Memoires de Richard Trigaux: 4 Mont de Marsan

Why Bordeaux?

(Permalink) Written in May 2020.

After my relative failure in preparatory classes for engineering school (Math Sup), and especially after my main teacher's disastrous advice to abandon my scientific aspirations, I was left with a two-years technical degree (IUT) to become an electronics technician. At the time, I had internalized this criticism and accepted the choice. I consoled myself by thinking that, having aimed high from the start (École Polytechnique!) I was ending up with something better than if I had aimed low. In fact, if I had to do it all over again, I would have simply repeated the program at the Faculty of Sciences, with already a substantial background. Nothing prevented me from doing so. Except the denigration.

The choice of Bordeaux, however, was not mine, but that of my parents, who imposed it on me. Their argument was simple: Bordeaux was «closer» than Toulouse. Actually, that was not true. The train journey was simpler from Toulouse, with direct trains via Auch at the time (since sabotaged), whereas the journey from Bordeaux involved a change at Morcenx. Such a complexity was manageable for a holiday, but it was a nightmare for a weekend, leaving very little free time… just to do my laundry? That made the washing machine run expensive… In fact, I made the trip once or twice, then gave it up because of the wasted time and the fatigue.

Once again, parents should not impose such choices on their children. My newfound independence in Pau, and my ecology projects, had given me ideas: I fully intended to meet other people and start activities related to my vision of a better world. In short, I was no longer focused solely on my family.

In fact, this imposed choice had detrimental consequences. I somewhat knew Bordeaux and Toulouse, having visited them several times during my various outings with the Scouts. I had therefore developed a strong attraction to Toulouse and a distaste for Bordeaux, both of which proved justified. I already thought that the modern Toulouse was better suited to my plans than the dirty Bordeaux. I think that if I went to Toulouse, I would not have be so deeply involved in the leftist and «zonard» milieu, or at least I would not have met certain noxious people. On the other hand, I would have been in contact with ecology groups absent from Bordeaux, but already active in Toulouse at the time. An infinitely better choice.

Bordeaux, built entirely of brown stone, looks dirty, with a bad vibe. And I quickly realized that it was not just an appearance: at the time, sewage systems were still uncommon, and all the dilapidated shacks in the city center sat atop cesspools filled with an ocean of stinking matters. Then there were the public buildings of the Place des Quinconces, built with the money from the slave trade, oozing the arrogance of a right-wing bourgeoisie, who had built their own Versailles, with its contemptuous gold but without Vivaldi. And Bordeaux, finally, «by the water», the same etymology as «bordel» (brothel), evoking a whole dirty and pornographic world, which did indeed existed, and which collective egregore remained, anchored to all those cesspools. Some of the «zonard» I met even openly claimed this inglorious past as their own.

Toulouse, by comparison, was pink and green. The old bricks of Toulouse speak of poetry, of troubadours, of courtly love. The stones remember, and they don't lie. Indeed, Toulouse abounds with private mansions, built by cultured patrons, enriched by the fine dyes from the neighboring Land of Cocagne. The soul of Toulouse even has a name: Clémence Izaure. Today, Toulouse is a modern city, a center of the aerospace industry, with numerous high-level activities.

Well, of course, the two are not so clear-cut, and Toulouse also had its share of «zonards» and unsanitary old houses. But even today, if I had to choose, I would much prefer Toulouse to Bordeaux, and to most other major French cities. Even in the world, few cities attract me as much.

How I missed spirituality… and cults.

(Permalink) Written in May 2020.

This is how I found myself on the Bordeaux Talence campus, a vast lawn with the University Institute of Technology (IUT), student residences, university restaurants, and the various science faculty buildings. For my first year, 1973-74, I was hosted by a local woman in a green new housing development, and I had a brand-new moped to get around.

It did not took me long to settle into my student routine: studying, working in my room, and eating at the university restaurant.

So I avoided the dirty city center. Except that… if I wanted to do anything, I had to go «in town».

It was still difficult to eat organic food, and at the time, being vegetarian was not yet on my agenda. I was already familiar with non-violence, but sometimes it takes time to tie all the threads together. Especially when society constantly unties them. I still managed to organize myself to regularly have whole-wheat bread and some other similar ingredients, including «vegetable fat» (palm oil) as an alternative to butter. Although at the time (1974) it was rather bland, especially compared to today's refined vegetable butters (2020). It resembled shea butter, actually, and as much unappetizing. So, at the university cafeteria, I would arrive with my whole-wheat bread and dried brewer's yeast to add to the salad.

Of course, I had to go in town to find this. But I had another reason: this was where I would meet «interesting people».

The idea was that I was no longer alone in wanting a better world. «La Gueule Ouverte» (The Open Mouth), the only ecology magazine, offered many suggestions. However, I was still unaware that this magazine was heavily biased. In fact, it was closer to leftists and anarchists than to the spiritual and participatory ecology which should be the norm. Especially, the hyper-dualistic atheism of the two Cabu led to a despairing worldview, seeing hypocrites and opportunists everywhere. According to them, especially Isabelle Cabu, them alone were «pure ecologists», and anyone who tried to do anything outside their authority was either an opportunist or a hypocrite. This enormous distortion of ecology (from which the «Greens» have still not recovered today) led her to associate with leftists. And in Bordeaux, the leftists also attracted the «zonards, filthy pseudo-hippies, devoid of spirituality or morality, heirs to the old Bordeaux Cours des Miracles, living of parasitism and petty theft.

