ON July 1. 2008, Dr. Anona Blackwell was part of a group of medical colleagues visiting Clarence House to meet Prince Charles.

“Pleased to meet you, your Royal Highness,” said Anona upon meeting the Prince some years before he became a King.

HRH studied Anona with interest and asked, “So how did a Genitourinary physician become a spiritual healer?”

It’s a good question and one that people from all walks of life have asked themselves when confronted with the larger-than-life orthodox-trained medic who became an unapologetic mystic.

How did the Lancet-published doctor who became a leading authority in genitourinary medicine and spearheaded a research team whose work transformed clinical practice in the UK, improving the health of millions of women, become immersed in a world that traditional science often delights in scoffing at?

“Well, you could say it began when a patient of mine visited the clinic one day and I saw she was being followed by the spirit of her dead child," explained Anona, before adding, "In hindsight though I was always a bit weird and it probably began when I first met a spirit girl during childhood and wondered why no one else could see her.”

It’s easy to dismiss paranormal events as nonsensical but as in all things, it’s worth keeping an open and enquiring mind.

And it was an open and enquiring mind coupled with a strong work ethic that led Anona on her long journey into medical research fame and the more shadowy realms of the paranormal.

Growing up in Abergavenny, Anona came from humble beginnings. Her father, Wyndham Blackwell was a bus driver and her mother, Elsie Blackwell ran a fruit and veg stall in the town’s market.

She grew up in one of the ramshackle tin shacks that had once been part of a village that was temporarily constructed in the early 1900s for the men who built Grwyne Fawr Reservoir in Forest coal pit.

The now long-forgotten village was called “Tin Town” and as Anona told the Chronicle, “Like many families back then we were poor but in some ways, we were happier than people are now, and living in the country did help foster a deep connection with nature."

Growing up, Anona had a spirit friend called Christina.

“Christina was a little girl with dark air and even though you may think she was an imaginary friend I believe she was something more. I was constantly talking to her and had even got my mum to put a plate on the table next to mine, but I never asked for food to be put on it,” explained Anona.

A turning point in Anona’s life came in February, 1969, when she was a student at King Henry VIII Grammar School (KHS) and experienced what she called “my first significant paranormal event.”

“I was afraid to go to KHS one morning and I told my mother someone was going to die. I didn’t know who it was but when I got to school, I told a few friends but no one died. The following morning I was gripped by the same fear. Once again, no one died, but on the third morning I woke up with an incredible feeling of peace and calmly said to my mum, “My Latin teacher Mr Harold Sharpe has died.”

In school that day, Anona learned that Mr Sharpe had suddenly died in his sleep.

Putting the spooky experience behind her Anona began to study hard and when she was 18 moved to London to study biophysics at Kings College.

Anona told the Chronicle, “ Experiencing poverty at the coalface was what motivated me to do something with my life and made me a workaholic.”

Yet what pushed her into a life helping to care for other people was a trip to the hospital and an injection of pethidine.

Anona explained, “I had severe chronic toothache and in lieu of a 21st birthday gift, my parents paid for me to have my wisdom tooth removed privately at Newport’s St. Joseph’s Hospital. Since this ensured I would sit my final exams pain-free, I gratefully agreed.”

Awaking in abject pain, Anona was given a dose of pethidine which she explained, “lifted my consciousness from intense pain to normality.”

She added, “I can remember thinking how good it must feel to ease someone’s suffering, which made me wonder why I was planning a life of academic research when I could help people more directly. I didn’t know it then, but that planted a seed for what would come next.”

'Next' was enrolment in Westminster Medical School and a subsequent glittering medical career that all began at the old St. Stephen’s Hospital in Fulham Road.

It was at St. Stephens that an event would occur that would change Anona’s entire life - the death of her dad.

Anona recalls, “As a child I remember my dad, who suffered from heart problems, dropping me off at KHS and telling me he wasn’t feeling very well, and that if anything happened to him would I promise to look after mum when I was older.

“Of course, I said ‘yes,’ but that morning I remember staring at the flame of a Bunsen burner in Mr Michael’s chemistry class and crying my eyes out thinking my dad knew he didn’t have long to live and wondering how on earth I was supposed to look after my mum.

“Looking back I regard it as a sacred contract I made with my dad and one he reminded me of after a marathon 56 hour shift at St. Stephens after which I could barely stand.

“On returning to my room, I collapsed onto my bed. My body desperately yearned for rest. A few moments later, I saw my father enter the room and say ‘Phone your mum!’ He then disappeared into the wall. I was too exhausted to be curious about this apparent hallucination and just replied, ‘Dad, I am so tired, and Mum will be out in the field planting cabbages.’”

Minutes later, Anona received a phone call from a family friend and was told her dad had just collapsed and died whilst planting cabbages.

