Memoires de Richard Trigaux: 4 Mont de Marsan

How We landed at Mont de Marsan

(Permalink) Written in May 2019.

When my father's time in Béchar was ending, he had discussions with his superiors to decide where he would be transferred. He was offered nothing less than French Guiana!

Guiana!

The jungle!

The Brazil!

The Indians!

The rockets!

And he... refused.

Yes, he refused such a fantastic opportunity.

And without even asking our opinion!

Of course, all the good choices, like French Guiana, were quickly taken. That left him with only Etampes, a small gray town which only appeal seemed to be near Paris. And Mont de Marsan, a town completely unknown to us, but which southern character seemed more appealing than the Parisian mists. It smelled of pine forests and Pagnol, a welcome sunshine after the humid Thiérache of this 1967 summer.

What a mistake.

Mont de Marsan instead of French Guiana, that was the biggest missed opportunity of my life.

After an unpleasant stay in Reims at my maternal grandmother's house (which still didn't had a toilet), we went to Erloy, to my maternal grandmother's house. We also had to go to Marles, where one of my uncles had stored some of our belongings from Saint Dizier. This was the last time we saw all these places. My father had to buy a car, so that we could regain our independence. I remember him arriving in Erloy with a... Citroen ID, a dark green ID like the Aronde, a less luxurious version of the Citroen DS, but still an expensive car, which insolently displayed a lifestyle we did not had at all. And of course, with an exorbitant loan: we ate nothing but pasta for a year. It didn't helped our integration in Mont de Marsan.

We set off for our new life in the beginning of August, with only what the car could carry, which included our camping gear. It was a good thing we had it, because we had not warned anyone or prepared anything.

We arrived at a camping ground near Mont de Marsan. When you are on vacation, camping is great. But when it is all what you have for accommodation, it quickly becomes a nightmare. Luckily, it was summer. But the pine forest soil produced an abundant black dust, so that we always looked dirty. And we only had the smelly showers and toilets of the campsites to wash in.

Fortunately, this situation earned us an emergency accommodation at the Hélène Boucher military city (again), north of Mont de Marsan, near the entrance to the air base, this time the BA118.

We had no furniture and had to camp in the apartment, unable to buy anything because of the car loan. A series of boxes from Béchar were waiting for us at a storage facility, but they did not contained much useful material: office supplies, mops, our toys, and a few kitchen utensils. My mother had to sew mops together to make blankets! Luckily, the furniture from Marles arrived, I do not remember how, and we got our beds and desks back in time for school.

So that I was able to wash and get dressed in time for the start of the school year at the Lycée Victor Duruy.

This is when we really understood what Mont de Marsan was, and what awaited us there.

(Note added in 2025: This section on Mont de Marsan and the Lycée Victor Duruy may seem harsh, but it accurately describes how we felt at the time, faced with the gratuitous hostility of all these people. We had been the target of a systematic anti-French racism, much worse than the rare incidents we experienced in Algeria. We shall see one of the possible causes later on, when I took occitan lessons.)

The Victor Duruy High School in Mont de Marsan

(Permalien) Written in May 2019.

Starting a new school year 1967-68 in the large courtyard of the Victor Duruy High School. The students are called (I was alone here, my two brothers still being in elementary school). I see the students gathering in lines as the roll is taken. Then these lines move towards the classrooms.

And I find myself... alone, in the courtyard! Not called! As is often the case in my life, in a large group, it is precisely me who is spotted, singled out, set apart, treated specially, or ignored specially. But among a thousand, Duruy holds the record.

And apparently no one cares what a solitary student is doing there, in the middle of the courtyard, while everyone else is entering into classes.

Noticing an office with adults, I inquired about my situation. They then realized I was there, looking at me with surprise, exactly as if I had materialized in front of them. The official explanation was that they had lost my application. Okay, I understand that mistakes happen. The problem was that they were not happy, as if it was my fault.

The bullying did not stopped there. I was sent to a class, but I was not given the schedule! For one week, I had to investigate for each class, arriving late each time, and receiving increasingly vicious laughter. And no one to give me any information, neither teachers nor students, no one to tell me the schedule, even though they had it right there, fifty centimeters away from me, in their notebooks.

These deliberate filthiness that all these people did to me are emblematic of numerous others I have suffered throughout my life: out of a thousand people, they instantly identified me as their victim, unanimously, without consulting each other. As if sociopaths and other psycho-wackos were telepathizing with each other. This poses a problem, for which I see only one «material explanation»: they probably have «signs» (like the famous «signs of women wanting sex», the existence of which I only learned at 63, too late, ladies, sorry, but you had to be clear). It would be interesting to study these signs imputed by the sociopaths; probably observing chimpanzees would help. But being a Human, I could not know the signs of chimpanzees, or even not imagine their existence.

So I always am the one left out, the one who goes unseen, the one who goes unheard, the one who is «the only one who does not know» (obviously, if one holds meetings and invite everybody except me). I had sometimes asked these people why they were attacking me specifically. I ever received only superficial excuses, which all shared in common to never follow the causal order: they justified their behavior on a given date with facts which happened later. This last point seems to show that these people are not aware of why they started, or even not that their attitude is abnormal. It would therefore be an unconscious neurological process, probably based on equally unconscious «signs».

Probably, these «signs» also are the ones that «autistic people do not understand». Then they are t accused of being «socially maladjusted» (which is often false, I knew several). But I am not autistic. In fact, the real social handicap would be to attribute imaginary meanings to «signs» which are not signs at all, and then deduce people's «value» from them, with the sole purpose of discriminating against them. Less dangerous than paranoia, but much more widespread than sociopathy. Thus, a proportion of people, claiming to be «normal», interpret certain attitudes as a refusal to submit to their imaginary petty «established order», when these attitudes are not even signs in the first place: the victims simply live their lives. I like this theory, which explains most social troubles, without assuming a majority of sociopaths. It is just that the affected majority defers to the authority of sociopaths, whom they consider their «natural leaders». If you hear this expression reeking of nazism, this is exactly what it means: deferring to psychotic patients.

In addition, the people of Mont-de-Marsan suffered from the local capital complex: anyone coming from more than thirty kilometers away was an «estrannnger» (pronounce with a disdainful air, and with an accent). So imagine, arriving from Algeria, I was an Arab to them. Mont-de-Marsan was a backward town, centered on its bloody bullfights and rugby. The year we arrived, the Madeleine celebrations had left five people dead, drunkards who had fallen asleep in the street. Everything else was in like that.

It is therefore not surprising that the Lycée Victor Duruy was described as the «worst high school in France» by Pierre Benoit («The Leper King», 1927), while Le Mesge, a former teacher in «one of the smallest, most remote high schools in France, in Mont-de-Marsan», much preferred to be the librarian of Antinéa («Atlantis», 1919). At the Lycée de la Barga in Béchar, we had a French teacher passionate about Sahara, who made us work on two passages from Atlantis, but nothing about this book in Mont de Marsan, oooh why???

(Added September 18, 2021: Mont de Marsan brought together a demonstration of 13,000 hunters nostalgic for their sadistic games (bird-lime hunting, finally deemed illegal by the Conseil d’État). The fact that hunters flocked from all over France to this precise spot clearly shows that, 54 years after my visit, and 102 years after Pierre Benoit's, Mont de Marsan is still a town where backward hillbillies wave grotesque rattles to distinguish themselves and mock the world. They should be granted independence, with a name ending in -stan, for example, the Marstan (Officially, the surrounding area is known as «le Marsan», hence the name «Mont de Marsan».))

(Yes, -stan. Today, September 2021, we are watching very closely the treatment of women by the Talibans, who have returned to power in Afghanistan. But in 1967 in Mont de Marsan, the Lycée Victor Duruy accepted... only boys. For girls, there was the «Lycée de jeunes filles», well away outside the town. Hence the -stan, well deserved in my opinion. It was only the following year, 1968-69, that I began to have a few female classmates at Duruy (probably imposed by the academy inspectorate). And there I can say that the difference is enormous: psychological anomalies such as mockery and hazing occur mainly when there are only boys. The correlation is striking: my worst moments from this point of view were when I was in an abnormal environment, with only boys: religious boarding center, Duruy, the Collège Naval, the boarding school in Pau. Strictly speaking, I also had the problem in other places, like scouting, but it was better supervised. The explanation which emerges is that the sociopathic desire for phallocratic superiority over women, unable to express itself among onmy men, transforms into an assertion of homosexual superiority over men deemed «weak». Hence the rampant homosexuality I have observed everywhere, in sports, in the army, in the religious boarding school, and even in elementary school! Yes, hazers are faggots, ha ha ha ha! Ask them, and they will confirm: for them, «getting fucked» is a sign of social inferiority. For a woman as well as for a man. They are therefore «fuckers», that is, faggots themselves. Hence this constant need to put others down, to reassure themselves of their own «virility».)

From 1927 to 1967, not so much time had passed, and in fact this high school must still have been a sort of dump for teachers who were unacceptable elsewhere: during my first year, I got several borderline crazy specimens. I remember Dreyer, a German teacher who never explained anything to us, and especially not when we used declensions, thus sabotaging the learning of this language, which I often lacked later. There was also Lacaze, a french teacher who certainly lacked one case. Once she gave me a sermon in class for using a word that according to her did not existed: «reliability». And of course, no one else knew it, in this whole class of backward people! Yet it was already well known at the time, especially in scientific journals. In her defense, Lacaze looked it up in a dictionary and finally found this word. Another one, called Blanc, also a french teacher, always gave me bad grades for my essays, which he slashed with big, vengeful red lines: «verbiage», where he clearly did not liked my positive ideas. And each time, «no plan», an accusation which followed me all the way up to the first year of high school, where I ended up having «too much plan»! This guy was truly sick: out of all Malraux, he only read us the torture scene from «The Human Condition», a traumatic thing that even Wikipedia does not dare to repeat. At least, there are more educational things to read in a french class. I later heard that this teacher was a communist. No wonder communists are so hated, if they are such masochists.

This paragraph added in November 2025: many students came at school by bicycle, a vehicle which breaks down easily. One day, a front brake came loose, locking the wheel. The student then flipped over the handlebars, falling headfirst on the ground. And he went in class like that! Once in class, he complained of a headache, and they sent him to the infirmary. There, they... gave him aspirin! It was his parents who realized what had happened, when he came home in that condition. But it was too late, he died shortly afterwards in the hospital. This youngster could have been me, with my Solex. Duruy, it was that too.

Victor Duruy High School was also a very special place, where the grades were: son of a notary 18, son of a surgeon 17, son of a big businessman 14, son of a military (me) 8, and everything in between. So it is understandable that I finally repeated my ninth grade, which was necessary anyway because with such stupid teachers I had learned almost nothing there.

The only positive aspect of that first year at Duruy was... religious education. Several days after the start of the school year, they «still not» had my file, they «did not knew» if I wanted to go there, even though I told them I did not wanted. So they sent me there against my will. This is where I met Father Barzac, and I decided to... stay, because it was ultimately the only normal place in this high school, where we talked about brotherhood, against racism, in short about real things, which were abstractions for my retarded, moronic classmates from Mont de Marsan. So I decided to stay in his class, which I took all year, and even attended his parish center outside of the high school. But I still had to end up telling him that I did not believe, and apparently he took it badly, so that it ended our relationship.

