Trance, scalpel, action! - New Scientist

‘The idea of surgery without anaesthetic is the stuff of nightmares. So why are people queuing up to try it?’

“The surgeon was cutting and sewing inside me, but I could not feel any sensation at all.”

This major 4 page article in the leading popular science journal New Scientist, explores people having surgery using just hypnosis as the anaesthesia. Operations using just hypnosis as the anaesthesia were being done over 160 years ago by eminent British surgeons and physicians (such as James Braid and James Esdaile), but ether effectively killed it off as an anaesthetic.

New Scientist Vol 187 No2511 6/08/05 Pages 34-37 D. Elkan

The woman who had major surgery with no anaesthetic - Daily Mail

A full-page newspaper article about Bernadine Coady who was taught self-hypnosis and used only this to relieve herself of the pain of a surgical operation. The operation was a 40 minute (otherwise) painful operation to re-align the bones in her left foot and it involved slicing through skin, muscle, tendons and cutting bones. Mrs Coady said “I was totally aware of what was happening” and  “I’m sure it could be used for any operation, even heart surgery” (ed note, it has indeed been used for heart surgery...)

Daily Mail 29/04/99 Mathew Hickey Page 25