Anona explained, “Dad’s post-mortem visit was one of only two paranormal experiences I had whilst working at St. Stephen’s. I suspect it was because the work was so gruelling that any ephemeral spiritual vibes got completely overwhelmed by the incessant noise of earth-based activity.”

Stints at Middlesex Hospital, St Thomas’ Hospital, Mount Pleasant, and Singleton Hospital in Swansea and 25 years of research into pelvic infections resulted in two Lancet papers and a formidable reputation for Dr. Blackwell in the medical world.

Yet although she was immersed in orthodox medicine by day, she devoted her after-hours to the in-depth investigation of anomalous phenomena, energy healing, and metaphysics.

Although by her own admission, Anona has had only had about 20 significant paranormal experiences, seeing the spirits of her patient’s dead relatives, having sudden intuitive thoughts, connecting with others in unexplained ways and helping others heal using her mediumistic and intuitive skills have been enough to convince her that there is a different way of seeing and doing things in the field of medicine.

Anona told the Chronicle, “Sharing my experiences with others, particularly many in the medical profession has always been surprisingly easy, but some people don’t want to believe and often occasionally the response is, ‘You’re not taken in by all that old claptrap are you?’ To me, that’s a very negative and self-limiting view. The brain only perceives what it believes to be there, and I feel we all have the power to open our minds to new realities.”

Anona added, “Within the last century, even orthodox medicine has become aware of the body’s energy field and how the measurement of its characteristics can aid in non-invasive diagnosis. It is also well-recognised that changes in our consciousness such as stress and anxiety can directly impact our physiology and cause measurable changes in the electrical activity in the heart, gut, and brain.

“I believe modern medicine has become too mechanistic. Until we look at disease from physical, energetic, and spiritual aspects, we will continue to almost exclusively pursue costly and often toxic treatments for vibrationally established diseases rather than seek ways of detecting disease in our energy field before it manifests clinically.

“We need to adopt a new medical paradigm that recognises that many disease processes begin as energy forms, which only become evident when their vibration reaches the level of matter.

“Until this happens, medicine will continue to drown in the clutter of expensive disease management rather than proactively pursuing disease prevention.

“This is not a new concept, but we will remain trapped in the purely materialistic healthcare model until we have reliable methods for detecting, analysing, and repairing the human energy field/aura and appreciate how social prescribing may help , particularly with mental health issues .”

However, Anona is quick to point out that she is a keen advocate of modern medicine and insists, “We must always follow the Western route regarding diagnosis and therapy until the final brick wall has been reached. Only then can we look for more subtle causes of symptoms. To do otherwise would risk missed diagnoses and possibly even litigation.

“However I believe both orthodox and complementary medical practices shouldn’t be at loggerheads but combined to create a more holistic healthcare system.”

Anona explained, “Technology has made exponential strides in all aspects of medicine, resulting in changes in medical teaching and clinical practice that were unimaginable 50 years ago.

"But in the process of change, we have become increasingly dependent on technology and therapeutic algorithms in a world where one size does not fit all.

"We have lost much of the essence of "the doctor as a healer." Time constraints, inadequate training, the need to adhere strictly to guidelines, fear of litigation, etc, have severely impacted doctor-patient interactions, sometimes rendering them brief and lacking in eye contact and energetic empathy.

"The patient is becoming regarded as a complex machine with defects in certain bits that are not always considered part of the whole body, mind, and spirit interacting with their environment. Particularly regarding mental health, patients may be given quick-fix drugs simply because the doctor has no time to delve deeper into the actual cause of the problem. As a result, symptoms may merely be suppressed, and the patient dulled into a pseudo-reality."

For a deeper dive into Anona’s life and experiences of the paranormal, you can find a lot more information in her recently published, intriguingly funny, and readable book ‘From Medic to Mystic.’ Here you can read about her amusing encounter with King Charles and how she was sometimes able to communicate with patients’ dead relatives and even pets!

Anona explained, “My hope for the book which has brought me fully out of my spiritual closet, is that it will act as a metaphysical catalyst to help transform the destructive paradigm in which we live whilst also assisting doctors, other healthcare workers, and anyone who has experienced paranormal phenomena to realise that not only are they not alone, but they are not mad either.”

Anona admits in the early days she wondered if the paranormal experiences she was experiencing were really happening, “since it was at odds with my scientific training and conventional beliefs.”

Anona added, “Only when other people confirmed some of my esoteric observations did I accept that there is so much more to life than materialists would have us believe.

“I have since learned that several of my medical and healthcare worker colleagues have had paranormal experiences that eclipse my own but are reluctant to disclose them for fear of public disdain.

“I can also empathise with their stance since I have held back from sharing some of my more incredulous events for similar reasons.

“At first I felt very lonely living and working among ‘normal’ people who had never seen the spirit of a dead person or animal or sensed the love that often comes when the veil is crossed. It was perhaps challenging for me considering my background in orthodox medicine and I had to play poacher and gamekeeper. I only wish that I had known then what I know now.”