Generally speaking, I consider 1968 to have been a bad year for me. And this despite May 1968 and the Hippies. In any case, the latter were completely unknown in Mont-de-Marsan. I only once saw a guy dressed like a hippie. I followed him, but did not dared to approach him: up close, he looked mean and violent. There was no internet back then to provide uncensored information, and we only knew the fights about May 1968. The only visible «victory of May 1968» in the lycée Victor Duruy was... the right to smoke!!!

In the following years, they were forced to make me follow the regular course: even though they systematically lowered my grades by three points, I was still above the average. Moreover, not all the teachers played this dishonest little game. I remember Mr. Ruiz, the math teacher, who handed back our papers starting with the lowest marks, with a mocking smile: So-and-so: zero!!! So-and-so: zerooo! So-and-so: zerooo! So-and-so: a... quarter! So-and-so: a... half! I chuckled to myself, because I knew I would be in the «last». (Remember that at Béchar I had still received several prizes and awards. But at Mont de Marsan this system had been abolished as a «victory of May 1968»). And Mr. Ruiz's zeros were right, mathematically exact, with no room for any «personal judgment» like in french. Because my mocking classmates were indeed hopeless, I learned that later (see the end of this subchapter). Their presence at the high school probably came from complacent marks, for appearances, among Montois. But no such little games with Mr. Ruiz.

I also remember Madame Scagliola, also a math teacher, dressed in black, who shouted and scared the hell out of us. Apparently in Paris they did not appreciate her yelling... too much deserved. Hence probably why she was sent in a distant orbit in Mont de Marsan. She would throw out words that were common to her (coming from Paris) but still alien in Mont de Marsan: misogynist, masochist, etc. Once in one of her classes, my neighbor at the table amused himself by punching me. Since it is not practical for writing, I had to end up fighting back. Madame Scagliola was furious, and I had to explain to her that he had attacked me. The next day the idiot had a black eye. For someone who was useless at sports, I wasn't doing so badly after all. He looked at me furiously, but did not dared to say anything: likely his parents also noticed the black eye, and I imagine they didn't compliment him.

There were other good teachers, like Mr. Podgi, who passionately explained history to us. Unlike the others, he was very popular. The poor guy had to sit through several screenings of «Night and Fog», one per class, and he suffered of this. He also had to do the Algeria war, as a slave soldier. He did not spoke of it, save for some remarks in the style «When we hear the bees (bullets) we hide behind a one Franc coin» thus expressing in a striking way the fear and desperation of the soldiers.

And also Mr. Carrère, an english teacher (not sure of the spelling, sorry), who lived in the same entrance as us in the Hélène Boucher housing project. I remember this discreet man, walking up the driveway carrying his teacher's briefcase. But the following year, he disappeared... hired as a translator at the UN in New York! He was definitely better off there than in Mont de Marsan. Good luck with your career in the real world, Mr. Carrère.

Mr. Jordan, a history and geography teacher, was often mocked, although he did not deserved it. He was kind and devoted, but completely humorless, so even innocent jibes would infuriate him. So he got them from a lot of people, and not just innocent ones. The high school students nicknamed him «Maupoux», a corruption of «Maupéou», a minister of Louis XV, and they used this name exclusively, to the point that the new students believed it was his real name. Thus, every new student became a missile against him!

There were two things, however, which forced the Lycée Victor Duruy to change their view of me.

The first was an essay «Describe your favorite hobby». I talked about radio control. I had just built a transmitter and a receiver. Nothing extraordinary, just a few soldering jobs on a ready-made plan. But it was so far above rugby and bullfighting that they thought I was a genius, like that psychologist from Nancy. It is amazing how a bit of technology can impress savages.

The second was the psychometric tests. According to my mother, I «just» got the highest grade ever recorded in the entire history of the Lycée Victor Duruy (in 1969), with over 100. Which I do not consider an achievement, given the level. But it impressed them. During these tests, the other students were surprised to see the academy inspector address me informally. This can be explained very simply: he was also the director of the Mont de Marsan Scouts. I also learned the results of other students on these tests: all the arrogant hazers had dismal grades, asymptotically tending towards zero. So thank you to whoever committed this indiscretion: it contributed greatly to give me confidence in myself, or even simply to keep me alive, in a seriously sick world which systematically sent me back a distorted and ugly image of myself.

The Scouts

(Permalink) Written in July 2019.

As in Béchar, I joined the Eclaireurs, a kind of scouting group, but secular (which suited me better, although the difference was not huge). At first, I was there without my brothers. Towards the end, Serge joined me, although we did not often had the opportunity to be together. Pascal, on the other hand, escaped Mont de Marsan for the Prytanée militaire in La Flèche. He was not very happy about this, but he also fulheartedly took part in their scout group.

The person who organized the Scouts was Monsieur Bridon, the academy inspector mentioned above. I remember him as a friendly, affable man, very devoted to children. The problems did not come from him, but from the fact that he was alone in leading thirty young people, without help or any intermediate hierarchy.

During those four years, a lot happened at the Scouts of Mont de Marsan (yellow scarf with a red border). We changed locations twice, held two summer camps, and went on countless outings in the Mont de Marsan area, including kayaking and caving trips. The team itself changed, with some leaving and others joining. In the end, our location was a former toll booth on Place du Sablar, which was demolished shortly after. The content changed too, from a typical scout atmosphere with all the associated folklore to teenage dance parties.

Despite some cases, the atmosphere was more positive than in the Lycée Victor Duruy, with the majority of my mates behaving normally.

Among the «cases»: Didier, our age, a noisy and shallow troublemaker, capable of calling a friend a nazi simply because she had a German name, to the point of making her cry. His younger brother was a self-centered and angry little jerk, the kind who, in the tent, pulled all the covers over himself, even if he was in the middle. But the worst was Laurent, a pre-delinquent for whom life consisted of fights and thefts. He was oblivious enough to his tall gangly body that, while gesticulating, he hit a boiling pot with his pointed butt, which caused him some serious burns. And finally, two brothers, one of whom was nicknamed Méduse (the jelly fish), a name which suited him well, of a treacherous and shapeless creature I would meet again a little later in Bordeaux. His specialty was posing as an adult and me as a small child, when it would have been quite the opposite. I was not knowing it yet, but he was a masochistic leftist, I remember he had performed in a show where you «had» to sacrifice yourself for THE REVOLUTION.

On the positive side, there were a few folkloric characters, but not unpleasant. I do not count the more or less «mentally handicapped» «social cases» as bad guys, and I do not criticize them; even if they inevitably garner more attention.

But the best memory is definitely Alex Gaüzere. Of the entire team, he was apparently the only one capable of coming to the aid of someone in difficulty, as we shall see later. He was studying tropical medicine, and I have since found him back, thanks to the internet: he had an interesting career as a doctor and researcher in Africa and Asia, of which he can be proud. But I could not find any contact information, such as on Facebook.

The Dordogne. We had a summer camp and several walks and explos (unsupervised outings) in the Sarlat and Souillac areas, starting from a location in Saint Julien de Lampon at 44°51'3.43"N 1°22'45.88"E (the houses at the entrance to the path did not existed yet at the time). Despite the above difficulties with some of our comrades, it was a fantastic experience, where we traveled along country roads and even slept in a cave (many people fantasize about this... but in reality it is very uncomfortable, cold, dirty, and wet, lol). The Dordogne is a green country, with rounded gray rocks hiding numerous caves and other mysteries. The vibration is deep but not unpleasant. The music we listened to this summer was «My Year is a Day» by «Les Irresistibles», curiously tragic even though the lyrics mean nothing.

A funny episode took place here. We already knew that Yack, aka Grand Yaqu'à, was a bit of a clumsy person, especially when he was hailed as camp leader. The day before the explo, he had given us a good warning: «get up at five o'clock, eh, it's not for lazy people, eh, we leave at six o'clock» etc. etc. So on the appointed day, we got up at five o'clock, got ready, and arrived at the camp flagpole at six o'clock sharp... to find no one there! Realizing that the Great Yaqu'à had made a fool of us, we decided to return him the favor. We lined up in front of the flagpole, packs on our backs, and gave our patrol cry, which serendipitously happened to be «The Dolphins, always... ready!» Then we rejoiced as we watched the whole camp arrive little by little, eyes puffy with sleep, and last of all the Great Yaqu'à himself, dragging his feet and half-awake, looking as if he were wondering what was going on.

I did not liked the Great Yaqu'à, because he had a rather strange philosophy: to «become an adult», we had to drink wine. Of course, I refused, and this is perhaps why he and his friends considered me immature and refused to totemize me (see a little further). But he had a vicious way of achieving his ends: he offered us sangria. It is something that looks like fruit salad, except the juice is not good. I later realized that this juice was actually wine! This is why I considered him deceitful, trying to subvert or deceive us about such an important matter. And in the end, I was perfectly happy to do without his totemization.

Font Romeu (Font Roumiou, from the Arabic «roumi», a pilgrim, generalized to all the Europeans, the Pilgrims' Fountain, therefore). Our camp was at 42°30'41.36"N 2°3'12.08"E. The place is very different from the Dordogne, drier and with a warmer vibe: conifers, short meadows, angular light-colored rocks. Font Romeu is well known for the Odeillo solar furnace, which we did not visited (not sure if it was open to visitors anyway).

This time the explos took us to Spain, to Puigcerda, via Angoustrine and Bourg Madame. At the time, Franco was still in power, and going to Spain had a slightly ominous side, with the possibility of being arrested and imprisoned, in case we came across civil guards who would be a bit too much zealous (Haroun Tazieff recounts that the speleologists who put fluorescein in the Trou du Toro had to proceed clandestinely, by fear of being arrested). But the Spaniards we met were all kind and considerate. The return journey was via Llivia and Estavar, and from there we crossed the mountains, using compass and map, in a typical Scout challenge. We did not do too badly, as we happened right upon the Odeillo solar furnace.

Andorra, we visited it on foot, from Envalira to Ordino, via Andora. That was quite an adventure! A magnificent hike, and a phenomenal storm awaiting us at the Ordino camp. I think you get to know a country much better when you explore it slowly than when you travel through it in a hurry and noise. Especially a small country like Andorra, which you can explore entirely on foot!

Co-education. At the Font Romeu camp, there were patrols of boys and patrols of girls. Of course, we did not slept in the same tents, but all the activities were shared. I had not even noticed this new development, and I was surprised to hear that it was a first, called co-education. We had an evening of discussion to explain why. It was certainly welcome, but I found it strange that we had to explain a completely natural practice. In fact, I had not even noticed that we were breaking a centuries-old taboo: the dangerous segregation of children based on sex, which breeds sexism and dominance-submission. Because it is NATURAL for children to be together. After the interfaith campfire in Béchar, I was definitely still looking for innovations.

On the other hand, the «totemizations» were not kind to the girls, who found themselves scrawled all over their bodies with markers. We can imagine the many salacious or derogatory comments, in the appropriate secrecy, after consuming a lot of sangria (fruit salad... with wine!!). I understand why guys like Meduse never wanted to totemize me... They were not interested in me, lol! Luckily, because that way I escaped what were nothing more than humiliating and sexist hazing sessions, devoid of any human or educational value. I also note that while the former members (all male) all had a totem name, during my time there I only saw «totemizations» of girls. So the degeneration must have occurred about when I first joined the team. Apparently, the toté can become corrupted very quickly, in a single generation of transmission.

