MySpace a place for friends

The term The Akashic Mysteries refers to a collection of ancient manuscripts first discovered in 1903 by a man named Marcus York.

A failed neophyte of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in London, York was cast out of that society when his brashness and ineptitude became seen as threats to the secrets and reputation of the organization.

Disgraced, York buried himself in his job as a custodian at the British Museum. He made several discoveries while sorting the ancient items deep within the museum's vaults. The most important of which were five large tomes that weren't listed on any of the inventory sheets.

Careful examination of the manuscripts revealed they were penned in an early form of sanskrit. From his studies in college and of the occult, he was able to understand very little of what was written. But that tiny fraction was enough to cause him immense excitement. They seemed to speak of a world that existed between all others. A place that was everywhere and nowhere. Everything and nothing. This world was called Akasha.

But that was only the beginning. York's broken understanding of the book hinted at things that sent his mind reeling. With barely a thought to the consequences, he stole the books from the Museum and immediately packed his few belongings. The next day he boarded a ship bound for America in order to find an old college friend from Oxford.

That friend was named Jonathan Bishop. Raised in India by his anthropologist parents, Bishop spoke Indian as well as English, and his understanding of sanskrit was impressive. After graduating from Oxford in 1895, he moved to Boston where he owned and operated a successful bookstore with his wife, Mary, and their children Robert and Susanna. Bishop welcomed his old friend with open arms, giving him a place to stay and food to eat.

Almost immediately upon his arrival, York presented his findings to Bishop. The two had always shared an intense interest in the possibility of magic, and York was impatient to start. Together they spent hours hunched over the manuscripts, painstakingly translating each line with as much accuracy as possible. Both men kept detailed journals during this time, believing they were on the verge of a discovery that could have one of the largest impacts on history ever recorded.

Once the task of translating the ancient manuscripts was finished, all of the information was complied into a single volume which the two men titled The Akashic Magicks.

After only a few weeks spent studying the translations, York took it upon himself to perform the first of the rituals described within. He did so with fantastic results, conjuring a sort of inter-dimensional window through which he and Bishop caught glimpses of creatures more amazing than anything they could ever have imagined. Both men tried their hand at describing the creatures in their journals, but most of what they wrote was contradictory and confusing.

Overconfident in his initial success, York moved to perform the second ritual within hours of completing the first. In his haste, he missed a very small, but vital, detail as he was preparing the room. His mistake was disastrous.

The ritual began much as the first. Bishop stood in the corner acting as a witness, and York took position in the middle of the room, in the center of a large circle he'd drawn. It was this circle that Bishop would later blame for the mishap. Or, rather, this almost circle.

York was able to conjure the small window again, but this time it sputtered and crackled with a strange energy. It grew more intense with the passing seconds and both York and Bishop began to panic. Within the span of a few heartbeats, the portal imploded. York was sucked inside just before it vanished.

The stink of sulfur burned Bishop's nostrils as he collapsed, striking his head on the edge of a table. When he woke, calmer but no less shaken, he examined the circle York had been standing in and realized it wasn't continuous. The two ends of the chalk line forming the circle missed each other by about an eighth of an inch. That such a small mistake could yield such a damning result chilled Bishop's heart, and in silence he packed all of York's belongings, deciding to tell his family that his friend had been called away on sudden urgent business. He hated lying, but he was afraid Mary and the kids wouldn't believe the truth.

Bishop kept all of the notes he and York had collected throughout the translation, as well as the original manuscripts. Somewhere in their pages he hoped to find a clue as to what had happened. While never admitting it to himself, Bishop clung to a vague hope that he might one day be able to bring his friend back as well.

At first, however, Bishop feared opening the book. While he didn't know exactly what fate had befallen York, the mere possibility of being transported to another plane of existence terrified him. But as the days and weeks passed, his curiosity won out, and he began studying the pages. He kept detailed notes on his theories and discoveries, one of which suggested that the secret of the rituals lay in sound. He speculated that each of them might be performed as musical ceremonies, though he was unable to elaborate on how this could be done. In fact, nothing he learned in his years of studying the book brought him any closer to explaining what happened or if there was any chance of finding York. Each answer led to another question, and the mysteries within the book seemed endless and unsolvable.

By the time Bishop died in 1938, his obsession with the book was almost total. Despite the hours he would spend in his study, though, he'd never mentioned anything about the book or its contents to anyone, not even his wife Mary, who joined him in the afterlife after taking just enough time to see him buried.

When their daughter Susanna came to clean out their house a few months later, the book and all of Bishop's notes were packed away in her basement. They stayed there until her death in 1958. Her son, Michael Asbury, moved all of the boxes, including the one containing his grandfather's life's work, into his own basement where it remained till his own death in 2005.

In November of 2006, Anthony Karnowski and his wife Leslie purchased the derelict home along with most of Asbury's possessions. While sorting through the boxes, Karnowski discovered Bishop's notes and became intrigued. After studying all of the books for several months, particularly Bishop's notes from later in his life, he showed them to his associates, R.G. Hubbard II and Sean O'Connell, who shared his curiosity. Exploring Bishop's idea that the rituals could be completed successfully through sound, the three musicians have begun the process of unlocking what they call The Akashic Mysteries.