The Last Frontier: Exploring the Afterlife and Transforming Our Fear of Death

The Last Frontier: Exploring the afterlife and transforming our fear of death by Julia Assante, New World Library, Novato, CA, USA, 2012, 424 ff.The author is a mystic who presents the scientific basis and investigative history of continuing discarnate existence, together with her own intuitive experiences, to provide inspiration for the living, and especially those who are nearing the end of their mortal life or who have lost loved ones from the Earth plane. Assante shows that although `classical' science has no explanation to account for psychic events, modern (quantum) science does provide such an explanation, and this viewpoint is endorsed by Larry Dossey in his Foreword. Assante describes the scientific background in easily accessible language.Psychic events of various kinds have been experienced by a high proportion of the population, and Assante gives several examples of the kinds of phenomena experienced. The exact figure is different in different surveys, but it is certainly over half of the people in the world, especially if we include those in indigenous tribes or those who possess eastern mystical beliefs. The author talks about near-death experiences, after-death communications and alleged reincarnations where the authenticity of the reported events has been verified. There is a fascinating chapter on A Comparative History of the Afterlife, recounting beliefs from ancient Egypt and the early Abrahamic religions. It was reassuring to have Assante endorse the now-abandoned idea of the afterlife as a place of retribution for supposed `sins' committed on the Earth plane, and she explores how this notion might have originated. She also discusses the concept of time in the spiritual plane.The remainder of the book (nearly half of the text) is about Dying, Death and Beyond. It might be thought that this was a depressing subject, but the attitude adopted by the author is upbeat and positive and should provide reassurance to those who fear the end of their mortal lives. There is a twenty-page Notes section with full references of the work that Assante has called upon. There is no bibliography of further reading as such, but many of the relevant works are cited in the text and Notes section, and the book does have an Index.Howard Jones is the author of The World as Spirit

I really enjoyed most of this book and found it very well written and crafted. I particularly enjoyed the scientific explanations at the beginning with quantum physics making sense to the layman.My only reservation from giving it 5 stars is that the author recounted incidents and spoke of her mediumship, as if her every word was the literal truth and there was no other explanation for what she (and others) had experienced. Now this is not to dismiss or even criticize her interpretations in any way whatsoever, as I have huge respect for all genuine mediums. I just found her explanations at times a tad too authoritative. However the book is well worth reading and will bring comfort to many who are suffering grief loss.

Books claiming to detail or preview the afterlife (assuming there is one) have proliferated in recent years, and there is a certain homogenity about them which can make for tedium after several readings. What makes Julia Assante's contribution important is that she stradddles two normally incompatible worlds, the world of scientific academia on the one hand, and the world of psychic-mystic-gnostic insight on the other hand. She is clearly a gifted psychic intuitive, but she also has the academic training to judge all claims and experiences with a greater degree of impartiality than many other authors in this genre generaly manage to do. She goes into an extraordinary level of detail concerning the various traditions and religious claims concerning death and passing, and contrasts these with present-day experience, including her own (fairly frequent) encounters with death and encounters with those beyond the veil. The fact that her own life has clearly been marked by more than her fair share of death and tragedy means that she writes on these issues with greater authority and credibility than most others could hope to do. If even just a small percentage of what she reveals here is true and valid, then clearly what we refer to as "death" is merely illusiory, just as the ancient gnostics claimed it was. If there is one book about death and the afterlife that I would have no hesitation in recommending as a must-read, it would be this one.Rex Fleming : Arncliffe, New South Wales, Australia.

"We are alive. And we always will be", by the time you get to these words at the end of this book your understanding of them may have changed but the truth that resonates from them will be crystal clear. This book is a great read full of fascinating stuff, it is written as though having a conversation with the author and filled with compassion, humour and intelligence in equal measure. This book is literally at the forefront of thinking about what it means to be human and where consciousness may or may not reside. The bottom line is an inherently optimistic and uplifting text which I will be giving to the ones I love for Christmas, Thank You Julia, you have filled in all the gaps and now I see the full picture it really is beautiful.

Riveting reading. Well-researched, well-referenced. Offers interesting insights on personal beliefs and historical contexts. Practical, readable, believable (whilst totally out-of-this world). Excellent reading for those interested in consciousness, religion, metaphysics, physics, mediumship etc.