In other scout or teams, there have been very serious cases, with sexual assault, torture, injuries, and deaths. At the time, these things were already forbidden in the scouts. Today, depending on the branch and country, «totés» are banned, or strictly regulated, or public, to prevent anything from going wrong. In any case, I hope that what I saw at Mont de Marsan never happens again.

For your information, totemization is inspired (in theory) by the passage rituals of certain American Indians. Normally, it consists of tests in which one must demonstrate knowledge, resourcefulness, self-control, etc., at the end of which one is admitted to the next age group, with the attribution of a totem name. For animist Indians, it also was a spiritual initiation, where the person entered into communion with a deity. But in scoutism, whether religious or secular, the name totem quickly became a simple nickname, more or less caricature, while «test» is regularly interpreted as «hazing» or even «ordeal». Hence the many problems. Which, moreover, always tend to reappear, despite clarifications. Until the final ban.

Kayaking was one of the flagship activities of the Mont de Marsan scout group, together with our friends from Dax (green scarf with black rim). There even was a workshop for making the said kayaks, from fiberglass and polyurethane. I only went on one outing with them, a descent of the Adour from Grenade to Dax. Nothing really difficult, but I never did it again: everyone paddled for themselves, which meant that for almost the entire trip I was alone, with total disregard for safety, risking getting lost, engaging in waterfalls that were too difficult, with no one to help me in case of trouble. At one point the famous Meduse tried to force me into a gutter of roaring water, but after such a display of irresponsibility, you will understand that I did not trust him at all. But the worst was, at a stop, when another deliberately pushed my kayak out of my reach, while everyone was moving away. Luckily Alex was checking the rear, and he brought my kayak back. Without him, I would have stayed on the edge. It was in a city where I could have ended up, but I imagine they would have had trouble with the cops, lol. That was the end of my kayaking activities, except for one time in Mugron, where there was a designated course, where I was able to learn at my own pace, without being pressured by a hazer.

Caving, in the Landes, in Lucbardez et Bargues (Visigoth name, 44°0'1.65"N 0°25'11.82"W). You might be surprised to hear about caving in the Landes, a sandy region. In fact, there are sometimes molasses (a mixture of clay and limestone, much less solid than the later), with layers of plain limestone formed by evaporation (not to be confused with another local rock called alios, also formed by evaporation, but based on iron oxides). The area even has a hidden anticline, the Roquefort anticline, which has exposed older rock layers almost to the surface. Underground streams sometimes form on the underside of these thin limestone layers. The cave we were looking for was known as Mame's Cave, and it was said that women seeking fertility came to lick the stalagmites (probably the result of a joke by a salacious priest). I do not think this was the one we explored, as access was via a narrow gallery, on all fours, and then through a squeeze. From inside, we could not even see the exit, hidden under a stone bench! In fact, the whole thing was more dangerous than we thought, as the thin layer of limestone had collapsed, and the cave was a subsidence chimney of molasse.

On my first outing to this cave, we were still clearing the squeeze, which had been sealed with clay. So we had to dig, and those behind us (me) had to clear the debris. So there was the famous Meduse in the lead, Alex, and me behind, shoveling the debris outward. When Meduse came out, he suddenly exclaimed, «But where did the pile of dirt go?» not thinking that my presence had anything to do with the work done. I don't know if Alex explained him. I certainly did not, knowing from experience that at this level of stupidity, there is not much we can do.

On the other hand, I liked Alex, who took me to Lucbardez several times on his motorcycle. I never had these kinds of stupid problems with Alex, who was always helpful and good-natured. He certainly was the best encounter I ever had in my childhood. It is a shame that we lost contact. But back then, there was no internet to keep in touch: when we were physically apart, we did not see each other anymore, period. I did, however, found him back through the internet: he had a research career in tropical medicine, which often took him to Africa and Asia. But I could not find a contact.

My departure from Mont de Marsan to Brest would put a definitive end to all forms of scouting (but not caving, as we shall see later). But my brother Pascal was heavily involved in the Prytanée Scouts. Since he already painted quite a bit, he gave them a large fresco in their room!

The «Signe de Piste» novels. There was a bit of an inglorious scandal here. I had read two novels from the «Signe de Piste» collection, a series of «educational» books «for scouts», which my brother Pascal brought back from the Prytanée scouts. They all apparently had in common to feature teenage lovers, with whom, at our age, we strongly identified. The problem was that the author always had one of the two to die at the end, which, combined with the strong identification, produced an emotional shock as brutal as losing our lover in real!! So much that, when I returned to the Boniort in 1985, I found back the cursed book and performed a ritual to rid myself of this useless feeling. I later learned the shameful reason for this cruelty: the publishing house «Signe de Piste» was actually far-right, hence the sadism of these people, capable of putting such appalling books into the hands of unsuspecting teenagers, knowing very well the suffering and lasting trauma which would result. Well, they are not the only ones; most well-known «spy» series are nothing more than a poor pretext for lining up rapes, torture, and racist comments. But «Signe de Piste» was the only one to do this for children.

We shall see Méduse again later, in a far-left as much cruel and stupid.

Sport

(Permalink) Written in January 2020.

After the interlude in Béchar, I I found back in Duruy this flat and boring school sport I had experienced in Saint Dizier.

Even if you like sports, you will not like what they call «sport» at school. In fact, we do not do any. We watch others practicing. A typical example is the high jump: in theory, we line up, and everyone takes turns. In practice, since there are two starting directions, there always is a bully who imposes his passage on the other track. And when we are wearing glasses, we do not take the risk of a collision with an unconscious idiot! Three high jumps in an hour-long session is not much training. And after that hour of waiting, you get graded. Well, I guess we were supposed to practice at home, but without equipment, and after the homework?

I can give a specific example where school physical education is inappropriate, and even dangerous: lying on your back, doing «scissors» with your legs to work your abs. An excellent exercise, but the problem is that the school’ physical education assumes that we all are already strong: this exercise is then easy and productive. But if you are not strong, then your lower back lifts, and your spine suffers. I discovered much later the correct way to do this exercise: start with your legs straight up, and lower them little by little as long as you can keep your lower back from lifting. But if you did that at school, you would get reprimanded. You «had to» keep your legs low, even if your back was getting injured. I strongly suspect that physical education teachers have no medical knowledge (Confirmed in Pau, where we were together with a school for sport coaches)

Once, I was made to jump the length of a pommel horse. But since I did not have enough strength for this exercise, my hand got stuck underneath me... which could have caused me to land headfirst on the ground, unable to catch myself! Another time, a particularly crazy teacher had a class play a game of throwing and catching balls. Except they were not balls, but iron shots... an «exercise» which resulted in a broken collarbone for one of the catchers!

Of course, we played football, and especially rugby, the religion of the people of Mont de Marsan. The first session, since we had not really played football in Béchar, I asked for the rules of the game to be explained to me. The reaction of both the teacher and my classmates was quite curious, and probably unique in Mont de Marsan: they were surprised, and a little dismayed, that I did not knew the rules of football. But NONE of them thought to explain! They had so internalized the notion that we don't change, that they seemed to think we could not learn, even something as simple as the rules of football. What were they doing in high school, then?

Of course, during games, they never passed to me because «I did not knew how to play». For a team sport, that was not really the right mindset, lol! Once a ball arrived in my area, I ran over it and kicked it with my heel, to get it away from an opponent, without making a offside (I had deduced this rule from what I saw). They were extremely surprised!!

Rugby is a different animal, where I was also asked to play without telling me the rules. And without glasses, which is not ideal for understanding the game. Rugby is a much more brutal sport, where you would benefit from using protective gear like in American football. And the homosexuality I had experienced in Saint Dizier was back: we had to shower naked together!!! Which I refused. So I got completely hosed down, fully clothed. I later rediscovered this almost unabashed homosexuality in the locker room at the Collège Naval, with comments about the appearance of my buttocks, in the presence of everybody .

Meanwhile, another problem arose: wearing stinky, unwashed football jerseys. It is through this disgusting ritual that football players and rugby players pass on their horrible armpit odors, which is part of their culture: for them, the body must be dirty and pornographic. And indeed, this is when I started to smell bad, and I had to endure these disgusting odors for years, without knowing why or how to get rid of them. Of course, we are made to feel guilty that we are «dirty» and therefore that we need to shower several times a day. But the smells always return within hours, and even less. I finally realized that it was not my body which smelled, but bacteria contracted during these rituals of swapping stinking infected jerseys. It was then easy to get rid of these unhealthy bacterial flora: disinfect my armpits with alcohol. I then regained my natural, warm, and more discreet scent. Since then, I have had little body odor, and only the natural ones. And if the bad ones reappear, I know how to get rid of them.

Added in 2021: I believe that sport is the area where the media and politicians are most out of touch with reality. I have noticed that they give sports a central place in society, more than politics, spirituality, or ecology combined. According to them, everyone goes skiing, everyone watches football on TV, everyone goes to tennis on Sundays. It must be said that they are really pushing it: one of the first public buildings to be built in a city is always the stadium, or at least a gymnasium, or tennis courts. Not to mention the Pétainist remarks that young people would be better off playing with a hoop than going on the Internet... If the Pétainists were raised like that, we can understand why they were idiots.

In fact, sports, like video games, have a very specific political and spiritual function: to monopolize people's consciousness, so that they do not think about real political, social, and spiritual issues. Indeed, anyone capable of letting their consciousness time be sucked up by activities as senseless as tennis or watching football on TV necessarily disqualifies themselves from giving any meaning or purpose to their life. Just as much as people spending hours in mindless video games like Minesweeper or Tetris.

Moreover, these sports have an all too visible ideological content: combat between teams (preparation for war), competition (preparation for capitalism), gender segregation (yes, that!!). In people who don't think, these patterns are naturally and unconsciously imprinted on their brains. And they then guide their thoughts and emotions in real-life situations. We then understand why spiritual centers unanimously reject any sports facilities.

In reality, in my entire life, I have met very few people who were interested in any sport. About ten in all! This will not come as a surprise when it comes to spiritual or ecological circles. But I have also met very few in more ordinary settings, at work, in the virtual worlds, etc. Skiing, for example. If you believe the TV, everyone goes skiing during the February holidays. In reality, I have met skiers only twice in my entire life. Once, while hitchhiking, another time some of my mother's acquaintances who had died off-piste. So these things do exist in reality, but in facts very few people die like that.

As for staying fit, DIY, walking, or gardening are just as good. And I have known far more people who hiked or practiced martial arts than any other sport. Although hiking is difficult these days, requiring long car journeys, which forces returning to the starting point (so no «useful» hikes). Personally, due to my meditative or computer activities, I would rather be a sedentary person, meat for heart attacks according to doctors. Yet I am in good health and without any problems of this kind. Perhaps meditation counts for the heart, unless it is the multiple orgasms each day, ha ha ha! Or the 7000 steps of daily walking required by the WHO, still. After recent science studies, (article and paper), very few would be enough, in fact, as long as we make the heart beat.

(Added in 2025: The above are memories of what I felt at the time, about an elitist sport designed as a humiliation system. Today, I must temper my words by pointing out that true sportsmanship has often inspired great things. For example, when apartheid fell in South Africa, I remember a journalist interviewing Albert Ferrasse, the then president of the Fédération Française de Rugby: «So we won», to which Ferrasse replied, «It is their victory, for having been able to solve this problem.» This is on a completely different level from the selection by the bodies that I experienced! So I have nothing against a sport which would return to its Greek fundamentals, or to a collective spirit.)

