While navigating her marital issues and struggles within the Royal Family, Princess Diana often sought comfort and guidance from spiritual advisors and healers like Stephen Twigg, a holistic health practitioner she worked with from 1988 to 1995. In his book Dianaworld: An Obsession, author Edward White wrote that Twigg—who was also a massage therapist—"quickly deduced that there was much more going on with the princess than a few troublesome knots in the neck."
In December 1988, Twigg had his first consultation with Diana, "who told him that her sore muscles made her feel 'so down.'" The princess added that she hated "to disappoint people by not being on top of my game." But the holistic practitioner—who went on to author Diana: Her Transformation and The Kensington Way—said that when he started massaging her body, "turmoil and confusion" began to emanate from Diana's stomach.
"I suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of sadness sweep over me," Twigg said, describing "the release of her facial muscles" as allowing "a tidal wave of emotion to surge out" of her body.
Princess Diana and Prince Charles are seen during a 1987 appearance.
The holistic practitioner thought Princess Diana's aches were tied to "emotional issues," which he deemed were "a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder," although White notes, "it's unclear what qualified him to make that diagnosis."
At the time, Diana was intensely unhappy in her marriage, and Twigg's notes included an array of things he thought her body emitted, including, "fleeting sensations of fear," "flashes of intense anger, bordering on rage," "excruciating self-judgement," and "extreme sadness and abject loneliness."
He went on to work with Diana for the next seven years, becoming an "influential figure in the last decade of her life," per White. Twigg opened the door to Diana's interest in spiritual healing and the supernatural, introducing her "to a range of New Age philosophies."
Princess Diana relied on New Age healers in the late '80s and early '90s.
"Over the years, Diana went through a revolving door supply of astrologers, faith healers, numerologists, tarot card readers, clairvoyants, psychics, and 'spiritual advisors,'" Christopher Andersen, author of The King, told Fox News.
She turned to everything from crystals to aromatherapy in her quest to improve her mental and physical health, and even used an "energy healer" to come into Kensington Palace and cast out "negative energies from each room," per White.
Although one can argue that Diana was taken advantage of by New Age "healers" eager to make a buck off a lonely and vulnerable woman, White noted that Diana's "search for spiritual healing knotted itself to her mission to heal others, the core of her understanding of the purpose of monarchy."
