Dr. Allan G. Hunter received his doctorate in literature from Oxford University, which led him to study the deep correspondences between mental disturbance and literary expression. He is a counselor, a therapist, and a professor of literature at Curry College in Boston, where he also teaches memoir writing for the Blue Hills Writing Institute. He is the author of several books, including Spiritual Hunger, Gratitude and Beyond, The Six Archetypes of Love, Stories We Need to Know, The Path of Synchronicity, Write Your Memoir, and Princes, Frogs & Ugly Sisters. He lives in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
SECTION 1
Major Shocks - and How They Can Wake Us Up
1 Touching Death
2 Falling in Love with the Universe as It Is
3 The Way the Mind Circles
4 Being Right Rather than Being Happy
5 Circling—and What it Costs Us
SECTION 2 Moving Towards Awareness
6 The Five Attributes
7 Why a Pentacle?
8 The Five Insights and the Archetypes
9 Examples of Circling, and the Way Out
10 Circling—Another case history
11 The Effects of 9-11
SECTION 3
The Things That Keep Us Stuck
12 Feeling Separate
13 Circling in Every Day Life
14 Circling and Classic Literature
15 You Don't Always Have to Learn the Hard Way
16 Going in a Straight Line
SECTION 4 Gratitude: The Challenge to Ego
17 So What Actually is Gratitude?
18 Being Grateful Even when it's not Easy
SECTION 5 Humility: Reducing the Ego
19 Standing Outside Oneself
20 Discontent: The Frightened Ego at Work Again
21 Staying Open: Listening to the Hints We Receive
SECTION 6 Beauty: Eclipsing the Ego
22 Reframing the Events of Your Life to Find Beauty
23 The Things We Circle Around
24 How You Can Stop Circling: Is There an Easy Way?
25 The Chemistry of Circling
SECTION 7
Innocence: The Ego Reduced Still Further
26 Projection as the Opposite of Innocence
SECTION 8
Accepting One's Place in Nature: The Ego Tamed
27 What Can We Do? How Can We Serve?
28 We Are Mixtures of Various Impulses
29 Metaphor: You Are Part of Everything
30 Moving Towards Love
31 Where You Need to Be
Endnotes
About the Author

Using near-death experiences as a springboard into an in-depth discussion of five key areas of awareness, this guide explains how to recognize and demystify these seemingly inexplicable events. Readers are shown how to properly extract the lessons of a near-death experience through reflection and cultivate five key concepts: gratitude, humility, beauty, innocence, and a sense of place in the world. By visually connecting each of these ideas together in the shape of a five-point star, the author demonstrates how these key insights are interlinked, each supporting and adding value to the others, with the open area inside representing love. Brief but eloquent, it addresses a popular and important topic without overly-sentimental or religious overtones.