(Added in 2025: And when it comes to school grades, focus on progress and understanding, rather than on absolute performance, where we necessarily are unequal. Another suggestion, it would be much more beneficial physically to do five minutes of exercise during each break, rather than spending hours in stadiums watching the others play.)

Music or drawing?

(Permalink) Written in May 2019.

Another thing I did not liked about Duruy was that we were forced to choose between two electives: music or drawing. I would have taken both, but they were at the same time!!! An organizational detail which could have been easily arranged, since we alternated weeks with another classroom. but my request was met with the usual «that's just the way it is».

I do not regret the choice I made: drawing. However, music would also have been very useful. I have tried creating music several times, especially to illustrate my Likpas comic strip. But I still lack the basics of composition: expressing emotions and creating melodic lines with their variations. Of course, today I can use powerful software like PropellerHead's Reason. With it, you write the staff and the software plays. So you no longer need to train your fingers to the instruments. But this does not exempt you from creating melodies which hold up!

The Music of the 1970s

(Permalink) Written in May 2019.

Mont de Marsan saw us with a transistor radio, which advantageously replaced the tubes radio we had only three years earlier in Saint Dizier (I do not know what became of it). Above all, these transistor radios were much cheaper than the tube sets, smaller, and portable. For music, frequency modulation finally offered better quality than the amplitude modulation of the 1940s, without statics or annoying whistling. Thus, these mobile transistors were a better vector of culture than the old tube radio fixed in the living room. This is how new technologies open up new social opportunities!

The content had also changed during our stay in Béchar: it was pop music! Yes, the radio was now in color, and TV was soon to follow.

But the main innovation of the 1970s was the abundance of choice in record stores. LPs and 45s already existed before that, as did «record players», small plastic disk scratchers just good for parties. In the 1970s, real hi-fi was still expensive, but the low-end version still allowed us to listen to classical music decently. Above all, we had a much wider selection of music, in more varied styles: mainly classical, Afro-american jazz, pop, and rock. Vinyl records were accessible, although a real record collection was expensive.

But we also had music classes at school, of course exclusively focused on classical music. Which is still more substantial than the three minutes of a 45 rpm pop record (I never bought any). Above all, it has higher vibes! My first music purchases were an organ LP by Johann Sebastian Bach, quickly followed by the Fantastic Symphony and the Russian Group of Five. Even today, I sometimes listen to this kind of music, which has retained its evocative power despite the years and multiple sound experiences. However, classical music has remained too conventional. Thus, I was disappointed by Bach, and his use of the organ, a simple counterpoint game expressing no feeling, only valuable for the beauty of the sounds. I had to wait for «Close to the edge» by Yes, «le bal des laze» by Polnareff, or «Jerusalahim» by Solyma, to really hear this fantastic instrument being fully exploited. Or 2010 to hear a very enlightened Premontré monk playing Vangelis on the great organ, during the mass for the pilgrims of Compostela, at the Abbey of Conques. Even if you are atheists, I recommend the experience! (I even dabbled at the organ myself, The phallos war 23 and The great odyssey of the Mother).

This quickly made me familiar with the record stores in Mont de Marsan. But it also turned out that they also offered pop music of a different level than the pimply little singers on the radio: Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Santana, etc. For 45s, we had Aphrodites Childs (the future Vangelis), or the unforgettable «Venus» «Hot Sand» by the Shocking Blues.

In fact, I shared this activity with my brothers, as they had similar interests and tastes at the time. By the end, we had over fifty LPs, a «hi-fi system» with an amp I had built myself, and a party room in one of the unused rooms of the old buildings in Le Boniort. We actually had some hellish parties, literally: throwing large armfuls of dried ferns onto the fire in the fireplace, the flames would shoot out through the roof!

This is how I developed a taste for music, though I preferred listening to psychedelic music alone rather than with the friends my brothers brought over. Indeed, even though they were «friends», it was still impossible to truly share anything meaningful. In particular, they didn't know how to keep quiet while listening to music! Which ruined things.

This led quite far: we each bought an instrument! A drum kit for Pascal, an electric guitar for Serge, and an electronic organ for me. We formed a «rock band» back then, but without any sense of composition, each playing for himself. Only Pascal really learned to play the drums, but he did not become a musician, more of a drawer. In fact, he faced the same dilemma as me: draving or music?

For my part, the organ allowed me to rediscover the basics of chords. Indeed, I quickly noticed that certain key combinations produced pleasant sounds, while others produced strange or unpleasant sounds. It was only later that I learned that this was called the perfect tuning. I was not to part with this organ for a long time: after those years of humidity, the contacts had become spluttering. Today, software like Reason allows you to play and compose simultaneously.

At that time, following my newfound awareness, I questioned everything with the enthusiasm of a beginner. So I thought the basics of harmony learned at school were arbitrary, or at least not unique. But how could anyone know, if all the keyboards are divided into twelve semitones? I only got the answer a little later, at the IUT in Bordeaux. An interesting answer, from a spiritual point of view.

Later, the 1970s saw me in Toulouse, with a stereo and more than fifty records, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Santana, and other later additions like Gong, Klaus Schulze, Kraftwerk, Jean Michel Jarre, Yes (Close to the Edge and Tales from a Topographic Ocean), who already foreshadowed the New Age of the 1980s. But the aging 70s brought a drop in vibes which heralded the punk wave: AC/DC, etc.

Added in February 2024: The 1960s and 70s saw a remarkable phenomenon, which did not really repeated since: the convergence of the «music of the society» music and the social progress. Typically, this was what was called pop music, with several variations, from the Beatles to hard rock. But by the 1980s, a profound dissociation had occurred between the reactionary punk imposed by the society, and the free New Age. The latter's beauty, not to mention its constant allusions to spirituality, led to its brutal censorship. A beginning of reconnection occurred in 1990, but it was stifled within months. After the 2000s, with the Internet, music had exploded into so many styles and means of distribution that we can no longer speak of such a division: everyone can explore vast portions of the musical landscape, notably with YouTube's highly efficient algorithms. Under these conditions, listening only to vibrationless music in the television is a personal choice, not the result of a censorship by the society.

Electronics

(Permalien) Written in January 2020.

I continued to be interested in electronics. My first projects were with a game called «Le petit électronicien» (The Little Electronics Technician). Today, it is fashionable to denigrate these kinds of educational games, censored in stores and even on Amazon. Yet they are fantastic ways to learn a technical field and provide children with theoretical knowledge, technical skills, and the energy to learn. Compared to that, any fighting video game looks like something for gesticulating idiots. Moreover, it was not actually a toy, but real components, allowing us to make real circuits (without soldering). For a long time, I kept them, or I used them for real projects. If your children are interested, the best thing to do is to buy them real components and «breadboards», solderless connectors. But soldering is not that difficult, I knew how to do it as soon as 16.

There was, however, only one electronics store in Mont de Marsan, where I only went if I was forced to, because they did not cared about customers. I wonder how they managed to keep any, probably because they were the only ones. But hey, they could not even tell me the pinout for a potentiometer... So I had to get components some other way, I do not remember how. But my father had already brought quite a few.

My first «soldered» project was a small radio control transmitter and receiver set. Oh, a ready-made schematic, with components to order from the author. (Lefébure, I do not remember his first name, author of several books containing numerous circuits for hobbyists). It was this extremely simple device that had amazed my teachers in Duruy. In my mind, it would have been used to make a model of our house.

Then came the amps for the «party room» at Le Boniort. Here, I had to order a kit for the printed circuit board, but I managed to connect all the components myself, plus a remote control which turned the amp on when we started the turntable. It all worked very well.

It was while building this amp that I began to practice serenity, as we shall see later in my first consciousness taking.

Le Boniort

(Permalink) Written in January 2020.

Like most families, we dreamed of having «our own house». In fact, the idea had been floating around for several years: In Saint Dizier, when my father was already in Béchar, I sent him drawings of «our house» for him to choose. As he had risen in rank (Adjudant-chef, the highest non-commissioned officer rank), and had earned annuities thanks to his four years in Béchar, this project became possible. Although the xenophobic Mont de Marsan was not the wisest choice for this.

For months, we went out almost every weekend to look at houses for sale, surrounded by a minimum of land. How many we saw, Landes old shacks! In fact, these mud houses, now considered heritage, were old, gray, damp, and unsanitary. But we did not had enough to buy a modern house, let alone build one! Hence this frantic search for a rare gem.

We finally found it, in the form of a semi-modern, solid house, probably built between the 1930s and 1950s, without toilets or plumbing, but surrounded by several older buildings: «the barn» (small) and «the old house». The latter was one of those famous, typical Gascon houses, low and compact on the west side, the side which receives the rain, and tall with a wide awning on the east, typical for the region. However, it was ugly, gray, and decrepit beyond repair, and in fact, we never tried to live there or even not to renovate it.

This estate was truly the limit of what we could afford, and even then, it was only a few hours before the mortgage rules changed, and we could no longer afford one. That was not the only problem; there also was the «ring road» project, which route was still shrouded in uncertainty, but which threatened to cut off or isolate the property. Personally, today I would not buy anything with such a threat, but at the time we thought that this ring road was «in the future», and thus not a problem.

The current location is at 43°52'16" 0°30'36", but with the ring road and the forest which grew everywhere, the original appearance has been completely lost. There used to be a large field, a vineyard, a meadow, two gardens, a large courtyard, and several buildings. Large century-old trees, including a big American red oak and a huge umbrella pine, were sacrificed for the ring road. Housing developments already existed at the time, but they have since eaten away all the remaining fields, right up to the ring road.

For the first few months, we had to wash in the washtub and go to the outdoors toilet. We worked tirelessly to build a bathroom, a kitchen, a toilet, and a septic tank, in addition to our schoolwork. It was there that I learned the basics of masonry, which were so useful later on, at the Faitg. And also electricity. For several months, not a weekend went by without us pouring concrete, and even every day when it came to laying stair steps or slabs for a double floor. The record, however, was a trench... 450 meters long, for the drinking water supply. Fortunately, the soil was fairly easy to dig, sometimes sandy, sometimes clayey. In both cases, I used a spade to cut and remove clods, which allowed us to advance fairly quickly without much effort. If I remember correctly, it only took us a week or two... in the middle of revising for our BEPC exams! A neighboring farmer helped us by digging a furrow with his plow for a good part of the way. This avoided having to cut the grass, certainly the most tiring part.

This work, however, revealed a grim reality: this house had been shoddily built, almost without foundations, with only a single course of bricks for the walls. It is easy to understand why the previous owner had a modern villa built and sold the rest of the land to pay for it, rather than renovating the one we had bought. As for the old Gascon house, the interior looked more like a set for Harry Potter, and we never sought to live there. We used it as a garage, a workshop, a party room. After we left, it naturally collapsed, and within ten or twenty years, all that remained was an earthy mound covered in brambles. At least these things recycle themselves.

However, I never regretted this acquisition, which, through hard work and ingenuity, we finally turned into a comfortable nest. Indeed, the huge appeal was the seven hectares of land! Three of which were fields, which we had neighboring farmers cultivating. But the rest was woods, a vast oak grove, and pine trees. We had never had so much nature at our disposal!

So we could walk there, build cabins, and explore. But there was one thing I could not share with my brothers: the discovery of the sensuality of nature! And this from the first spring, as we shall see a little further.