In fact, the problem was also within my own mind. I was an atheist myself, and still very intolerant when it came to religion (Especially after being forced to attend the mass at that center in Nancy). This neurosis at the time made me completely blind to the materialistic bias of the Cabu family. Yet I could have found much better options in this area, for example, a Catholic student center right next to the Talence campus. My deep, though still unconscious interest in spirituality had led me to visit this place once or twice, and I remember being welcomed much more warmly than in any of the «alternative» groups I had chosen to attend instead. One of the women even looked at me intently; she could very likely have been a much better companion than any of the misandrist, filthy, heterophobic leftists I have encountered.

Above all, there were «the Krishnas», the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), whom I saw several times set up in front of the university cafeteria, reciting their mantra and releasing a sublime incense fragrance, a fruity orange-peach sun, which spoke us of paradise and Elves before their time. I don't know how they made it, but I have never encountered any incense so luminous and pure. You could not even smell the associated smoke. This shows that our first religion is like our first love: you never really find the same thing again. In fact, I was drawn to the Krishnas; with their orange robes, they seemed like a familiar and happy memory. I was already deeply spiritual, without even knowing it! And it would have been a much better start to my life than leftism. The only thing that held me back was the apparent absurdity of endlessly repeating a mantra. Perhaps if someone had explained why to me...

Although they had never done anything wrong, the Krishnas were quickly labeled a «cult». They faced much mocking, and they had to struggle to overcome serious internal problems. But this effort and the maturity they gained eventually led to their recognition as an official religion in India. In retrospect, I am glad for them. Welcome to your paradise of orange blossoms and peaches!

I had, however, bought some incense blocks, I cannot remember from whom. When I brought it home, my father had a ridiculous reaction: he thought it was drug! This terrified him, and he went to great lengths to get rid of it...

What would have happened if I had embraced spirituality back then, instead of the leftists? We might think that choice would have been nicer, more constructive.

Actually, probably not. The first reason is that, at the time, spirituality was confused with religious belief, and very few people yet perceived the need to transform our minds. Personally, I had already understood this need, but I did not made the connection with religion or with the known forms of spirituality. Worse, very few people knew what spirituality really is, or what its purpose is. People (including me at the time) saw it all as mere opinions and beliefs, cliques and ideologies—all that useless clutter which is the exact opposite of true spirituality: useless dross to be eliminated, or even the unhealthy corpses that spirituality leaves behind when it degenerates. So, I had not made the connection between my awakening and spirituality, and even less with the religions.

But that was not the worse problem. My time in Bordeaux coincided with the outbreak of the scandal of sects which were kidnapping young people like me. My own lab partner at the IUT (University Institute of Technology) dropped out mid-year to join the moon cult, and the following year, it was my lab partner in Toulouse who was caught by «the Family»!

(Today, Wikipedia does not even mention these kidnappings, which however made a major public scandal at the time. My testimony above is therefore my duty of memory, in the face of this insidious and silent revisionism).

Needless to say, this also dampened my interest in the Krishnas, who had to stop manifesting on the campus, thrown out with the bathwater. The cults were so successful because they targeted people like me, already aware of the corruption in society, but not yet aware of the traps of false spirituality. If I had not been an atheist and allergic to religions, I would have fallen headfirst into it, like thousands of others at the same time. So it was a close call, and I was as lucky as my father in the same age, when a bomb fell three meters from him without exploding. And in terms of anti-societal duality, moon is at least as dangerous as the leftists (today they finance anti-French parties like the National Front). As for crimes, we saw how far Scientology, the Order of the Solar Temple, and the Aum Shinrikyo cult have gone. I don't know what became of the deluded moon adepts, taken to a foreign country they knew nothing about, married at random to strangers, enslaved in factories, or, for the luckiest ones, repatriated to France in appalling conditions, facing poverty, incomprehension, suspicion, perhaps even psychiatric confinement. The Aum Shinrikyo sect even benefited from police complicity when its members tried to expose its terrorist projects!

Thus, my choice of a «gentle», dilettante and non-committed leftism, while far from ideal, spared me from being kidnapped by these gangsters. I had things to understand anyway, and avoiding them would not learn me how to master them.

Today, in 2024, we are already witnessing the denial of the cults, with Sarkozy wanting to rehabilitate scientology (he quickly had to keep quiet) and the media speaking neutrally about the Moonies, one of the main supporters of the National Front. The libertarian website Wikipedia barely mentions «cult accusations», describing moonies as a «Christian church» among others, acknowledging only its links with the far right, and «forgetting» the kidnappings which caused such a scandal at the time (and which I personally witnessed. Duty of memory...).

Wikipedia thus conveniently forgets that it was these kidnappings, by moon specifically, which created the notion of cults and the awareness of their dangers. So, it is not there that we shall find information about the reintegration of its former victims in France. Including one of my former classmates, let's not forget. As for the UNADFI, they even recognize the founder as a «guru»! Of course, pseudo-Christians are not going to criticize other pseudo-Christians…

Google also supported scientology with Addsense: when I tried it, I had to remove scientology anti-psychiatry adverts. But they were coming again, despite I warned google. So that, at the third time, I removed this dangerous system from my site.

Short ethnographic lexicon of the 1970’ in France

(Permalink) Written in December 2025

Tramps or homeless people?

