Ssandra - I understand what you're getting at. It's kind of a classic scenario that people come up with.
I don't know how much you've read of the thread earlier on, so I'll cover this again just in case.
From what I've experienced in the Records, life is composed of an event and a response (or a partial response that I call a reaction). There are immutable events that we ourselves place into our lifetimes to help us become awake. Those events could be anything, group or individual in nature. Those events will happen unless we choose to die before the event takes place (in which case we push them into the next life), or we become enlightened. So yes, those events are set up by us, pre-determined by us, in every lifetime.
Even if the event with Mr X was an immutable event (he set it up prior to incarnating), even if he reacted instead of responded (a partial, conflicted body-soul expression), he would still create a ripple-affect of other events to come into his life so that he could completely respond. We don't get just one chance at something and that's it - in fact, most of us are in reaction mode and tend to re-create the same circumstances over and over. If he didn't completely respond in this current life, he would attract situations in the next life (and in subsequent other lives) over and over to completely respond (i.e. either meet Mr X in that life or someone similar). From the Akashic perspective, we all do this. In fact, we tend to reincarnate with the same people over and over again anyway. But we don't change the immutable events from happening (other than what I mentioned earlier), we just choose our response, which can transform our lives in any way we want.
It's not so much about learning lessons - it's not my experience that we are here to learn lessons. We come to know ourselves more fully, to fully express ourselves, to maximize ourselves in each moment. And each of us affects each other, just like each of our lives affects every other life we have. Even if he didn't do something historical that was going to have an affect on others in the future, it's my experience that he would attract circumstances till he fully responded, or if a certain theme still wanted to be played out for collective consciousness (i.e. WWI, WWII), then someone else would fill the gap (i.e. if a person wants to abdicate being the leader or dies, then someone else takes their place).
In the Renaissance case, if he set up as an immutable event that he would be a leader, then he can be a really conflicted one, a very clear one, or anything in-between - but it will happen. If being a leader was a response to something earlier in his life and not an immutable event (i.e. he saw people being persecuted and wanted to help), then nothing is set and his response still creates his circumstances. And it's similar with mystics who have tried to talk about the future. If they are talking about an immutable event, then we can prepare and have the greatest response possible to transform our outcome. If they are talking about a mutable (changeable) event, then we can change our response so that the event might not happen or at least the outcome will be different. In any event (literally), our response is the most important thing.
Having said all that, this is just my experience. I didn't create the system, I'm here just like you and everyone else.
I'm saying all this for those people who are already or want to read the Records so that when they experience a reading for someone (including themselves) who has had their last life in what we consider to be the future, or their next life in what we consider the past, it's not confusing/overwhelming and they start negating their experience. And it can really provide clarity to a client where they thought they were just crazy or overly obsessed about a certain time/place/person in history.