I was hypnotized when I quit smoking. The nun (a nontraditional nun, no habit dress (can't come up with a pun...nun's habit...smoking habit...)) called it progressive relaxation, not hypnosis. The person who referred me called it hypnosis. But all it really did was give me a point in time to say "I stop." September 21, 1985...more than a score and four years ago.
Never saw/sought the nun again. I could have made that point...the “I stop” point... in time alone, probably, but it was helpful to have another wave the wand at a point in time. Like getting saved or baptized in the Holy Spirit. At that point, things become different. Something maybe in a man’s make-up, or maybe just mine, that makes it easier when there is a flash-of-light on the Damascus Road, or like when lightening struck Alvin York’s gun as he was on his way to kill a man…changed his life.
My conversion was quieter, but no less significant, for as I left her office that Saturday morning, I breathed a little deeper, a little easier.