There is an euphemism race today in France, to call tramps «SDF» («Sans Domicile Fixe», homeless in french law). It is a grave insult to the homeless, to be assimilated to tramps, and being treated as such. This stems from the marxist fallacy that it is our social situation which determines our mentality, or from the fascist prejudice that it is our appearance which determines it. This constitutes a serious discrimination against the homeless, who are equated with tramps, and even parked with them. But as all non-ideologues know, tramps and homeless people are not at all the same thing:

A homeless person is so against his will, often due to misfortune: job loss, eviction, divorce, unrecognized disease, etc. He suffers from it, and he seizes every opportunity to get back on his feet. What a homeless person needs first and foremost is the absence of stigmatization. Then, an emergency housing with clean toilets, free from noisy, dirty or violent fauna. He has a normal capacity to integrate into society, and often a job he can resume at a moment's notice.

A tramp, on the other hand, will flee from the previous conditions, incapable of assuming a normal role in society, and often not even able to use tools as simple as a shovel.

It is the mentality which creates the state of tramp, never the other way around.

I perfectly illustrate my point, because I myself was several times about to become homeless, following several betrayals I suffered. But each time, a friend or a family member agreed to take me in, or an employer to hire me. Because, precisely, all these people knew that I was not a tramp, that I would not take advantage of being in their homes to vandalize it, or that I could assume a stable, skilled job. I never betrayed their trust.

The «beaufs»

This french-only word is about self-important men, stupid, sexist and reactionary, see fascist. The mustached, pot-bellied archetype was created by Cabu, from Charlie Hebdo. Present in everyone's minds, this archetype shaped our understanding of the world at the time: all the evil came from the beaufs. However, we know today that this is a case of dualistic simplification: Cabu caricatured just about everybody as beaufs, even Tibetan Lamas! In short, everybody who did not agree with his simplistic, leftist and materialistic personal opinions. But all you have to do is reverse these values to get self-important, stupid, sexist, materialistic and leftist men, like Cabu himself was, ha ha ha ha! Yeah, Cabu was a beauf, and his accusations were projections of himself. We shall see the conclusion of this story with the end of the GARI.

The «zonards»

This french-only expression is about fake Hippies and real tramps. In the USA, they were called fake-Hippies, freeloaders, or commune-hoppers. In the 1970’, they brutally squatted the Hippie communes, to the point of quickly undermining the movement. As the Hippies disappeared, the zonards continued until the late 1970s to squat in any alternative space, depleting resources and making life impossible for the legitimate occupants. It was very difficult to evict them. Only the shift to the 1980’s groty-punk movement put an end to this brood.

Sometimes the places where the zonards come from is called the zone (like the ghetto in english): old rotten districts with too permissive owners, see squats.

The flap crappers

This improbable contraption unique to Bordeaux, because of the cesspools. In place of the water hole and the siphon, we have a flap, which opens on an ignoble darkness. These things are always dirty, always blocked, always leaking. The image of clogged Bordeaux bogs filled with excrement is what has remained associated in my mind with Bordeaux and its zonards. In more, they are a vector of disease, especially for women. Indeed, the closing of the flap can send unnameable droplets right on the intimacy of our female companions, causing cystitis, vaginitis, and fetid odors. (Strictly speaking, «normal» toilets can also propagate diseases, if we use them without sensical basic hygiena. But they still are much better. Personally, I just lean, without touching the seat, and put paper in the bowl to avoid splashing)

To get rid of this mess, we need to install a sewer system. An astronomical cost, for old, decrepit shacks. But nobody is going to invest in buildings without sewerage! This is why these old rotten neighborhoods are still there, inhabited only by the poorest or the most antisocial people. It would be better to demolish them and rebuild, preserving the few facades of value. Or sometimes, municipalities raze entire neighborhoods to redo something clean.

The «marginaux»

They were another kind of fake Hippies, but not tramps: leftists. Thus, the marginal movement created numerous communities around 1972-73, imitating the Hippies while rejecting their spiritual and social values.

The very name of this movement has caused countless misunderstandings, since in french the word «marginal» is mainly used to refer to a tramp or a delinquent. Thus, many had their children removed by the social services. The movement itself was confused with tramps.

Leftists, see below:

The leftists.

(Permalink) Written in May 2020, revised and expanded in 2025.

In fact, I met very few of them, because they were… very few. But they were everywhere, campaigning for this, protesting against that, and above all, maniacally infiltrating every social struggle. This gave the impression that they were numerous. We were rather afraid of them, like «the hard guies»: talking to them was exhausting, and going to their demonstrations guaranteed a fight.

Pure, their ideas were quite repulsive, but at the time, for anyone who felt ill at ease in this cruel society, leftism was the only available though framework! This explains why these concepts, even diluted and attenuated, permeated the entire generation. To the point that even the enemies of social progress continue to use marxist concepts like that of social class! That was true then, and still is in 2025.

All these people were frightening and… fascinating, because they dared to say aloud what everyone else was thinking at low voice. Their monopoly on criticizing a corrupt society explained their influence, which would never have existed in a healthy society. (For instance leftists could not take foot in Bhutan, because this country have an efficient social feedback to its government, which acts well before the situations become conflictual).

Before starting, there is today in the USA a fashion to call «leftist» about everybody who is not a fascist. To be clear, 19^th Century Socialists were not leftists, and marxism did not existed by this time. The USA Democrats are not leftists. The french Parti Socialiste is not leftist. By convention, only are called «leftists» or far-left any marxist other than the Leninists (the Parti Communiste Français and the Soviet Communists Party).