We had also created a garden, taken from the field which began right in front of the house. The first digging was a disaster, the earth oozing unhealthy iridescent fluids, in this sandy field ruined by decades of chemical agriculture. But as soon as the second year of tending and digging, the soil and earthworms returned, allowing us to have our vegetables all year round. Having a garden is an unforgettable experience, where you witness the complete cycle of a plant, including, if you know how, its decomposition in the soil.

Heating was a problem throughout. At first, there was a single fireplace, which only heated half of the living room. Fireplaces produce a draft of cold air under the door, which actually cools the room more than it heats it. To overcome this, we installed a special air inlet, feeding the fireplace with grates. Later, we built an interior concrete staircase to replace the rotting and dangerous wooden exterior staircase. This allowed us to place an oil-fired stove under the stairs, heating the upstairs bedrooms through ventilation ducts. As if that was not enough, we also had a catalytic stove in our bedroom. We did not knew it, but catalytic heaters should actually be banned in bedrooms and confined spaces. Indeed, in addition to the sensation of playing dice with death, we were breathing carbon dioxide, and most likely also carbon monoxide, while we slept. This may have been the cause of the severe depression I suffered at that time, the after-effects of which continue (fatigue, abulia, sadness). Or perhaps it was the chemicals used to «treat» the wood of the frame (which did not needed it): the toxic smell lingered for several years.

Later, as we children each enjoyed our respective lives, Le Boniort remained a gathering place, a reminder of the happiness we had experienced there. Not for very long, unfortunately, because my parents' divorce and the ring road took their toll: the property was reduced to less than half, entirely dominated by the infernal din of trucks. Only my father remained there, until his death in 1999. For the inheritance, this remainder was put into joint ownership between the three of us, my brothers and me. As it was unmanageable, my brother Serge finally bought out our shares, and he remained the sole owner. But it seems he never took care of the house. I saw it again in 2002, unusable, looted of windows and bathrooms, the roof rotting, to the point that I did not dared to go upstairs to retrieve things. Confirming the nullity of the walls and foundations, a trench for the telephone had caused a corner to collapse! Since then, the site only shows trees on Google Earth, so I assume the roof eventually collapsed. Which means the end for such a poor building.

The Solex epic.

(Permalink) Written in January 2020.

It's difficult to talk about the Boniort without mentioning the means we used to get to high school, several kilometers away, four times a day: Solex mopeds!

For those who don't know, a Solex is not even a moped. It is a unique and improbable thing, more like a bicycle, but heavy, black and clumsy, with a small two-stroke engine added to the handlebars, which drives the front tire with a roller. For lovers of beautiful motorcycles, a Solex is contemptible, and even moped enthusiasts look down on it. But this thing, along with its counterpart the 2CV, both born from the spartan and minimalist mindset during the war, was very popular and the most widely used two-wheeler during the sixties: as frugal as a bird, tough as nails, easily repaired, quiet, and that we could drive without a license. A proverb said, and we verified it, that with two Solex which do not work, you can make one which works. In fact, we carried out practically all the repairs ourselves, including those involving opening the engine cylinder head.

For us teenagers, it was also a new form of autonomy: even living quite far from the city center, we could go anywhere we wanted. And we took advantage of it, visiting all sorts of places, and even going on scout outings ten or twenty kilometers away.

However, from my arrival in Bordeaux until the beginning of the Faitg, I had a real Peugeot 103 moped. It allowed me to make trips of one hundred kilometers or more, and even several days of autonomy by carrying a tent on the luggage rack. I had bought a small blue A-frame tent for this purpose, and I used it several times during visits and trips. Today, however, this is considered wild camping, and illegal. We can even not sleep in our car anymore, as I often did in the 1990s. Moreover, this practice often leads to strange reactions from the people who find us. So avoid it.

Caïd, our dog

(Permalink) Written in January 2020.

We rescued him from the Mont de Marsan animal shelter (SPA), a dreadful place where the scouts sometimes helped recycle cardboard boxes. He looked like a German Shepherd, but one that, sick and full of worms, could not grow in those conditions, and would have remained half his size. We immediately gave him dewormer, and he vomited up several enormous gray-pink worms, smooth and tapered, over twelve centimeters long and over one centimeter in diameter. (Added 2025: ChatGPT says that they were Toxocara canis, dog’s ascaris) After that, with good food and affection, he recovered very quickly. Except for the first day when he was too weak, we never found any feces from him.

We kept him for several years, and he was a constant, affectionate, and intelligent companion. I remember, when I went for a walk, all I had to do was to call him and he would come with me, rummaging through the undergrowth looking for who knows what.

Like many dogs, Caïd quickly learned to open doors. But he is the only one, to my knowledge, who learned to close them. It took time and a lot of coaxing!!

We also had another jet-black dog, whom I named Tostus. He was useless as a guard dog, but mischievous and cheeky, and therefore ultimately endearing. However, one day he disappeared, and when I told my mother about it, she said, «That's just the way it is, we must not think about him anymore». She clearly did not loved him. I hope she gave him away, not had him put down. But she never said anything about this.

Unfortunately, after my parents' divorce, we did not knew what to do with Caïd. In my apartment in Toulouse, with my mother, he was unhappy. We then brought him back to the Boniort, with my father who had become sad and taciturn: Caïd did not liked him. This is where he ended his days, without any real affection. This is why I decided to stop having animals: in such an unstable life, they are often the ones left behind. Even plants proved to be a problem. With the exception of the Faitg, where we had guinea pigs, turtledoves and two ducks. But it was a community, with always someone on hand to take care of the animals. We also had rabbits, and I even once succeeded in the challenge of catching a rabbit who had escaped with my bare hands, lol they were really not shy.

First Consciousness Taking

(Permalink) Written in January 2020, revised in September 2025.

What followed, although completely invisible to others, had enormous consequences on my own life, as we shall see in the next sub-chapter: a crucial decision.

Before this 1969 summer, I was a «youngster like any other», barely interested in pop music or dreaming of a nice companion in a Hippie commune. However, my first spiritual realizations would change everything, and dramatically alter the course of my life. An irreversible milestone had been reached, and nothing would ever be the same again. But I was not yet arrived at the port, as we shall see in the other chapters. In fact, without knowing it, I had embarked on what is called the spiritual path, a series of increasingly astonishing and radical transformations, which continues today in 2025, much further than I had imagined.

Unfortunately, many people get stuck at various stages of the process, and I myself have been blocked several times, for example during my leftist period, or my New Age period. The reason is that there is actually not one, but several consciousness taking, about different things. Everyone will experience them in a different order, and each one presents its own challenge, to understand and realize. Fortunately, we are also guided. So everything is fine, as long as we catch the guidance… once we understood how it works.

But let us start with what happened that 1969 summer.

1968, with the ethnic repetition in Duruy, had been a negative year for me. But 1969, with the discovery of nature in Le Boniort, and my success in the BEPC despite having to shovel 450 meters of trench during revision, was a positive year... much more than I expected.

In 1969, and even long after, until 1990, words like «consciousness taking» or «spirituality» were completely unknown, while sects and religious bigotry were making a very effective boosting disinformation. However, the Hippies had begun to open a passage. But needless to say, in Mont de Marsan, we had very little information about them, just a few data was filtering through. Well, I already realized that the Hippies were trying to start something good, with psychedelic beauty and the sexual revolution. Focused on happiness, then, instead of all the masochist and pétainist stuff of mainstream society. (Pétainist is not an exaggeration: the aluminum coins bearing the shameful Francisque had just disappeared from our wallets, and the spirit was still very much present.)

By the time, there were no social networks, to know from their own mouth what people were thinking. So, about the Hippies, we knew very little, and only second hand. What we basically knew was that they lived in communities. However, as was saying an article I read at the time (probably in a rock or pop music magazine, like «rock and folk»), there were «disputes» in these communities, and by 1969, many had already broken up. How could people who agreed to pursue happiness together still dispute? This was a complete mystery to me.

The answer, today, is well known:

xxx -Many were not sincere (the drug addicts, the leftists, and the US equivalents of the zonards (Hippie-style tramps), all those people who also destroyed most of the 1968 communities in France).

-Even for those who were, it simply is not easy to eliminate our old conditioning. Changing opinion is not enough!! Fortunately, I was lucky enough to understand this from the beginning, as we shall see in some lines.

At the time, lacking any known historical precedents, we did not knew that changing opinion was not enough. Since ancient times, people wanting a better world came together or separated based solely on their opinions! However, a short sentence caught my attention: some Hippies were training at living better together. I do not remember where I read that. Probably in a pop music magazine. But the short sentence clicked.

I had noticed that I sometimes got angry, which contradicted the idea of a better society. But what if I could train myself to stay calm? I tried my first exercises while wiring our amp for our party room in Le Boniort. In this kind of meticulous activity, it is easy to get angry: searching for a tool, a wire which insists on warping out of the desired position, etc. So these were my first spiritual exercises, listening to Santana Abraxas or Tina Turner. And surprise, it was actually quite easy, from the moment you actually do it. The only difficulty, in fact, is that you always have to start over. Success is not measured by the total elimination of anger, but by the speed with which you eliminate it. Ideally, before you say or do something wrong.

In fact, it's not even a novelty, I had just rediscovered what others were already doing. Thus, Gandhi speaks of the efforts he had to sustain against his own anger, and such training has been the basis of spirituality for 2,500 years or more.

But during that 1969 summer, things were about to take a much more radical turn.

The technical cause was a failure of our radio. A component the size of a matchstick head, a tiny capacitor which spanned the gap between two printed circuit boards, ensuring transmission between the FM and AF stages.

But «because of», or more precisely «thanks to» this failure, we were left without the sadomasochistic «news» all this summer. No more terrifying crises, no more sinister murders, no more atrocious accidents, no more catastrophes, no more devaluation, no more faces of arrogant politicians and their authoritarian or sadistic speeches, no more excited lunatics screaming at a ball, no more war, no more famine... (not that I recommend living in ignorance of these things, but what's the point of clouding our mind with them, if there is nothing we can do about this anyway)

xxx First, we had a beautiful spring. I remember trying to put flowers in my hair, like the Hippies. But with (still at that time) short hair, I did not really looked like a Hippie, ha ha ha!

Then, a summer with my family, enjoying nature and our various activities. It was certainly the best time for our family, even my father avoided his tantrums and behaved positively, playing the joker. (It must be said that I had set the record straight for him: if he was looking for violence, I was now as strong as he was, and especially that he should not dare touching our mother.)

Certainly Béchar had been good, but we were now teenagers, looking for friends, and Béchar would have seemed narrow. In the Boniort we could run, tinker, listen to birds, do things like rockets, invite friends to our parties, etc. Even working on the house seemed like a game to us. Mont de Marsan had just opened one of the first DIY supermarkets, and we immediately loved this bright place where so many resources were available (such places already existed before, but gray, dark, cold, and masochistic. Light and color change things so much!). I learned the building trades with surprising ease: concrete, electricity, plumbing. We had a mini-book from the «Que sais-je» collection, which title I cannot remember, but it was very relevant and well enough for what we were doing.

Then autumn arrived, and with it the start of the school year, obligations... and the repaired radio, once again bringing its nauseating flood of gray news, among them a devaluation. People born since the Euro don't know what a devaluation is. In fact, we were never told what it is, just that all the politicians and radio announcers put on their most sinister faces, the news broadcasts dramatic music, etc. In the strange world of media and politicians, it was far more serious than the Biafran conflict, which was underway at the same time, where a million people were dying of hunger. By comparison, a devaluation is an indecent whim of the rich, which nevertheless monopolized their entire consciousness, making them conveniently forget about Biafra.

