what I experience the Hall of
Records to be, and it isn't how the method I developed works. That doesn't make
Akashic Records work wrong. It simply makes it different.
A Distinction That Has Changed Over Time
There is another important piece of this history that I want
to acknowledge. For many years, one of the clearest distinctions I made between
the Hall of Records® and Akashic Records work was not simply how information
was accessed, but what we did once we got there.
From the earliest development of my work with the Hall of
Records some forty years ago, the purpose was never simply to access
information. We went there to do something with what we discovered.
The work involved identifying and resolving contracts and
agreements, releasing blood ties and old vows, addressing curses and other
energetic entanglements, and working with patterns that appeared to continue
influencing a person's present experience. In other words, the Hall of Records
was not simply a place of inquiry for me. It was a place of resolution and
change.
At that time, I did not see this same emphasis within what
was generally being called Akashic Records work. My understanding of Akashic
practice was primarily that the Records were accessed to receive information,
insight, or guidance. That became one of the reasons I was careful about
distinguishing my work from it.
More recently, however, I have seen Akashic Records
practitioners begin incorporating some of these same ideas; clearing
agreements, releasing contracts, changing energetic patterns, and working more
actively with what is discovered within the Records. I see that as a natural
progression. Practices evolve. Practitioners explore. One understanding opens
the doorway to another, and methods expand as people discover what else may be
possible.
So, I would no longer say that this type of resolution work
belongs exclusively to the Hall of Records® Method.
The historical distinction is something different. The
Hall of Records® work did not begin as a method of accessing information and
later expand into resolution. Resolution was there at the beginning.
Nearly forty years ago, that was already the movement of the
work: enter the Hall, recognize what was operating, understand what was ready
to be addressed, and, always within the principles of free will, create the
opportunity for something to change. That difference in origin matters to me. Not
because I need the Hall of Records® Method to be separate from every other
evolving spiritual practice, but because I want to accurately preserve the
history of how this work developed.
There will inevitably be overlap as consciousness practices
continue to evolve. The question for me has never been who is allowed to work
with these ideas. The question is simply: What is the origin, intention, and
structure of the method being practiced? And in the Hall of Records®
Method, resolution was not an addition to the work. It was where the work
began.
“The Hall of Records® work did not begin as a method of
accessing information and later expand into resolution. Resolution was there at
the beginning.”
I Didn't Begin With the Akashic Records
The Hall of Records® Method did not begin with my studying
an existing Akashic Records system and deciding to create another version of
it.It emerged through experience.
Over time, through my own exploration and through working
with others, I began recognizing a repeatable process through which people
could enter expanded states of awareness and access information and experiences
directly. The structure developed gradually. I observed. I experimented. I
listened. I refined. And most importantly, I paid attention to what happened
when people were allowed to experience rather than being told what they were experiencing. Eventually, what emerged became the Hall of Records® Method. Because
of that history, calling it Akashic Records work would actually move
backward and place the method inside a framework from which it did not
originate.
Familiar Language Can Be Helpful and Limiting
We naturally explain unfamiliar experiences through familiar
concepts. Someone describes an experience and we say: Oh, that's like Reiki.
That's hypnosis. That's channeling. That's the Akashic Records. Sometimes
comparisons are useful. They give us a bridge. But a bridge is not necessarily
the destination.
Another observation is our tendency to categorize. It’s just
easier. Two experiences can share characteristics without being the same
experience. Meditation and hypnosis can both involve altered states of
awareness. Prayer and channeling can both involve receiving information. Energy
work and bodywork can both create physical sensations. That doesn't make the
terms interchangeable. The same is true here.
There may be experiences within the Hall of Records® Method
that sound similar to experiences people report within Akashic Records work.
That similarity does not make them the same practice.
The Word “Records” Creates Confusion
Part of the confusion is understandable. Both terms contain
the idea of records. But even the word records can create an
image that may be too literal. People sometimes imagine a vast metaphysical
library containing books with every event from every lifetime carefully
documented. Perhaps someone experiences it exactly that way.
Consciousness frequently communicates through imagery and
symbolism we can understand. One person may perceive a library. Another may see
light. Another may experience landscapes. Another may hear words. Another may
feel emotion. Another may simply know.
I don't believe the form is necessarily the thing itself. The
image may be the way consciousness translates something much larger into an
experience the human mind can engage with. That is one reason I am careful
about defining these spaces too rigidly.
I Am More Interested in Access Than Location
One of the questions people sometimes ask is: Where are
the Records? I am not sure that is the most useful question. When we ask
where something is, we are thinking spatially.