Leftists in France, and generally in Europe and in America, are Trotskyists, a dissident faction of the Soviet Communist Party. They present a positive image of Leon Trotsky, Lenin's minister, for having opposed the apointment of the tyrant Stalin. But they forget to mention that Trotsky also founded the Gulag and the fanatical killers of the NKVD, both responsible for unspeakable terror! Therefore, the Western-style leftism is not a game for teenagers who lacked spanking, but a really dangerous current, capable of a destructive revolution. Fortunately, they always remained far too small a minority to do harm except by muddying the waters.

Except on one point: During my leftist days, 1974 or 1975, I saw them orchestrating the infiltration of French social services through their social worker studies at the Social Sciences IUT in Bordeaux. This explains the forfeit and harassment I witnessed.

There also were spontaneists, or «spontex» (from a brand of sponges), who, unlike the Leninists (the soviets), believe that the masses can make a revolution without needing a party to guide them. They are less visible than the former, having no formal organization. But they are probably behind many attempts to infiltrate neutral or apolitical movements, for example, the ecology movement. If you see people pretending to be «ecologists» and left-wing, but who are not non-violent, they are spontex. («Les Verts», «The Greens», are the result of an infiltration by the Parti Socialiste, as I witnedssed in 1978.)

Anarchists are often perceived as sympathetic defenders of freedom. My own experience will clarify this, in the next chapter.

Maoists are, in a way, «far-right leftists». They are few in number in Europe, but they are the main instigators of trouble in Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, and others.

In 2025, the Black Blocs (called like this in french) are violent individuals claiming to belong to one or another far-left or anarchist movement, but whose sole aim is brawling in demonstrations. Everybody suspects that they would be in fact controlled by the government or by the media, and I have seen a disturbing example.

Today, the Trotskyists of Lutte Ouvrière (LO, «Workers' Struggle») and the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA, New Anticapitalist Party, formerly the «Ligue Communiste» and before the «Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire») seem far more benign than the infamous NKVD. But we still don't know what would happen if they gained enough power to commit crimes with impunity. Wanting to get a sense of this (August 2021), I did a quick internet search for an example. I found a page on the Lutte Ouvrière website supporting opponents of the health pass and anti-Covid measures (far-right ideas, by the way). So, there already are real deaths, long before we have a new NKVD.

And like the entire left, whether hard or limp, LO and the NPA support the hamas terrorists in their project of genocide against the Jews, using the inhabitants of Gaza as human shields and clones factory. If you still don't understand what leftists really are, your only hope is to go to Gaza and see what is really taking place there. Plan for a reincarnation, to be able to read the continuation.

Other groups at Bordeaux

(Permalink) Written in May 2020.

Thus, rejecting spirituality because of the arrogant and hypocritical religion I had experienced as a child, and also because of the sectarian influence of Cabu and Charlie Hebdo, I chose instead to engage in social activism. Not that it was a bad choice, but at the time, social activism was practically the monopoly of a hyper-dualistic far left which rejected society at a whole, taking the opposite way of all its values, even the notion of hygiene! And this in an unhealthy society which was also heavily pushing us down this path, as we shall see in some sub-chapters about papon, or the victims of the DDASS.

There were other activist stalls in the university restaurant. So it was easy to find just about anything in Bordeaux.

I mainly remember two things:

«Les Pieds Nickelés Superstars», or PNSS for short, a (very small) fanzine inspired by Louis Forton's comic strip, but purely gritty and anti-social, lacking any of the mischievousness. In fact, it was my introduction to the world of the «zonards», heirs to the ancient Bordeaux’s «Cour des Miracles», filthy and scheming, who swarmed in Bordeaux like rat-tailed maggots in a cesspool. Not knowing the difference between them and real Hippies could have gotten me into serious trouble.

Added in 2022: the Bordeaux «Cour des Miracles» still existed in 1947: the Marais de Luze, urbanized around 1960 in the Cité du Grand Parc. I could have met some former «residents». Brrr! This is also likely the origin of the many argot words I heard especially in Bordeaux. What we historically call argot was the language of tramps, and all those words were coined by repugnant people to associate a dirty vibe with parts of the human body. The kind of filthy stuff best forgotten, so that I shall not repeat any of these words.

I don't remember the name of the guy from the PNSS, but he provided a list of alternative movements in Bordeaux, about twenty of them. I tried two or three before realizing the problem: the MLF (main french feminist organization), which I never found open, and a few other tiny or inactive groups. The only ones with any real activity were the MLAC and the Free Clinic, which we shall also discuss a bit further.

A guy nicknamed «Confucius», whom we called Conf for short, because he had a reputation for being close to the Maoists. For a while, he represented an ideal for me, but naturally, he had few followers, since he held a grudge against practically everybody. He was a student’s minor celebrity, known for pestering the CROUS (the organization which manages student residences and cafeterias). Since he ran a stall at the cafeteria almost every day, he always had some people with him, but none of them stayed very long—we shall understand why a bit later.

This first year in Bordeaux allowed me to make some friends, chatting at the cafeteria. Most of them were from South America, because once you know a South American, the friendship naturally spreads to everyone else, in a world of spontaneous encounters. I don't remember how I met them, maybe simply at a table in the University cafeteria.

Xavier and Miguel, from Venezuela. They had something very sensual about them that I adored (keeping in mind that sensual does not mean sexual, and even less homosexual: nor me neither them were). This immediacy in the face of life, the «unfettered enjoyment» of May 1968, a rare ability to live in the present with all its emotional richness, was contrasting sharply with the unhealthy television withdrawal, the panicky fear of emotions displayed by almost all French people.