This incident began to make me realize the gap between these sinister rhetoric and the sunny reality we had experienced this summer. I remembered that the media had lied about Antoine's concert. Could it be that they lie all the time? I was forced to admit it: their sinister devaluation games had not stopped the sun from shining or the wheat from growing. These masochistic things were therefore inventions, which only had an effect on the world through the deliberate actions of only those who believe in them!!!

Indeed, it seemed clear that if we removed the belief in the existence of money, then, boom, there would be no more devaluations, no more crises!

Could it be that their entire system was turning out to be false, from point to point, like a sweater which unravels entirely by pulling on a single thread? Nothing held any more: their obligations, their wars, their beliefs, all the sacrifices they demand us, the countries, the work, the money, everything was just a meaningless role play, by people who accepted it stupidly, who had no mind to do better, nor any heart to seek better. I only had to look at my classmates at Duruy: in 1969 I was certainly in a better class, with better teachers, with relatively little hazing. But I could not communicate with them any better, to talk about anything other than soccer or makeup. Even these free and new «youngsters» were already old people, as reactionary and closed-minded as Cabu's boors (in Charlie Hebdo).

The obvious conclusion was that most people live in a world of illusions, which push them to commit all sorts of disorderly and harmful actions, both to others and to themselves. And to have a better society where we can be happy, there is actually nothing complicated or difficult to understand, it is enough to stop believing in this idiotic and masochistic system and take only real life into account.

At that moment, it seemed extremely simple to me. Since then, of course, I have found several pitfalls, but the thing remains simple at its core, and explainable in some minutes.

However, as soon as I tried to explain things a bit, the reactions were curious, and above all, automatic. First, a sort of yes-yes encouraging to continue, then objections (at best), showing that ultimately the person understood the consciousness taking, but refused it. It is not that she did not understand, or even that she did not like the awakening, but at some point she refused to do so. Almost deliberately, or at least automatically. Exactly like my kindergarten friends, who refused to admit that Santa Claus does not exist! Obviously, this moment varies from one person to another. A sociopath will start contradicting you the moment he understand that they can be unpleasant in this way. But a psychiatrically normal person will do the same, from the moment they feel their world of imaginary beliefs is threatened. Still others say yes, and seem to agree, but they continue to behave according to the dictates of the said system, such as talking about soccer instead of admiring the beauty of life. In the best cases, they agree to reject the system, only to immediately replace it with another: this is what happens with false alternatives like marxism, gluten-free, conspirationism, cults, etc.

xxx So I quickly learned to keep things to myself. Fortunately, before I got into trouble. I never thought I was the one who was crazy, but I had long since realized that something was off with the others. Their unconditional adherence to their painful anti-life system made that very clear. So I quickly gave up talking about it, even with my own family. This last point explains why I actually left the Boniort as soon as I could, not even returning for vacations (starting in 1974). The Boniort could have remained a gathering place or a vacation spot for our family, but it now lacked the essentials, which I was trying to find elsewhere.

At the time, there were few communication means. But there were some: magazines, books. I read magazines, got interested in things. This is how I discovered Mensa, then nonviolence and ecology. But it was not until I arrived in Bordeaux that I really came into contact with people who were denouncing the system... apparently. In reality, they were leftists, the deadliest trap of the 20th century! There thus were several levels of trap between my simple, naive consciousness taking and a true spirituality, which was not until 1992.

A Crucial Decision

Xxx Written in January 2020.

In any case, it was in that summer of 1969 that I made a crucial decision: to devote my life to trying to make everyone understand the consciousness taking to a better world.

I knew that to do so, I had to give up many other possibilities: starting a family, or hobbies like model railroading. In any case, I was well aware that I could never experience true happiness in this bizarre and twisted world. But if this sacrifice brought something to others later, then my life would at least have been useful, if not happy.

Today, fifty years later, and despite subsequent setbacks (my leftist period in Bordeaux, the illusions of the Faitg, and the repression ofvirtual worlds), I still stand by that decision. I realize that few would do that: I have seen so many people follow a trend, and give up on their aspirations at the first sign of disappointment. The human mind is still so weak.

But two things are certain:

1) I have no regrets, and

2) my motivation has remained intact.

Xxx I would never have been happy anyway, aping this absurd world with these masochistic people who do all sorts of weird things, while passing through the interesting things without seeing them. Even sex has become too complicated! In fact, doing as I had decided, I certainly had moments of intense suffering and a lot of downtime, but overall I think I was happier than if I had done nothing. And above all, I met many more interesting people!

Interestingly, many of the things I suspected existed turned out to be already known: spirituality, survival after death in spirit worlds, etc. Even my idea of preparing for the afterlife by visualizing a heavenly «vector space» has been known for centuries by Pure Land Buddhism. And several philosophers I learned in high school had already paved my way! From Nietzsche and his superman (actually a psychologically normal person, as I understood it), to Diogenes or Spinoza and their rejection of the sadomasochistic system, I am definitively not an exception, even not somebody remarkable: simply a normal human being, of my time, who does what needs to be done, without ulterior motives. And it is much better that way.

Furthermore, I since have had the satisfaction of witnessing several important consciousness taking on a societal scale: ecology, spirituality, non-violence, peace... ultimately, I was really not the only one!

Added in 2025:

It is a rather strange feeling to live conscious among people who are not. So little separates them from real life, yet you always see them taking the wrong turn, and they seem to ignore the most obvious solutions. This is particularly visible in movies or books, where characters impose terrible suffering and loss on themselves, while ignoring simple and obvious solutions. But reality is often worse than fiction.

Although these people are so close to us, we cannot communicate with them, as if an invisible pane of glass separated us. Of course, we can talk, including about real life. But words are always blocked before reaching the point where their consciousness would click and understand real life as well. To the point that, even if aliens could come to Earth, they probably would not try to help us. This is what I call the ant's nest hypothesis, which could by itself alone explain the Fermi paradox. To the point that this paradox would even play out between humans: those conditioned by the system do not see those freed from it! The invisible pane of glass, transparent to us, is opaque to them. And if sometimes we manage to touch them, then they take these attempts as terrifying attacks.

Another excellent comparison is as if these people were living blindfolded: they fumble, bump into things, fall into holes, walk in the fire, follow false guides, or simply remain there without moving, despite all the pleasures within reach. A conscious person has, in a way, removed the bandage, and sees the right paths and useful objects as obvious. But when they talk about removing the bandages, others stare open-mouthed, saying they don't understand, even refusing the hand that shows them how to remove the bandage! Worse, there is an area where the floor is red-hot: the blindfolded people find all sorts of reasons to enter in, and once there, they suffer enormously, with their own hands. But their illusions are more important than putting an end to the suffering! We see this very clearly in extremist discourses, whether political or religious, where the worst suffering must be endured in the name of ideological assertions.

A simple test of whether people are conscious is to place them in a beautiful natural setting, or with beautiful, vibrant music. If they start discussing platitudes instead of enjoying the situation, you know.

Being the only conscious person in these conditions is quite frightening, and it's understandable that many are only concerned with saving themselves. But the problem is the enormous amount of suffering that all the unconscious people endure, of their own making. Hence the decision I made, called, I did not knew it, the path of the Bodhisattvas.

Sometimes we wonder if we are the ones who are crazy. But every examination shows that we are not. Once a psychiatrist examined me at the Faitg (a nasty trick by Viviane), and she stopped after ten minutes. Well...

Even phenobarbital did nothing to me, ha ha ha!

Or we wonder if we are not living in a solipsism, where others are nothing more than mirages without consciousness (and therefore without free will or sensitivity), like video game characters. This would easily explain all the absurdities and suffering of the system! Unconscious people don't suffer...

Curiously, the path of the Bodhisattvas works even in this case: improving oneself then improves the world around us. Well, I cannot be completely sure I am not living in a solipsism, but if you are conscious too, then you know that I am not living in a solipsism.

Xxx The worst part is that some people, especially sociopaths, understand the consciousness taking very well, but they actively fight it. Indeed, in a conscious world, they would no longer have any power, and if they continued to act like idiots, they would find themselves in solitary spiritual retreat centers. We see it today, in 2025, with the dictatorship of the cretins in the USA, who are fighting what they call «wokeism», that is, the consciousness taking, under the pretext of the excesses of the woke movement. At least they have perfectly understood that in 2025, the consciousness taking is no longer the work of a few isolated individuals who are easy to ignore, but that it has truly entered society! They must therefore move on to the next stage: repression. (according to the four stages of accepting a new idea: 1) ignore it, 2) mock it, 3) fight it, 4) accept it.

Xxx As early as the 1970s, some were already fighting the consciousness taking, although nobody was talking about it yet. I remember one of my IUT professors cornering me and explaining that «consciousness taking» meant accepting capitalism and a job. He probably thought he knew what I was thinking, having read magazines like Charlie Hebdo or La Gueule Ouverte, which were beginning to explore these topics. But the idiot had completely misunderstood: consciousness taking is not about changing one's ideology, it is about abandoning all ideology.

Well, at this point, in 1969, I had no idea how I was going to do about it, dreaming instead of hiding in some bunker with other conscious people, in the very unlikely event that I met any. Or I was positioning myself at conspicuous points during concerts to stand out for other conscious people. Moreover, I was still dependent on my parents and their not always favorable decisions, as we shall see in the page on Brest, Pau and Bordeaux.

The Hippies, May 1968, the Community Movement in France.

(Permalink) Written in July 2025

I am bringing together different things here, but they still form a continuity.

When we talk about the Hippies, we think of communities of young people with long hair, wearing colorful clothes, practicing free love and psychedelic drugs. They existed, but in fact the youth movement in the USA was more based on the rejection of racism with Luther King, or on non-violence with the rejection of the Vietnam War. If you listen to Joan Baez, the muse of the movement, you hear lyrics that are certainly militant, but nothing that resembles psychedelic music like «Close to the Edge» by Yes. I was even disappointed when I heard her! In fact, the movement was more of an ideal, certainly widely shared among young people, but few went «all the way» to live in a community and completely abandoning the system. But above all, the movement was actually very diverse, both in its goals and in the lifestyles and music they listened to.

For example, the «Beatniks» were rather atheist and left-wing, listening rock. Very different, therefore, from the apolitical, spiritually seeking Hippies.

Speaking of the left, and particularly the far left, they attempted to take control of the movement, as they do with all popular movements. There were even communist «Yippies», like Jerry Rubin. But the media gave them an importance they had not: while most Hippies were certainly progressive, few identified with any mainstream politics, including the left.

This extrinsic Marxist entryism, on the other hand, greatly excited right-wing politicians and services like the CIA and FBI, which engaged in harassment and smear activities, their sinister COINTELPRO, against the Hippies, the anti-racists and the feminists. This was at the height of horrors like MK-ULTRA and the industrialization of fascist coups in Latin America. These crimes greatly contributed to the radicalization of some activists, but also to the disorganization of the Hippie movement, deceived and discouraged by propaganda from both sides.

