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I'm Donald Robertson, the author of The Discovery of Hypnosis, a new edition of Braid's writings, and the only place where most of his works are published. I previously added some references to Braid's writings, published in the complete edition which someone has now anonymously removed. They've added a comment to their revisions which states: "Setting up better references that are not conected with the promotion of a commercial organization, plus other corrections and amendments." I assume what they mean is that the complete edition of Braid's writings is published by the National Council for Hypnotherapy. To set the record straight, unlike most publishing houses, this is actually a *non-profit* organisation. I therefore think it's a bit unreasonable to systematically purge any references to a book just because it's published by them.
The person who made these edits also introduced some errors into the article. For example, the article I published in IJCEH was not translated by Hilary Norris-Evans, she simply advised on minor amendments to my own translation. I'm not sure about the claim that this article was a loose translation of a German article, as far as I'm aware, it was translated into French from the English original; it's prefaced by an introduction in French by Braid himself addressed to the French Academy of Sciences and so the French translation seems to predate Preyer's German version, contrary to the comments added to the article. --HypnoSynthesis (talk) 07:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reason for changes
The changes that were made were to direct readers to the sources (Braid's Neurypnology and Bramwell's Hypnotism) that were freely available on the web; and, also, sources that can have their texts searched.129.94.78.159 (talk) 04:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, my edition, The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid (2009), contains primary sources which are not available elsewhere and my historical articles in the same volume, references for which were deleted, were there to provide support for some of the facts in this Wikipedia article. The whole book was made available free of charge online, via Google books, at publication, and can be searched via the link below. --HypnoSynthesis (talk) 21:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your statement that "the whole book was made available free of charge online" is not correct; in fact it is immediately obvious, following the link that you have provided that your book is not available as what Google calls "FULL VIEW", it is only available as what Google calls "LIMITED PREVIEW — and, as a consequence, many parts of the book can not be seen (and, moreover, can not be downloaded).
Each and every one of your own-book-promoting references were changed so that they directed readers to a particular page in either Braid's Neurypnology or Bramwell's Hypnotism, two works that were not only "fully readable", but, also, "fully downloadable". Perhaps, you could consider make the entire book a "FULL VIEW" and "fully downloadable" on Google; otherwise, the references to Braid and Bramwell must stand.
You seem to be adopting a bit of a hostile attitude for some reason, and you're also mistaken. The whole book can be searched and read on Google, limited preview just means that there's a limit on how many pages you can view at a time, to prevent copying. As mentioned above, NCH is a NON-profit organisation whereas, I think you'll find that most publishers are profit-making commercial enterprises. I referenced content against my own complete edition of Braid's writings because it's the only version that's currently in print and because it contains material by Braid which is not in the edition of Neurypnology you're talking about. --HypnoSynthesis (talk) 21:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Added references
Hostile attitude? Over the last few days I have added a number of historically important links that allow Wiki-readers to VIEW and DOWNLOAD an extended set of universally available references made up of both journal articles and published works that are available FREE of CHARGE, with UNLIMITED ACCESS, that are pertinent to understanding Braid and his work.Lindsay658 (talk) 01:53, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Move whole of this inappropriately and misleadingly mis-named article to its correct location
(2) As a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh continuously from 1815 until his death, he was always a surgeon;
(3) His entry in the first UK Medical Register (p.35) lists his qualification for registration (as at 1 January 1859) as “Lic. R. Coll. Surg. Edin. 1815” and no other medical qualification;
(4) He always referred to himself as either Mr. James Braid, surgeon, of (say) Manchester or James Braid, Esq., surgeon, of (say) Manchester;
(5) Unlike his son, James Braid, M.D. — who represented himself as a “general practitioner" on each of his census return —, on each and every document (including his census returns) upon which James Braid stated his occupation he stated “surgeon” (N.B. Never “physician and surgeon” and never “general practitioner”);
(6) He was never a “physician” in either the sense that his practise centred on the delivery of physic, or medicinal compounds, or in the sense of being a specialist in “internal medicine” — he was always a surgeon;
(7) Given the re-definition of the term “physician” in Canada and The USA (see Physician#North_America) in such a general way that it refers to anyone holding a medical degree, the inappropriate bestowal upon Braid of such a categorization, places Braid, prochronistically into a category that did not exist in Braid's lifetime; and
(8) his entire enterprise in relation to his experimentation and investigations into hypnotism can only be understood in terms of the structured thinking of a surgeon — although, of course, in 1815, the surgeons at Edinburgh, the best surgeons in the world, in that age where there were no X-Rays, no stethoscopes, no anaesthetics, no penicillin, etc. were slowly and relentlessly working to change their role from that of the surgeon-apothecary to that of the highly specialized surgeon of today.
In summary, any continuation of this outright, deliberate, non-veridical, and misleading misrepresentation of Braid’s true status will only contribute to the massive contemporary (in 2009) misunderstanding of this very important man and his valuable work.••• Lindsay658 (talk) 22:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