They told me extraordinary stories about their country, especially about their father who had lived among the Guajira Indians. He had therefore been able to gain their trust. From here probably stemmed Xavier's joyful spontaneity, whom his mother still sometimes breastfed until he was five, out of tenderness. Today, the Guajira are wary, and it is said that anyone who tries to recreate the amorous exploits of Papillon (Henri Charrière) disappears without a trace.

I keep a strong nostalgia of this happy period. But I did not heard from Xavier again after leaving Bordeaux. He was certainly my best friend before I discovered spirituality. I found back Miguel through LinkedIn; he had created an eco-conscious activist printing company in San Francisco, Autumn Press. But he didn't restart the conversation.

Tonio, on the other hand, was Peruvian, a Quechua, a pure descendant of the Incas, with brown skin and curly black hair. He was rather taciturn, but he was at all our meetings.

Roger, a mixed-race student from Guadeloupe, was also at all our evenings. He directly inspired one of the characters in Stranded on Earth. Several chapters of this book are, in fact, quite autobiographical, about that period of my life, in the university and then at the ATE.

We had some fantastic times together, many evenings spent singing and playing music. Xavier, in particular, played the quatro, this small four-stringed venezuelan guitar which often accompanies popular songs.

For example, we sang «Gracias a la vida», a beautiful celebration of life and love, by Violeta Parra. Angel Parra was another one of those celebrities.

Of course, when we listen to this on YouTube today, it sounds cold and abstract, because those studio recordings lack the human warmth of South American people at friendly gatherings. They don't know how to fake it, and this is what makes them so authentic. For a South American singer to express joy, they need an audience who reflects it back! Just in front of a tape recorder, it does n't work.

But it also lacks the context of anti-life violence which, in a way, sanctified this music. A terrible event which deeply affected all my South American friends:

▶️See this section, in the thread on wars

The sociopathic coup d'état by pinochet in Chile.

(Permalink) Written in May 2020.

Some lost friends there. Everyone lost very popular singers, like Victor Jara, tortured and killed by the sickos, who abandoned his mutilated body in the street. There were months of sadness and struggle, to make France aware of what was happening on the other side of the world. I believe that this madness of a murderous regime helped to awaken the French people somewhat: these crimes and disorders were committed in our name! Indeed, the French sociopaths, unable to physically torture in France, tried to make us feel guilty by claiming that the coup was to supply us with copper... There are better ways to think about the economy, I think. And today, despite the end of the coup, we never lacked copper.

This complicity of «the society» with these murderous crackpots only reinforced the leftist dualism, giving the impression that our governments, businesses, and administrations were, overall, a rotten system, using democracy only as a carrot to better manipulate us. Or the stick, when this isn't enough, as in Chile. We thought this could also happen in France (and we did not knew it yet by the time, but it had actually happened just 12 years earlier, with the pogrom of October 17, 1961, perpetrated by papon. In May '68, we came close, with the SAC having prepared lists of people to arrest in case of a «clash», according to the documents found at the time).

Thus, the South American joie de vivre of my friends took an incomparable depth, as it stood in opposition to the perversion and sociopathic violence inflicted upon them.

The Chileans never forgave pinochet and the other jerks: they relentlessly investigated to find them, and impose very heavy prison sentences. One of the madmen had buried corpses and built his house on top of them. So the investigators demolished his house! Another lunatic had buried his victims in salty earth… allowing investigators to find them intact! A stark contrast with France, which never bothered its own torturers in Algeria, and even eventually created a special law to grant amnesty to papon, despite his pogrom of October 17, 1961, which killed dozens of people in the very heart of Paris.

I remember going to Paris to demonstrate against the lunatics (to the anger of my father, who probably sympathized with these sociopaths). On that occasion, I made a curious observation. We were getting back on the buses after the demonstration ended, when a long-haired guy came running up, shouting, «Les CRS! Les CRS!» (The riot police!). The police, we had not seen them in this rather civic demonstration, closed to the extremists. Oddly enough, I was not afraid, and indeed, we saw four or five riot police officers arrive, probably chasing this guy. But, no longer seeing him, they gave up, without doing anything bad. So, «the cops» were not the absolute evil that leftists portrayed. A fact I had noted, but which only fell into place with the other pieces of the puzzle many years later.

▶️See this section, in the thread on wars

The Free Clinic.

(Permalink) Written in May 2020.

Another place I frequented for a month or two was the «Free Clinic», in theory a place offering free medical care and contraception for people living outside the money system. This place was part of the American Free Clinic movement, launched by Dr. David E. Smith, founder of the «Haight Ashbury Free Clinics». It was therefore something serious, both in terms of medical practice and its involvement in a large-scale humanitarian movement. Its origins connect it to the Hippies, but it was by no means intended to be limited to them.

The Bordeaux Free Clinic was on Rue Jules Guesde, roughly in front of the today mosque. The premises were designed to be welcoming, with the waiting room entirely occupied by a huge midnight blue pouf with stars on it. I found it charming, and saw it as an indication that this place must attract many people interested in a better life, Hippies or similar. Unfortunately, there probably was not a single real Hippie in Bordeaux, but rather zonards, drug addicts, inept people incapable of taking care of themselves or undertaking anything positive. Small groups, centered on themselves and living of petty schemes and theft, like those who would later squat my apartment in Toulouse. It is no wonder, then, that I ultimately found no one to talk with there! I even experienced one or two verbal assaults, which surprised me more than they saddened me.

It also is here that I discovered the flap toilets! This horror seemed to go along very well with the zonards and all the fauna.

