The Georgiana Institute

A Message from Annabel Stehli

      I will ALWAYS be grateful for the wonderful tributes I get and will never stop giving thanks for everything that led me to sell and write “Sound of a Miracle”, and get it published as the book section of The Reader's Digest in 1990 and in hardcover by Doubleday and into the library.

      After that, it was a joy to stay on the phone with the parents of children with special needs who called me, spending my days for the following two years forming a network of "she bears" willing to do anything to get their kids' assets validated and their sensory processing systems squared away so they might be out and independent with adequate social skills and education. Because it's what they AND THEIR KIDS wanted.



      If I hadn't done that my husband, Peter Stehli, to whom we owe everything, might not have noticed that I had inadvertently developed a referral base sufficient to invite Guy Berard, MD, who had developed AIT in France, to our newly formed organization to teach in 1992 and to train professionals in the method. It helped that Peter and I were fluent in French. What a coincidence!

      Then, in spite of the validation of 27 double-blind clinical trials, the FDA shut down AIT in 1993. It destroyed our livelihood (all new treatments being routinely blocked by the status quo, known as “The Semmelweiss Reflex”). I fund-raised to keep us going, giving talks and interviews on radio and tv and in print world-wide, selling books, 1500 gigs in all, to hope to keep us and the practitioners we had trained going since the FDA would no longer allow them to make claims.

      As an author, rather than a professional, I could claim freedom of speech and make all the claims I wanted for them, which I did with enormous pleasure and gratitude to those who invited me, which tangentially resulted in AIT getting through the FDA in 1998. Oh my stars. The joy.

      After that our Georgiana Organization Inc. became a 501 (c)(3) non profit, which it still is, and AIT is legitimized and becoming increasingly known and implemented universally.

      I am so fulfilled by all this that there are NO MORE WORDS. That a little book made a difference, my dream come true, and led to getting AIT established. No more words unless I finally get the sequel to “Sound of a Miracle” into print. It is long, involved and characteristically personal as well as highlighting the science of AIT but it needs some redactions and tweaking.

      Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my grandchildren (incredible blessings), and living near family in Asheville NC, occasionally jumping out of airplanes, walking every day and going to the gym and the games of my athletic grandchildren as well as hanging out with them and their parents. Since I was born in 1939, I thank God, family, friends, and my AIT network for an extremely rewarding life.

      My info is on my website and the Georgiana Institute, in its permanent home at 90 Murdock Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801, is open. I'm happy to consult and make appointments via text and contributions tax deductible but not required.

Annabel Stehli
(rhymes ironically with Bailey, the name of my star pioneering AIT Practitioner and closest friend, Susan Bailey, SLP, in South Carolina, see the Practitioners’ List on [this] website for her information).
May 21, 2025