I am not a man of faith.

I know that crystals are inert rocks --- their structure has less potential energy, even, than other minerals -- and that it takes a good deal of anthropocentrism to pretend they were buried in the earth pre-tweaked with properties designed to affect human beings.

I know that the real "Secret" is setting goals and working toward them. Sure, like attracts like: People who want easy money don't attract easy money, they attract other people who want easy money -- also known as con artists.

But here's something else I know: When medical science corrects for the placebo effect, it is adjusting not just for reporting errors and confirmation biases. Also being accounted for are the very real and confirmed ways that the human body can heal just by being told to.

When a patient is given a placebo, an inert sugar pill for instance, and told it will improve his condition, it often works -- in objective, measurable ways -- at least in the short term. Moreover, the bigger the pill, and the more pills he is instructed to take at a time, the better it works. Who knew sugar was so healthful?

So what about hypnosis?

"It's about the power to really heal when you take control of your own mind," said hypnotherapist Jake Shannon.

Shannon, 35, moved to Salt Lake City from Orange County, Calif., a few months ago and has a growing downtown practice. He specializes in smoking cessation but takes on many other cases, including weight loss, getting rid of bad habits and acquiring good ones.

"The only big difference between what I am doing and the placebo effect is that the placebo effect operates on a lie, and I'm just being straight with you," Shannon said. "I say we're just going to make you relax and focus, and we're going to try to talk to your unconscious mind. And when we're done, your whole life is going to have some serious changes because you're going to think differently."

In the last century, hypnosis captured the public imagination in the context of stage antics and showmanship. But James Braid, the 19th-century inventor of the term, used it to alleviate symptoms of sickness by implanting suggestions in his subjects' minds.

This phenomenon is possible without a stage or an office. Because our conscious mind isn't always engaged with its surroundings, Shannon said, in a modern world we are bombarded all the time with hypnotic suggestions -- and at least some of them get through.

"Hypnotism works primarily by bypassing the critical factor of your mind," Shannon said. "There is tons of unethical hypnosis out there: It's called advertising. Every large corporation does it. 'Drink Coke.' What is that? It's a command. And when we see 'Drink Coke,' it's on the side of the road when you're driving. You're on the road, thinking about other things. Half the time when you get where you're going, you don't even remember how you got there. Corporations understand that when you're driving, you're relaxed. You're highly focused. And it permeates your mind."

He added that being sucked into a television program can have the same effect: "You're relaxed and highly focused. You're watching your favorite show and a commercial comes on for Pizza Hut, and all of a sudden you're hungry. It's not real, but the feeling is."

Shannon said one of his goals is to teach people not just how hypnosis can be used to help them, but how to think critically and defend themselves against the subliminal suggestions that surround them.

"The only way you'll get taken advantage of is if you don't know it exists," Shannon said. "They say that you can't be hypnotized against your will. That is true. However, what they don't tell you is you can be hypnotized if you're unaware it's going on. You need to engage your will and say, 'I'm fighting this.' "

I asked Shannon what it takes to benefit from hypnosis.

"You need to be able to do three things for me," he said. "One, you need to be able to be very relaxed. Two, you need to be able to focus on my voice and what I'm saying. And three, you need to let the creative juices flow so that you can visualize things and see things."

The Hypnotism Experience:

Imagine this: On a recent Saturday morning, I am shown into hypnotherapist Jake Shannon's small downtown office suite. My mission: to find out what it's like to be hypnotized.

First we talk about direction. What would I like to improve about my life? I don't smoke; am at a healthy weight; and have a healthy self-concept (some would say too healthy). Then I recall that most of my New Year's resolutions had already fallen by the wayside or been put off. I ask to work on my motivation and general get-to-it-ism. No more procrastinating stories till the night before deadline, f'rinstance.

When asked, I take off my jacket, rest my legs on an ottoman and get comfortable. It occurs to me that I am already responding to requests. I wonder: At what point does being game and curious become responding to hypnotic suggestion? I'll soon find out there's no hard line.

Half my session is spent on relaxation and honing my mind's eye to envision what it's asked to. Already along for the ride, when told in different ways to imagine being more relaxed, I am willing to humor him. We're on the same team, right? We both want this to work.

By the time I'm told, "In a few seconds I want to you to try to open your eyes and you will find yourself unable to," I am into it enough to play along. See, when you've already made a commitment to trust, to be along for the ride, there's little difference between a command and a prediction about what your body will or will not do. My mind interprets the statement as a single action: "Strain to open your eyes but don't actually open them." I know what is expected of me. I get the strong impression I could open my eyes at any moment, but might as well keep going -- why not? -- so I follow instructions. The point, I am told later, is not that I couldn't have disobeyed, but that I felt good about obeying. Fair enough.

"Think of me as your blind Sherpa guide," Shannon tells me, and the analogy seems apt: While he is telling me where and how to proceed in my imaginary world, he can't see the territory himself unless I describe it as vividly as possible.

We walk to my envisioned safe haven: a wooded glen with a white cottage at its center. It has a mailbox; don't ask me why. (Because of "Zork," I think. See, I told you not to ask.) We turn my mental block into something concrete amid the tableau; an image to be anchored as a future trigger. Mine is a swirl of clouds on the ground; simple but vivid. Then we create a second mental totem, an image I am to associate with empowerment, with the freedom to accomplish whatever I want. Mine is a yellow Livestrong bracelet. (Cheesy, I know.) I start to see how these anchors could remain with a person and remind him, in decisive moments, of his best self, thus better steering his course.

We go on with some similar techniques. When we've finished, I tell Shannon I felt a few moments of epiphany that I would like to hold on to, like remembering bits of a dream. He tells me not to bother; that they have been programmed into my subconscious.

OK, stop imagining. Snap out of it, I say.

I'm not certain about Shannon's final reassurances. The same Consumer Reports article he cites on his Web site stopsmokingslc.com also says that, while hypnosis has been effective in treating pain and anxiety, the results are disappointing when it comes to smoking cessation and addiction control. Such results do get better with continual reinforcement -- either repeat therapy or self-hypnosis exercises the patient can practice regularly at home.

Shannon told me, "I'm not saying I know every molecule how it works, but I can tell you this: You don't necessarily need to know how electricity works to turn on the light switch." In a way, he's right. There are many pharmaceutical treatments whose exact mechanism is a mystery.

Hypnosis has elements in common with theories that are on the far side of the credibility fence. But equating it directly to the placebo effect -- without covering up its mechanism with too much window-dressing -- made it much less bitter on my skeptical palate. I'm still dubious it does all it claims, but it may help those who need a push to help themselves or change their attitudes about a particular problem. I see potential and merit in handing the brain's reins to someone else for an hour, to see if they can muck it up a little bit less than its current pilot.

Has it stuck? Put it this way: This column was written in the wee hours, the night before deadline. Old habits die hard. But I've added a new tool to my belt -- one that I haven't dismissed just yet.