After about ten visits without making any contact, I finally stopped going to this place, in the end dark and unwelcoming. Those late evenings left me needlessly exhausted. (I am not questioning the intention or the medical quality of the place. It is just that the regular visitors had no real desire to contribute to a better society, remaining entirely self-centered.)

Added in August 2022: A quick internet search found the CEID, a successor to the Free Clinic I visited in Bordeaux, indicating that it primarily targets drug users and other cultivators of sexually transmitted diseases. No wonder, then, that nothing positive came of my visits!

And today the CEID attracts its «customers» with tags, instead of a charming starry blue pouf… Not just a different epoch, but a very different mindset: filth is no longer trying to hide under high ideals.

Added in November 2025: I came across a revisionist website, contesting the «myth» of the Free Clinics. I therefore counter it with these memories that I describe, which took place, let us remember, in autumn 1973 in Bordeaux. I do not know who was paying for the Free Clinic at the time, but today it is the Social Security which supports the CEID.

The MLAC
(Movement for the freedom of abortion and contraception)

(Permalink) Written in August 2019.

The MLAC was a movement officially advocating for freedom of contraception, which existed between 1973 and 1975. In reality, they bluntly demanded only the right to abortion, organizing trips to Belgium for women who publicly assumed their decision (abortion being already legal in Belgium, but still illegal in France). In theory, they also demanded the right to contraception. At the time, the right to contraception had already been guaranteed by the Neuwirth Law, since 1967. However, this law was only implemented in 1972 due to sabotage by government agencies of sexual sickos. (The fact that we had to «legalize» such a fundamental right indicates the depths of moral decay this society had sunk into.) For example, my mother was only able to get an IUD only at that moment (and only after hearing about it from a Tunisian friend, whose country was far more advanced than France). And even then, she had to deal with pétainist doctors who claimed that it «does not work» for women who had had fewer than three children. Clearly, everything was still to be built in this area, with its bigoted, irresponsible and backward mentalities, and the emergence of a citizens' movement was inevitable. And it could have been very useful, by publicizing research on contraception, informing the public, etc. Something the MLAC (Movement for the Liberation of Abortion and Contraception) never did, as we shall see. (Today 2025 we are still dramatically lacking information on fundamental novelties such as penis sheaths and tantric sex!)

Well, today I certainly would not get involved in defending abortion. But at the time, I was just a starter in politics, and, very much in the spirit of the times (1973), sexual freedom seemed to me a primary objective. So I could not miss the meetings of the MLAC (Movement for the Liberation of Abortion and Contraception), which was at its peak then, and which claimed to defend this sexual freedom first and foremost. In fact, I was mainly there for contraception. I did not yet know that they had added «contraception» to their name as a mere prop for abortion. Proof of this, the movement was dissolved right after the Veil Law legalizing abortion (1975), even though there was still so much to be done regarding contraception. My experience in this milieu easily explains this inconsistency, and we are to see why.

These activist meetings were «my first outing» into the real world. They should have been my first opportunity to learn to speak in public. And for that, I needed to overcome the shyness I had inherited from all those years of hazing and harassment by abnormal schoolmates. That's not exactly what happened.

My first MLAC meeting, which I dared to attend, was on a rainy autumn evening. Mostly couples, busy with various things, including organizing their bus trip to Belgium. Incidentally, just «ordinary» people, no exuberant Hippies or militant leftists. Having little to contribute, I kept quiet, observing, learning, and waiting for some opportunity to be useful. Until suddenly someone pointed at me, accusing me in front of everyone of being «a cop who came to spy on them!!» So, «even there», the sociopaths were able to spot me immediately, in a group of about fifty people! They probably spend all their time looking for victims.

Ok, there were other more normal people who tried to repair the situation. But too late, I had suddenly realized that campaigning for sexual freedom was not enough to make someone a good person. In any case, it certainly was not where I would meet a decent partner, lol.

I tried again a MLAC drop-in center again some weeks later, hoping not to run again into lunatics. To no avail: I ran right into Méduse, this former Scout from Mont-de-Marsan, the masochistic leftist who was always trying to treat me as a child! (He thought I was immature because I did not drank wine!!!) «This isn't a club», he explained condescendingly. I did not asked him what he meant by «club» or why he thought so badly of them. But there was something shocking about seeing an organization claiming to be of public service, allowing kids like that to appoint themselves as advisors for women in difficulty. Perhaps it was simply another way for him to dominate them, like in his horrific misogynistic «totemizations».

After that, I never went back to the MLAC, feeling there was something unhealthy about that group. Today I know what: some of its loudest members, far from seeking any kind of liberation or equality for women, were merely the Yin☯Yang reflection of the classic male chauvinist prudishness. And they put there as much hatred as the sick bigots they criticized. It was just the beginning of the female supremacist movement, surfing on the waves of feminism and sexual liberation. I had proof of this a little later, at a demonstration against rape in Toulouse: there were only women! As if men were not affected by the rape of their partners! (or raped themselves, that happens too)(Yes, men raped by women, it also happens, I saw one case)

So thank you, misses the sociopaths infiltrated into the MLAC, for finally saving me from engaging my karma to defend something like abortion.