We imagine that the information must exist in a particular
place and that we must somehow travel there to retrieve it. But consciousness
may not operate according to the same rules as physical space.
Perhaps information isn't stored somewhere else at
all. Perhaps what changes is our ability to access it.
Think about a radio.The broadcast does not suddenly begin
existing when you tune the dial.
You simply become capable of receiving something that was
already present. Expanded states of awareness may work in ways we don't yet
fully understand.
The Hall of Records® Method creates a structure for changing
the way we access awareness. Where that information ultimately “lives” is far
less important to me than what happens when a person encounters it.
I Don't Want the Practitioner to Become the Authority
This may be the most important distinction for me. Many
forms of Akashic Records work are structured around a reader accessing
information on behalf of another person.
The practitioner enters the Records, asks questions,
receives information, and shares what they receive.There are gifted
practitioners doing meaningful work in that way. But that isn't what I wanted
to create. Within the Hall of Records® Method, the practitioner facilitates the
participant's experience.
The participant encounters their
own imagery. Their own awareness.Their own memories.
Their own emotions.Their own recognition. Their own knowing.
The facilitator may ask questions or help the person explore
what is appearing, but the facilitator is not intended to become the authority
who declares what the experience means. That distinction is deeply important to
me.
Because the moment someone else becomes the ultimate
authority on your spiritual experience, something subtle can happen. You begin
asking them what is true. I would rather help you recognize your ability to ask
yourself.
I Don't Believe Everything Is Written
The traditional language surrounding the Akashic Records
sometimes gives people the impression that everything has already been recorded,
including the future. That raises questions for me.
If everything that will happen already exists as a fixed
record, what happens to free will?
What happens to choice? What happens when another person
changes their mind? What happens when we become conscious of a pattern and
choose differently? I don't experience the future as one completed story
waiting for us to arrive. I see potentials, probabilities, and possibilities.
Paths created by choices interacting with other choices. That
means information accessed in an expanded state of consciousness may reveal
what is possible without declaring what is inevitable. This is a foundational
principle within the Hall of Records® Method. Information should expand choice,
not replace it.
I Don't Need to Define What Others Are Experiencing
There is something else I want to make very clear. I am not
attempting to redefine the Akashic Records. Nor am I suggesting that someone
else's experience of them is incorrect.
If someone enters meditation and experiences a vast library
they understand to be the Akashic Records, I have no reason to tell them
otherwise.
If someone receives meaningful information through an
Akashic Records reading, that experience belongs to them. If a practitioner has
spent years developing a relationship with that field, I respect their
experience. My responsibility is not to define their work. My responsibility is
to accurately describe mine. And Akashic Records simply isn't the
terminology I use for the Hall of Records® Method.
Naming Something Creates a Container
Words create expectations. If I call something an Akashic
Records session, you arrive with an idea of what will happen. You may expect me
to access information for you. You may expect answers. You may expect
predictions. You may expect me to tell you about another lifetime. But if that
isn't what I am offering, the terminology has already created the wrong
container.
This is one reason naming matters. The Hall of Records®
Method is not simply a different label placed on an existing practice. It
describes a particular method of facilitated consciousness exploration that
developed through my work and experience. The name gives that method its own
container. And that allows us to talk about it accurately.
Could the Experiences Overlap?
Of course. Human consciousness does not organize itself
according to our terminology.
Someone practicing meditation, hypnosis, shamanic
journeying, Akashic Records work, intuitive exploration, or the Hall of
Records® Method may encounter similar imagery or information. That doesn't
surprise me. Different doors can open into overlapping territories.
But the fact that two paths sometimes reveal similar
landscapes doesn't mean they are the same path. The method matters. The
intention matters. The relationship between practitioner and participant
matters. And the philosophy underlying the work matters.
Why I Continue to Call It the Hall of Records®
I use the term Hall of Records® because it accurately
names the framework through which this work developed. Over the years, the Hall
of Records® Method has become a structured process with its own principles,
practitioner training, and approach to consciousness exploration. One of those
principles remains especially important: Your experience belongs to you.
I can facilitate. I can ask. I can hold space. I can help
you explore. But I don't want to become the person who tells you what your
Records say. I would much rather help you discover what happens when you enter
the experience yourself. So when someone asks me: “Is the Hall of Records®
just another name for the Akashic Records?”
My answer is a simple, “No”. There may be similarities. There
may be overlapping experiences. And there may be mysteries surrounding
consciousness that none of us yet have language adequate to describe. I am
comfortable with that. I don't need to make one system wrong in order to
distinguish another. I simply want to use language that accurately represents
the work. And for the work I developed, that language is: The Hall of
Records® Method.
