Now when did Mr Meneghetti do all this? Way back in 1960  (or at least that is what he claims on the page where he relates his professional and scientific experience)... when he was just  23, even before he earned the first of his many proud titles (the first proven title was his ordinary degree in theology) and almost certainly before being ordained a priest.

A precocious fellow! Indeed, an ontogenius!

What a pity... prof. Canestrini, now a teacher at the Gregorian University, at the time was not active in any university, or at the Rome Fatebenefratelli Hospital. Indeed, he first opened a psychiatric study only in 1964.

We decided to take a closer look at the titles and honours which Meneghetti and his followers boast of everywhere.

This chapter may appear to a bit boring, but it may help others to take an equally careful look at the supposed scientific activities of the ontopsychological association.

Of course it would be very hard to contact every university, hospital and individual mentioned on the pages of the ontopsychology site; however what we did check is enough for us to feel reasonably safe in calling this "science" a sand castle. We hope other people will join in checking out the claims personally.

So let us start out with the titles of the founder of Ontopsychology, Mr Tonino Meneghetti.

The Library replied to our request for information as follows:
�The records of attendance at the school show that he was a Franciscan friar at the time (1962). Mr Meneghetti attended the Library Management course and passed the end-of-course exam - the written exam with 24 points out of 30, the oral one with 23 out of 30. However, he did not obtain the Library Management diploma since he never took the final diploma exam�.

The university replied:
�I confirm that Antonio Meneghetti achieved a doctor's degree in Sacred Theology in 1969, with a thesis on "the Christian Anthropology of Felice Balbo"�.

Odd - the Cultural Award website tells us that the Award was only established in 1985!
This is exclusively an award in money in order to fund authors, publishers, bookshops, and so on, as well as unpublished works.

The academy answered in two completely different ways, and the differences are well worth considering. A first fax (with a readable signature) said this:
�... we actually had an awardee among the officers of our Academy, but we lost touch over a year ago. Mr Tonino Meneghetti, whom you mention, could be merely a person who happens to have the same name, as our Academy Records show: these are published every two years and they do mention a painter called Antonio Meneghetti�.

After a further request for information sent to the Academy, after having pointed out Tonino's claims on the Ontopsychology website, the following email (where it is impossible of course to check the signature) was received:
�... Mr Meneghetti actually is a member of the Academic Senate of the AIAM Academy since he himself has shown on his website the reason why he received the award: "Tireless researcher of unceasingly new issues. An artist who must be registered among the most prestigious personalities of our times"...�

Odd again - the official site of the Academy does not mention any such painter in the list of its members, let alone in that of its teachers!
Frankly, this second message looks more like the infiltration of an ontopsychologized individual!

See our web page titled "An Academy for Extraterrestrials".

The Ontopsychology site provides contradictory information about how this degree was acquired: on the one hand, it says that Mr Meneghetti received it in Rome from a teacher of "the II University of Naples" (actually the University Frederic II and not II University!), on behalf of the Pro Deo Uniersity of New York; elsewhere, the same site claims that he received the degree from the International University of Albany.

We found no trace of this University in Internet. It is quite strange for a university not to have a website of its own. Another odd fact is that this University has very close relations with countries of the former Soviet Union, where salaries are often too low for a family to live on, even for people with positions of prestige like university teachers or scientists.

A friend wrote to us about his experience with the precarious situation of teachers in Russia and Rumania - some were ready to sell false honorary university degrees for five hundred US dollars, together with a curriculum of studies, approved by the Ministry of Culture.
The same account said that some teachers used the mysterious Pro Deo University of New York as a sort of retailer for titles bought from other private universities or from underdeveloped countries.

However we have no way of telling whether this claim is true or not, so we would never dream of saying that this could be an explanation for Mr Meneghetti's honorary degree!

We simply wait for further information.

Did he become an Academician one year before this Academy was set up? A look through the web brought up the following information on this self-styled Academy.
The website of this prestigious Intenational Academy of Culture and Art (see art of making stringed instruments) shows how this Academy organized just one course on making stringed instruments (costing about 2,000 US dollars a year) in a rented room at the Minor Seminary of Padova located at Selvazzano Dentro. We were afraid we had made a mistake, but then we remembered that some ontopsychologists live in Selvazzano Dentro (which is a tiny village).
The same web page tells us that this Academy "also operates abroad" (i.e., other Ontopsychology sites) and that "the Music department has a permanent orchestra training centre called the Veneto Youth Orchestra and the Silver Symphony Orchestra." This affords  Meneghetti the opportunity to claim to be a famous concert player, orchestra director and director of lyric operas.

Proceeding with the list of Meneghetti's titles, we came up against a long and detailed list of Ontoart shows and conferences. We looked into this too, and came up with some official answers.

�Until the late 1980's, the Museum used to rent out its halls for events of various kinds .... in other words, Mr Meneghetti may have exhibited his works "in" the Museum without our being aware of the fact or able to control it; what we do rule out is that he did so "with" the Museum�.

�Mr Tonino Meneghetti never exhibited any of his works at Palazzo Ducale. There is no way to rent the halls for such events�.

The other shows in Italy always took place in rooms which were rented for the event - something anybody can do, without necessarily paying out large amounts of money. So, apart from what seem to be mere inventions by Mr Meneghetti, no major exhibitor of art works ever had to do with Tonino. In order to have anybody admire his works, he had to pay (but he gets his money back from his followers who have to pay to see the shows).

Do we really have to go on? ..... As a child, Prof. Todisco was a schoolmate of Meneghetti's and as such he was invited a couple of times to speak at the offices of AIO; however he says he never had any official connection to Ontopsychology.

Prof. Ruggeri says he once called in Mr Meneghetti to speak during a conference at the university, in order to show his students the differences in interpretation of the language psychology expresses itself in, but that he never had any further relation with the AIO.
Jean Godin of the Erickson Institute in Paris is no longer director of the Institute, which however says it has no contact either with AIO or with Meneghetti.
Prof. Guido Aristarco has died, prof. Chouvier of the University of Lyon 2 says that  �...the very least that can be said is that I feel I have no interest whatsoever, either near or from afar, in this point of view  (that of ontopsychology)...�....... we could go on a lot more.

We were not able to check out every title - some of this information reached us through a long series of steps, and some was checked out by other people. But this is what we do know about Tonino's curriculum.
We repeat that each reader should check out the claims which appear on these pages, in order to get a clear picture of the situation and add further details.