Regarding the «undercover cops» in activist meetings, I have a good one, which supposedly took place a few years later in Toulouse. As usual, a group of marxist intellectuals was trying to rebuild the Workers' International, so that, while waiting for the Revolution, they would at least have a place to drink beers and congratulate each others. The founding meeting had been publicly announced... They managed to agree on the political line, the objectives, etc. Then came the time to register the members... But nobody wanted to do that... work!! Exploitation!! Horror! I imagine the organizers must have been embarrassed, and they insisted. Finally, an unassuming guy timidly raised his hand, volunteering to register the members. He was the undercover cop... who thus gained the perfect way to get to know all the members of the group! These undercover cop stories always made me laugh. Of course, there is no point in deluding ourselves: if they want to spy somewhere, they will always find a way. But they are not so easy to spot that a sociopath can identify them at a glance in a group of fifty people! In any case, the female police officer who had infiltrated the MLAC meeting must have had a good laugh to herself. Then she shrank back in her chair, glad for me to see me leave this unhealthy group.

Regarding sexual freedom, I have not many opportunities to practice it, and my only relationship ended in disaster.

Worse, the expression «sexual freedom» evoked images of a Hippie-esque quest for «happiness together», whereas in reality, the people I met were more interested in the freedom... of their egos! And, incapable of admitting that anyone could think differently from them, they also accused me of seeking a selfish pleasure! In other words, they accused me of being just like them. Children. Children, minors, immature, kiddies, even in the bed, ha ha ha!

But I laugh in retrospect: learning to be multiorgasmic requires an enormous discipline. But the result is far more interesting than giving free rein to repugnant fantasies.

And above all, with the advent of penis sheaths (rigid or flexible, available on Amazon), any excuse for abortion disappears: 100% contraceptive, 100% controllable by men (no more children hostage for alimony), 100% effective against sexually transmitted diseases, prolonging the male performance and increasing the female pleasure... This is how intelligence and spirituality do the sexual liberation.

I can't avoid thinking about those prudish and sexist women who rejected me with contempt: what you missed out, ha ha ha ha!

The Shadow of maurice papon

(Permalink) Written in August 2019.

Anyone who learns history on television will remember the «papon trial» in the 1980s and the «controversy» surrounding his role during the Occupation. Some claimed he contributed to the kidnapping of Jews, while others asserted he actually saved them. And they will retain the memory of an unfair judicial persecution against a «gentil monsieur» («kind man»)...

The reality is far less rosy, and certainly not sugarcoated: during my time in Bordeaux from 1973 to 1975, well before the media «debate», everyone remembered perfectly well that he had collaborated with the nazis, including in racist kidnappings. Everybody also clearly saw that despite this criminal past, he continued to hold high-ranking government positions: minister, police prefect, and even member of the parliament!

Thus, this media «debate» was a pure fabrication, its sole purpose being to muddy the waters in the court. Wikipedia explains that the court dismissed the murder charges, claiming there was no proof that papon knew what had become of his victims. This was at the time with the Shoah as it is with climate change today: everyone knew perfectly well, but «nobody had proofs».

I even met him in person, at the central police station in Bordeaux, during a «protest debriefing». The idea of having been hazed by the same hand which sent people to nazi camps is «disturbing». And he would not have hesitated to send me there too, if he could. Is it any wonder that we felt bad in this society, with things like that. (Wikipedia says that he played no role in Bordeaux at that time. One might wonder if this is a false memory... from Wikipedia. This is why I am writing down my memoirs, before only the false memories of Wikipedia remain.)

I also remember the guy who was with him, the Bordeaux police chief, a malformed dwarf named Cabot. With such rascals, clothed in the same colors than their filthy crappers without paper, we felt much more like in a mafia or militia den than in anything resembling the police force of a democratic country. Even the gestapo may have better kept themselves.

All of this gave a strong impression that we were governed by a bunch of immoral scoundrels, ready for any crime, lie, and betrayal under a democratic veneer which cracked with every move. At the time, this certainly contributed to pushing many people towards the leftists and their violent ideas. It was from this rotten atmosphere that violent groups like the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Red Brigades were born: from the despair of living in such a corrupt world, where antisocial scum like papon had the upper hand on us, and even dared to police us! At the time, I felt the same resentment as everybody else, and this is what drove me to associate with leftists. What protected me was that my ideals were, in a way, incompatible with their dualistic and caricatured views. But I only understood this a little later, in Toulouse, in 1976.

Today, you don't have to look for long on the net to find that papon also organized the pogrom of October 17, 1961, in the very heart of Paris, a gratuitous massacre which left dozens dead and hundreds wounded. And there was no controversy, no trial, no «witnesses» claiming that «marcel» had secretly saved Arabs. Just a huge, shameful silence. Then, as if nothing had happened, he was seen... at the head of the Aérospatiale, presenting the Concorde plane! It is clear that he was nothing but a mercenary, ready for anything, completely amoral, making no distinction between nazi collaboration and the building of a democratic Europe. An «ideal civil servant», then, in the eyes of some, which explain why the successive governments ultimately kept him.

His release from prison for «health reasons» (the so-called «papon amnesty») is problematic, not because of its «humanitarian» justification, but because he was the only one to benefit from this law made specifically for him, while so many others are sick and die in prison.

No, maurice papon was not a kind man.

My victory over racism and sexism

(Permalink) Written in July 2021

This part, just after papon, will show that I was, well, better. But this was not difficult, given his abysmal level.

Like all opinions, racism is a neurosis. Of course, racism is dangerous because it is a neurosis of hatred or fear, which can drive sufferers to commit unhealthy or criminal acts.

