The Multiple Faces of Love

This chapter highlights Love as the central theme, considering that Eros is the common source of all forms of love. As incomplete and fragile beings, human beings seek integration in the cosmic whole, which Seif names Wholophilia. Love follows the natural sign’s tendency to growth, which in clinical terms refers to a notion of fulfillment that can reach broader dimensions of life, such as the aesthetic and collective ideal to which the ego surrenders. Eros is the main basis of all love’s variations, possessing many similarities with trance that are analyzed in a first session through a Brazilian literary novel of Diadorin and Riobaldo. However, Love is also developed through two other axes, being the first to discuss how Eros can become Amour, without being pornography. This axe is illustrated through Erickson’s case study of a depressive girl who intended to suicide. The other axe is discussed around the subject of the complex relationships among Eros, Agape, and Pornography and is illustrated by the comparison between Chico Xavier and John of God, two important Brazilian spiritualistic mediums. The former was considered a kind of contemporary Saint, and the latter was condemned by many sexual crimes against women.