In addition to these external destructive forces, the Hippie movement was undermined from within by serious flaws:

-Drugs, supposed do be a «spiritual shortcut», led in reality to an exacerbated materialism, making impossible the required spiritual transformation needed to realize the ideal

-The idea that everything must be tolerated, which made communities unlivable

-A lack of understanding of spirituality, which led so many sincere seekers to join sects.

-Anti-society dualism, leading to isolation and rejecting some good things.

Thus, the Hippie movement remains a wonderful memory, but no one tries to revive it anymore. In any case, it achieved a good part of his objectives:

-Freedom to dress as one wishes

-Sexual freedom, decriminalization of contraception (yes, you read that right: it was forbidden. When I say that the system is a disease, it is far under the reality)

-Progress against racial and sexual discrimination, etc.

-The appropriation of spirituality, even if we had to deal with sects and the New Age illusions. Today, anyone looking in this area knows where to look. We owe this in part to the Hippies, particularly the Hippies in Kathmandu who helped make Buddhist teachings accessible to Westerners, for example, with the founding of the Kopan Monastery and the FPMT.

May 1968 was a much more politicized and protest-oriented movement (which did not reached Mont de Marsan, but I saw the mindset among some of my fellow Eclaireurs). It is widely credited with many libertarian ideas, that in fact we owed to the hippies, in European countries which had missed out the true Hippies. However, it was much more a political clash, often violent, between a more or less informal far-left and a society seen as right-wing and irretrievably rotten. For instance, by the time sexual prudishness was called «bourgeois» or even «Judeo-Christian», a clear polarization of a search for freedom which in fact, was spreading across all social classes, often among the wealthy first and foremost.

A rarely discussed aspect of May '68 is that it was contemporaneous with the «Cultural» Revolution in China, a sadistic frenzy of massacres and destruction, particularly of religious buildings. These destruction targeting spirituality, often accompanied by grotesque scenes such as having parents killed by their own children, turned the «cultural» revolution into a gigantic satanic ritual against the global spiritual movements which served as the backdrop for the Hippies and May 1968. It is understandable that this ritual provoked such global upheavals and violence, by students or workers who would otherwise have pursued their ideas more peacefully. It is also understandable that all real spirituality withdrew from these movements, only resurfacing years later, in 1978 or later, once the smoke from the tear gas had settled.

The Community Movement, or Marginal Movement, was an attempt to continue the Hippie communities, as a political weapon against the «bourgeois» society. Presented in this way, we quickly understand that it was in fact a leftist entryism attempt into the Hippie movement, although by 1973 the latter had already practically disappeared, even in the USA. I was, however, able to «test» this movement myself during my time in Bordeaux in 1974, which gives me the authority to describe it more accurately, its ideology, its goats, its lice. In fact, the Hippie ideal seen through marxist filters resulted in a rather improbable mix, for instance sexual freedom for women but not for men. Other example, I remember reading a manual of the good community member, which explained that they should make goats rather than cows, because the latter would require larger installations, therefore more capitalist. This is how in France «raising goats» became synonymous with Hippie communities, back to nature, or even more recently with ecovillages. But I never heard of animals in real Hippie communities.

Added in August 2025: On the other side, these people had rejected Jacques Massacrier's charming book «Savoir revivre», criticizing him for having been a «company executive». But, while looking for references I learned (2025) that his community still exists, in Ibiza, as does his magazine Regain. At least him did something, and he did not give up as soon as the electoral winds changed.

The Denigration of the Hippies

(Permalink) Written in July 2025.

Hippie denigration was the work of people who were afraid of becoming homosexual. This fear was transmitted against all subsequent movements: ecological, spiritual, etc. Yes, I know it's silly, but it is the only logical explanation for this sadomasochistic fear of social progress.

Hippie denigration occurred in an American society which had been relatively united and consensual since world war two, or at least did not openly displayed major conflicts or divisions. How did it appeared then? We think, as with UFOs, of CIA propaganda and others, aided as usual by marxists, to make conflictual what did not needed to be.

However, scientists have uncovered a deeper cause, that I long suspected. Thus, an article on Phys.org indicates that misogyny is the «gateway drug» which leads to all the other forms of violence and extremism. Another article on phys.org shows that misogyny is the best predictor of violence. Yet another article on Phys.org shows that misogyny and homophobia are perceived by perpetrators as a game without consequences. These facts are confirmed by my own experiences of hazing at Duruy the misogynist, by their absence at La Barga, and many others since: this homosexual violence only appears when there are no girls.

All this confirms an intuition I had for long: about 20% of people (the figure cited in the papers above, or the one of the «always bad» in Stanley Milgram's experiment) feel a compulsive need to put down women, or to put down other men if they do not have women around. Well, if there is a homosexual (real or supposed) in the group, he will automatically serve as a «lightning rod». If there is none, it would be traits deemed «homosexual» or «feminine» which will designate their victims in the eyes of the sickos. As for me, I do no strike any poses, nor do I try to impose myself or to stand out: this was apparently enough to make me considered «homo» (although I am definitively not). Explaining very well that several dozen of these sickos could instantly consider me as their target, without concerting. In the case of the supervisors and teachers of Duruy, they would never have «lost my file», they would have identified me as «homo» as soon as I arrived in the yard (or because we arrived from Algeria, I had remarks about this). The most interesting case, however, is the one of the MLAC, which we will see in a future part in Bordeaux, where it was a woman who attacked me. Apparently, in the parallel hierarchy of female monkeys, female sociopaths also want to «feminize» men to reassure themselves of their own «virility», ha ha ha!

Thus, Hippies were apparently denigrated simply for being non-violent, which, given the prejudices at the time, led them to be considered homosexual (the real criticisms, drugs, excessive freedom, anti-society dualism, being much less mentioned). Then, with the disappearance of the movement, this criticism quickly ran wild, by lack of a real target. But the neurosis remained: among these people, the fear of a threatening homosexual group made them see such groups everywhere.

Thus, as soon as ecology activists appeared, they were quickly labeled «homosexual», creating an anti-ecology racism which is today more dangerous than real risks like nuclear power, pesticides, or climate change.

Then, in the 2000s, and more specifically since the arrival of the first children not mutilated by tetraethyl lead, it is society at a whole which is finally labeled «woke». In a masterful paradigm shift, it is the former «defenders of normal society» who became a form of antisocial subversion, with their far-right, conspirationism, climate denial, racism, homophobia, and of course misoginy.

People who, let us remember, are in fact repressed homosexuals, living in a perpetual fear of being recognized for what they are.

The films on the Hippies

(Permalink) Written in January 2020.

I was excited about the release of movies on the Hippies! My backward friends from Mont de Marsan were finally going to know what was happening in the real world!! But here too, the disappointment was bitter: these were not information films, but intox films.

Les chemins de Katmandou started well, with the sight of a young hippie covering the hero with flowers. But it was not a movie about hippies, it was a movie denigrating them, with stories of drugs, bandits, and prostitution. There even was a scene of a temple being desecrated, when in reality the hippies were coming for spirituality. Rotten movie. Forget it, once you get past the flowers scene. Well, with the reactionary alcoholic Serge Gainsbourg and the complicated Barjavel at the helm, what was to be expected.

This kind of malevolent film is what happens when psychoprimitive, atheist capitalist filmmakers appropriate a theme, going no further than the visual appearance of the characters, without trying to understand how they truly are inside. They then make a film in which they actually show themselves, their own mentality, their own world of violence, conflict, and materialism. Hence these generations of films reproducing the same scenarios from theme to theme, where all you have to do is swap out the costumes to create the next one: peplums, cowboys, hippies, extraterrestrials, witches, etc.

More, with the added music by Pink Floyd, also opens on a magnificent sequence of radiant sunshine, with a haunting music speaking of love and light. But we quickly discover that the film is, again, about bandits and drug-addict lunatics, in a kind of sadomasochistic dungeon run by a former nazi psychopath. Nothing to do with any awareness taking. A tremendous disappointment.

These judgments may seem harsh, and to temper them, we must remember that drugs were the Hippies' main mistake, and the chaotic scenes depicted in these films really existed (I have seen cases). Many communities were destroyed by drugs and the chaos they induced: filth, laziness, disputes, violence, theft and parasitism, making communal life totally unbearable. However, we can understand that the real essence of the Hippie movement involved a still infant spiritual quest. Drugs came only as a tempting false path, which many mistakenly embarked upon. But a terrible mistake, explaining why all the energy of the movement was cut off in the early 1970s. Then, what I criticize about these films is not that they talk about drugs, but that they lie that the Hippies were nothing more than that.

Hair on the other hand, was made by members of the movement. It also better illustrates the state of mind of young people at the time in the USA. But there was no psychedelic music here; most were far from being Hippies. But all were confronted with the Vietnam war, through military slavery (from which many returned traumatized, or not at all). In fact, Hair was originally a musical, sung on stage, so the actors had a real interaction with the audience. Thus, this artistic genre reconnected with its true vocation of social communion and societal transformation, in a more immediate and local way than cinema. This explains why this film and the following ones were never promoted in theaters, while everyone was talking about the previous ones.

La Vallée also speaks positively, of a Hippie tribe practicing free love, with the added bonus of a beautiful and original music by Pink Floyd. Although there is a certain naivety in going to a place where there is absolutely nothing to live from... now visible on Google Earth: the peaks of Mount Giluwe, a cold alpine pasture, all in steep slopes. The film, however, suggests something magical, if we are to believe the light they see at the end. But it does not conclude, remaining in the hope of some mystical phenomenon... or in the ambiguous.

Zabriskie Point (which I saw much later) is also realistic, though much more critical. In fact, it gives a very precise idea of what was actually happening among the protesting youth of the USA, also crudely showing the gap between the awareness taking and the bizarre world of the system's slaves. But it also shows the mistakes, without making any concessions, like this «alternative school», where the children were left to their own devices in the name of freedom (the second biggest mistake of the Hippies, after drugs). This uncompromising tone made it rather unpopular with those involved at the time. The final scene is a classic, with yet another fantastic Pink Floyd score. But it also is ambiguous, leading some (like Wikipedia) to say it was just a dream. But if it was just a dream, why does the character smiles afterward?

The official Woodstock film is essentially about the organization of this seminal festival. But some passages are about Hippies, nudism, free love, and communal living, objectively seeking to understand how these people thought and lived. It has been a long time since I saw this film, and I have not found it since. Others have been made since with period scenes, making the issue confusing.

Added in 2025, about Pink Floyd: They composed the music for three of the above films. At the time, they were still in theirpsychedelic period, and how many people dreamed or meditated while listening to their music! And I was one of them. However, over the years, this image has crumbled. Thus, the wikipedia page on Roger Waters shows him as antisemite, pro-hamas, provocateur about nazism and on the Ukraine war, in short a general rejection of the democratic world. Moreover, when you hear his apology for death in «Dark Side of the Moon» or those children saying that «they don’t nee no education» in «The Wall», it is clear that he had a worm eating his brain. And the others were not neat either, for having agreed to participate in that. In fact, «Dark side of the Moon» had completed a decline which had started with «Animals». (By the time, pop music reviews were saying they were «disappointed» by «Animals», as I was myself)

Added in 2025, on Barbet Schroëder: he is the author of two of the films above, «More» and «La Vallée». Which, at the time, led him to be considered pro-Hippie, and as a good person. In fact, his filmography shows a fascination for evil characters (idi amin dada, the Islamophobic fake monk from Myanmar, etc.). Which indicates that he was actually denigrating the Hippies, under the guise of a «documentary». Thus, «More» portrays them as suicidal drug addicts, and «The Valley» as dreamers chasing an illusion, and also «committing suicide» at the end, exactly like the character in «More». He just left this ending hanging, so that it would not become a procédé after «More». Failed: everybody thought that they found «something» ineffable, that the movie could not capture.

