In Life Between Death and Rebirth (LBDR), Lect. 13, we see:

Between death and rebirth our perfections and imperfections are faithfully recorded in the Akasha Chronicle. Certain attributes are inscribed in the Moon sphere, others in the Venus sphere, others in the Mars sphere, others in the Mercury sphere, others in the Jupiter sphere, and so on. [See I-33; while in this passage, the “recording” is within our solar system, the Akashic seems clearly not to be limited thereto but to extend also into the zodiacal, i.e., heavenly or higher devachanic, region.] When we are returning to an incarnation in a physical body and our being is slowly contracting, we encounter everything that was inscribed on the outward journey. In this way our karma is prepared. On the path of return we can inscribe into our own being the record of an imperfection we ourselves first inscribed into the Akasha Chronicle. Then we arrive on the earth. Because there is within us everything we inscribed into our being on the return journey, and we are obliged to inscribe a great deal even if not everything, because of this our karma unfolds. Up above, however, everything still remains inscribed.

Now these inscriptions work together in a remarkable way.

Here Steiner goes into a discussion, beyond our present purposes, of how these astrological factors affect our lives in the unfolding of our karma.

Other comments upon the Akashic can be found in At the Gates of Spiritual Science (AGSS), Lect. 12 and its “Answers to Questions”; Foundations of Esotericism (FE), Lects. 10 and 21; Genesis (GEN), Lects. 7 and 10; and Michaelmas and the Soul Forces of Man (MSF), Lect 3. Countless times, of course, Steiner will simply refer to the Akashic as his source, but one must understand it to be the direct or indirect source of most of his original comments whether so stated or not. Also it should be understood that I make no claim to have addressed above substantially all, or even the major portion, of what Steiner may have said on the subject of the Akashic. The above references are, however, found in works that seem to have great relevance to our present task.

Let us now look at what the Bible has to say that appears to fit with what Steiner has expressed above about the “Akashic” and even to strongly suggest to the open mind that it is true.

First, a good many passages point generally in this direction. For instance, consider 2 Cor 3; 1 Cor 13,8c-10; 2 Cor 12,4; Heb 9,5; Jn 16,12; and Jer 31,31-34.

Even more to our point, however, is the pervasiveness with which the Biblical account speaks of a “book” in a way that virtually precludes any thought that it can be anything other than a record in the heavens. On this particular subject, I believe that Steiner is badly⁸ wrong in an assertion he makes in ASJ, Lect. 4. He there sets out to “explain what a book is according to the Bible,” and then says, “The word ‘book’ occurs in the Bible only seldom. This must not be overlooked. If you search the Old Testament, you will find the word in Genesis (V,l): This is the book of the generations of Adam. . . . You may then open the Bible where you will, you will only [see fn 8] find the word ‘book’ again in the first Gospel (Matthew I,l): This is the book of the generation of Christ Jesus. . . . And again the expression ‘book’ appears here in the Apocalypse of John. It appears where it is said that the Lamb alone is worthy to open the book with the seven seals. The expression ‘book’ has always the same significance, it is never used otherwise.. . . By a ‘book’ nothing else is ever meant than the recording of what follows in time.”

Steiner’s threshold error (see fn 8) in this quotation is his assertion that “the word ‘book’ occurs in the Bible only seldom” and then in the instances he cites. If he was unaware of other occurrences, it also disqualifies his statement that this is the only meaning the word has. This is not to say he is wrong in the latter, but simply that he has not looked at all the instances so as to be qualified to make that statement. The reader should recall, first, that Steiner makes no claim to be a Bible student but only to have confirmed by independent spiritual research the verity of what he finds in the Bible and, second, that he only postulates the necessity of redeveloping the Bible account from such original spiritual source and not that he has himself had the time to do so from beginning to end. Fortunately, he has done enough, along with his other pronounced principles, to serve as a guide in the interpretation of passages that he has not himself separately investigated. Both Steiner’s investigative reports (and their broader implications) and my own Bible study, are the basis of this present undertaking.