Psychologist James Hillman borrows from Plato and others and posits that we are each accompanied by a mystical, nonhuman being which accompanies us throughout our lives and through a series of whispers, nudges, accidents, silent exhortations, and mysterious excitements, directs us towards our purpose.

Jungian psychoanalyst James Hillman posits that we are each accompanied by what he variously calls our “acorn,” “daimon,” or “angel”—that mystical being who both protects us and insists on driving us toward our soul’s calling.

On holiday in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, a middle-aged woman wakes up to find that an invisible wall has descended all around her.