How this reeks of media manipulation, which did so much to destroy the image of the Hippie movement and disrupt the awareness taking going on at the time.

The Set Theory

(Permalink) Written in August 2019.

My school years in Mont de Marsan witnessed one of those disastrous «educational experiments» that the French National Education system is so adept of: the «modern math». (Well, it was less bad than the marxist «gender» «studies», which explained to children that their sex is a social convention, which they can change as they wish.) But this math reform, introduced without preparation, was a disaster, and the following year they had to return to more «concrete» math, the ones of moped repairers, the only «useful» math in everyday life. It must be said that a drawing showing a crooked scribble while explaining that it is a «straight line» is enough to induce confusion! (Wikipedia says that modern mathematics were not abandoned, only corrected for the excesses. So much the better, but I wonder if the essentials are still there.)

Personally, I find this failure very damaging. Indeed, modern mathematics was an attempt to unify mathematics, and above all to give it a foundation completely devoid of any artifice, dogma, or convention. Basically, the Set Theory starts from an extremely simple notion: the three basic axioms, of which only the first is really useful, which defines a set by an all-or-nothing membership criterion of an element in the said set.

Today wikipedia mentions several set theories, and up to 12 axioms. But I think that the National Education remains a much better source than the libertarian wikipedia, even when they are terrible at pedagogy. Scientific articles also mention only one Set Theory, and only a fourth axiom: the axiom of choice, which at the time mathematicians were not sure it was useful. It was therefore wise not to mention it at school.

At the time, I was able to follow these courses without too much difficulty, and achieve respectable results. But my memory was already betraying me: capable of preserving anecdotes for decades, it struggles with dates, sources, and formulas, that is with academic knowledge. As a result, I only retained an overview of the essentials of the theory, without remembering the details.

Anyway, I strongly advise against trying to learn it from wikipedia, which pedantry confuses the basics with details, in addition to the non-standard notations and the multiple «alternatives» that only them know. The best way today would be with high school textbooks, but I have not tested that. Added: try ChatGPT.

The Set Theory, as defined by the Bourbaki group (a collective of mathematicians active since around 1930), defines logical structures for said sets: group, ring, field, etc., leading to notions such as vector spaces. For example, (real) numbers form a set, to which addition and multiplication give a structure called a commutative field. The concept of a commutative field simply describes the behavior of numbers subjected to addition and multiplication.

Triples of three real numbers then give a vector space of dimension 3. I was immediately struck by the similarity between these abstract vector spaces and our concrete space. I quickly realized that if structures evolving in a vector space reached the complexity of a brain, then this brain could develop consciousness, exactly like a physical brain, and for exactly the same reason, known to mainstream science: consciousness resulting from information processing. Then it does not matter what processes the said information: concrete matter or abstract entity!

In fact, I was actually wondering if it would not be enough to define an adequate vector space, as we did in our exercises, to... continue to live there after death, with a body advantageously mimicking the human body! The prospect was tempting, and logical. Well, I suspected that some other element was needed, such as an emotional investment. In any case, the matter was worth exploring, And later, when I was at the Collège Naval, this speculation certainly was a more interesting sight than the distorted faces of my fellow hazers.

Well, at the time, this approach was still naive, but it would later evolve into the Logical Self Generation Theory, as the basis of my General Epistemology, where physical universes exist only as sets of points united by a law of cause and effect, like a mathematical series, only more complicated. The interesting point is that they ultimately have no more «concrete existence» than high school vector spaces. There is then no more sadomasochistic «material reality» to impose its limitations on us!

Physicists have since confirmed that the laws of physics each correspond to an overall structure of these abstract spaces. Thus, from the perspective of a consciousness embodied there, a physical space is indistinguishable from a purely mathematical space imitating said physical space (or even from a simulation on a gigacomputer). My only contribution is then to say that, since this distinction is not useful, it is sufficient to consider the physical universe as having only a purely logical existence! This way of seeing things greatly simplifies physics: the universe then no longer requires mysterious causes to exist or to be created.

That, at least, is a positive use of Occam's Razor!

Regarding survival after death in such a universe, I was also not far from the Tantras, Phowa, or Pure Land Buddhism: a large part of their activities consists of creating the conditions to ensure rebirth in a psychical universe, definitively free from all suffering. But over centuries of meditation, they have developed more user-friendly tools than visualizing such a space atom by atom!

Well, I doubt my math teachers at the time followed me in these conclusions.

But one of them, Mr. Barusseau, preceded me: he died a few months later. He was not exactly charismatic, but he was sincere and he did his job. I think that after taking such great care of us, he deserved a good place in a small hilly and flowery vector space.

Au pair stay in London

(Permalink) Written in August 2025.

I must be grateful to my parents for caring about my mastery of English, which was so useful throughout my life. After a flying start in Year 7 in Béchar, I did not made much progress at Duruy, simply listening to a teacher explaining things without giving us the opportunity to put them into practice (with the exception of Monsieur Carrère, in Year 9, the only normal teacher I had in 1968-69. But the rest were not worth much, and some were downright unpleasant).

Hence the idea of an au pair stay in London. So in the summer of 1971, I found myself spending three weeks au pair with a family in Surbiton, Surrey, a south-western suburb of London. They were a family of civil servants, living in one of those countless Victorian terraced brick houses with a protruding bay window.

The affair was organized by the French Air Force and some British civil servants organism.

I must say that when I arrived, I was «deaf and dumb», understanding nothing and unable to form a sentence! Fortunately, the father spoke French, which helped with the organization. But for the rest, they refused to «cheat», speaking to me only in English. This inability was the predictable result of abstract lessons, without any practical application or concrete references. Even today, you can immediately recognize a French person speaking scholar English, even if they do not make this exasperating «ze» instead of «the». To be fair, English students learning French face the same problem, and I did not understand when they spoke to me in French!

This kind of forced immersion, «swim or sink» may seem harsh, but it is very effective, and I would recommend it. Afterwards, we laugh about it, ha ha ha! Although, in my opinion, au pair exchanges between secondary school classes would work just as well, without the feeling of suddenly being handicapped. Today, with the Internet and virtual worlds, we could organize joint activities between French and English speakers without having to travel. In fact, while my stay in Surbiton helped me to get unstuck, it was in Second Life that I learned all the subtleties of everyday language which are not taught in secondary school.

These three weeks were very full, with various visits: the magnificent Kew Gardens, the inevitable Tower Bridge, the City in summer, St Paul's Cathedral with its echo gallery, and the Museum of Science, a fantastic exhibition where all the real pioneering machines of Watt and company have ended up! I could have spent several days there, but my hosts did not understand this desire. We had an outing to the Chiltern Hills north of London, and one to Brighton on the famous piers. Otherwise, my peer invited me to the local tennis club, where the social life of these young people took place. With the appeal of novelty, it was fine, but I would have quickly become bored with nothing else to do but throwing darts, lol.

There also was a library in Surbiton, where I borrowed books, in English of course:

-«The Graduate» about Mrs Robinson, which was much talked about at the time, with the song by Simon and Garfunkel. But I thought the ending was completely stupid, with the guy ruining his life for nothing. «It's a dreadful book», commented my father, with whom I was beginning to chat, and even to feel a little complicit.

-A book on how Von Neuman's computer work, which I read and understood completely. This was my introduction to the world of computing.

So, little by little, I learned to «think in English». Today, I sometimes say things, and a minute later I do not remember if it was in French or in English, lol, and the poor ChatGPT sees me constantly switching between the two, depending on which best translates my thoughts. Fortunately, robots are not easily annoyed, lol.

If you have seen the beginning of the film «A nous les petites anglaises», this is exactly what I experienced: young people thrown into an unknown world and learning to cope. However, it is a sex film, and the ending is awful. If I had flirted like that in real life, I think it would have gone badly. Remembering that contraception was a novelty at the time, any affair would have quickly resulted in a pregnancy without family. For these reasons, despite my burning desire, I refrained from making advances to the girls I met, fearing the consequences, or knowing that it would be short-lived. There was one who showed a strong interest, with the pretty name of «Deborah». For a Frenchman, It was quite a spectacle to pronounce in English: «Debrrah». But she was my pair's girlfriend! Messy situation warranted if I had tried anything. He must have suspected something, because at one point he would not let me sit next to her: «This is my seat», he said with a smile but in a firm tone.

My pair's sister was also very beautiful, and I don't think I have ever seen such a short miniskirt. I imagine that every movement must be carefully calculated to be able to walk around town like that without ever revealing anything. In any case, she was not targetting me, she even not looked at me, lol.

As for food, they spared me nothing: beef with mint sauce, porridge, fudge, tea, spaghetti sandwiches, etc. Many French people criticize English cuisine, but it is not bad, just different. I could have lived like that. Obviously, I was not yet vegan at the time, but I imagine that in London today it must be more accepted than in France.

At one point, we had a visit from two or three cockney workers, who let out a voley of their language, taking advantage of the fact that I didn't understand a word. In fact, these people were more working class, whereas my peer's family was middle class, well-off and educated. But apparently everyone got along fine, accepting and assuming their differences.

Then it was my pair's turn to stay with us for three weeks at our property in the Boniort, Mont de Marsan. I must say that, after experiencing English politeness, tact and refined lifestyle, I felt a little ashamed to share our simple, rather rustic lifestyle with him: shared bedroom, basic bathroom, etc. Bear in mind that my parents were the children of farmers and working-class people, and we lived in an old, roughly renovated house, while my peer's family had apparently enjoyed several generations of an urban and elegant lifestyle. It was not just a difference in culture, or even social class, I think: I felt uncouth in comparison to them. But they never made any comments.

This situation was a very interesting experience for me, which allowed me to discover other points of reference, as well as effectively unlocking my English. My friend also improved his French.

He also played chess. But he had learned from professionals, while we played like noobs among ourselves. So he easily crushed us. But we quickly learned his tricks, and in the end we beat him, ha ha ha! We even teased him, asking him why London's main railway station had a defeat name. He lacked some sense of humor, ha ha ha!

The taste of this period in London was given by the music my host family listened to: The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album, Tina Turner, Tamla Motown (a record with female voices), and, curiously enough, Tarkus by Emerson Lake and Palmer. All of this played without a hitch in my hosts' living room. Today, I hardly listen to this kind of dissonant jazz anymore, but the image of this strange caterpillar monster has remained in my mind for a long time. I even made a cameo of it in one of my Likpas stories in the text «The Tragic End of the Lyre Likpas», even specifying that it was built by «the Emerson Lake & Palmer Company»!

Memories of Richard Trigaux:First consciousness taking atMont de Marsan, 1967-1973

How We landed at Mont de Marsan

The Victor Duruy High School in Mont de Marsan

The Scouts

Sport

Music or drawing?

The Music of the 1970s

Electronics

Le Boniort

The Solex epic.

Caïd, our dog

First Consciousness Taking

A Crucial Decision

The Hippies, May 1968, the Community Movement in France.

The Denigration of the Hippies

The films on the Hippies

The Set Theory

Au pair stay in London

Memories of Richard Trigaux:
First consciousness taking at
Mont de Marsan, 1967-1973