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Julia Assante
| Putting the psycho in Parapsychology |
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| Men who stare at goats |
| By the powers of tinfoil |
“”I don't care about delineating imagination from reality, because for me reality's a pretty slippery thing too.
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| —Julia Assante[1] |
Julia Assante is an American crank author, medium and spiritualist. Assante claims to have been a medium and psychic from 1977. She charges large amounts of money for her mediumship services and has lectured on woo topics such as remote viewing and energy healing.[2] Assante however was not originally a spiritualist crank, she received a doctorate in Archaeology and Art History of the Ancient Near East from Columbia University.[3]
Assante is the author of the book The Last Frontier: Exploring the Afterlife and Transforming Our Fear of Death (2012). The book is well known for its endorsement of quantum woo and fraudulent mediums which she claims have scientifically proven the afterlife. Assante has written that Helen Duncan and her ectoplasm "spirits" were genuine. This seriously undermines her credibility as Duncan was exposed throughout her career as a fraud. The ectoplasm of Duncan was made from a painted papier-mâché mask draped in an old sheet and in other cases from cheesecloth.
According to Assante the Irish medium Eileen Garrett channeled information from deceased persons from the R101 airship that crashed, however, the alleged R101 séances have been refuted by skeptics. She also claims reincarnation has been scientifically proven. Assante does not refer to any skeptical material in her book and ignores any evidence of fraud.
Assante is involved with past life therapy which she believes can cure many ills.[1]
The scientific community have rejected the credulous paranormal claims of Assante. She is well known as a pseudoscience promoter and her only supporters are other crank spiritualists such as Michael Prescott and Michael E. Tymn.[4]