But the most vicious danger of neuroses is that they distort our worldview. Hate neuroses, of course, make us hallucinate «enemies» where there are only people living their lives without asking anything to us. But «positive» neuroses, like progressive opinions, or what we call «being in love», are just as dangerous from this point of view. Neuroses are not psychiatric illnesses, and they happen to everybody, even whose with perfectly normal brains, or to very intelligent people. A neurosis is a psychological illness caused by faulty programming of a neural network in the brain. A bad habit in how we feel things, basically. An example of neural network programming is the one which allows us to ride a bicycle (automatically, without thinking). Imagine we learned to ride a bike with inverted handlebars: this false learning is then a neurosis, which will cause us to fall, as soon as we try to ride a normal bike. We can even create an artificial neurotic neural network, for example, Google's lamentable racist network which labeled Black people as «gorillas».

Well usually, we talk about neurosis for feelings of hatred, fear, or inappropriate attraction: fear of Arabs, sexist hatred of men, blind admiration for a führer or a cult leader. As with «deep learning» (which is an imitation), a neurosis labels facts as «true», «false», «good», «bad», based on our past positive or negative experiences with them. Thus, an unfortunate experience with a Jew can lead to hatred of the Jews, causing us to see them as conspirators or profiteers. In positive neuroses, a glimpse of a breast can trigger a love desire to keep the person close. The evil here is that this neurosis then leads us to idealize the person and ignore their flaws.

Experiencing a feeling without any real reason is already annoying. But the most serious issue is that a neurosis filters our perception of reality, without we are aware of this filtering, automatically suppressing from our consciousness any fact which contradict the neurosis. For example, a «left-wing» person will see only the flaws of the right, and vice versa a «right-wing» will see only the bad of the left. This suppression is most often subtle, but it can sometimes be extraordinary, like a woman who «does not see» the hand of her husband under another woman's skirt (I personally witnessed a case of this magnitude). This is what explains the submission to cults, dictatorships, abusive spouses, and so on, even by normally intelligent people possessing all the evidences of their mistake. On the reverse, a racism neurosis will make of a simple article of clothing a terrifying «identity statement», leading to totalitarian political gesticulation, even until murder. We can then speak of neurotic hallucination, with consequences as criminal as psychiatric hallucinations, even if their cause remains benign and common (non-psychiatric, thus engaging our criminal responsibility).

This is how opinions, beliefs, and prejudices arise. In animals, this was not posing too much problems, but in the way more complex lives of humans, opinions, beliefs and prejudices quickly lead to chaos and great suffering. And these opinions and beliefs often arise from chance encounters, positive or negative experiences. This is how people randomly pick up a whole host of opinions, beliefs, and prejudices, often contradictory, like a ball of glue which clumps together all sorts of filth as it rolls.

In a way, it was inevitable: everything seems to point to the fact, for example, that the Earth is flat, a belief that only science has been able to dispel. Similarly, we have a strong tendency to categorize people as «friends» or «enemies», based on totally irrelevant criteria: race, religion, country, family, social class, even hair color or nose length.

In my case, a «minor» neurose of racism had emerged during my time in Algeria. We had arrived there only two years after the war, and there was some spirit of revenge (With my father especially, I do not really remember hearing racist remarks elsewhere). In an eleven-year-old with no spiritual experience, racist words and accusations very easily create a neurosis of racism, against «the Arabs» in this case. This is unfortunately what had happened to me. What a shame to see such a beautiful country as Algeria, through such a dirty filter!

In my case, it was benign. However, a neurosis has a life of its own, remaining dormant for years, then suddenly reappearing or flaring with some apparently benign trigger. Thus, during my time in Mont de Marsan, I no longer thought about «Arabs», having no opportunity to meet them anyway, in such a remote and isolated place. But the particularly toxic atmosphere and the insidious racism of my classmates at the Naval College amplified this feeling, to the point of feeling bad when a black person entered the room I was in. Therefore it had become serious, and in a non-spiritual person (without introspection), enough to lead to anti-social or even criminal behavior.

But in the meantime, in 1969, I had some spiritual consciousness taking concerning a better society. So I was beginning to realize that this racist sentiment, and the dangerous attitudes it would inevitably generate, was in total contradiction with my projects and commitments. Moreover, a socially unacceptable contradiction in the leftist circles I was attending in Bordeaux, who strictly not tolerate this kind of things. This is one of the reasons why I ultimately do not regret my time with the leftists.

But while I had undergone consciousness taking, I had practically no method for resolving the problem. The only clue was a sentence I had read in a music magazine, about how the Hippies «trained» to live without disputing. So I trained... Fortunately, at that time, my ability to visualize helped me a lot. I simply had to visualize Arabs or Blacks as being nice, friendly, safe, and clean (yes, really, this is the most effective way). Doing it «in real» is certainly useful and effective, but it makes us dependent on chance encounters, often in less than ideal conditions. On the other hand, visualizing it allows us to do it as often as we want, with all the necessary precision and intensity. I even used to do it with drawing, in my attempts at comics back then (I did not knew it, but a concrete action makes this work more effective). Visualizations work because neurons do not know if the information they are processing is in a dream or in reality! The neural mechanisms involved in a visualization are the same as those used in a real encounter. This way, the visualization can correct the neural networks distorted by the neurosis, just as much as reality can, and reprogram them. We relearn to ride the bike with safe and normal handlebars! It is even safer, because real situations are often more complex and can contain elements which disrupt the process. This is why you should not talk about these things with anyone other than your spiritual guide or psychologist, or even with nobody at all if you are doing it alone.

So, alone to proceed I had, because in the 1970s, in the West we were still in the prehistory of spirituality, with virtually no spiritual masters and dangerous psychologists more seeking to manipulate us than to liberate us.

What ultimately surprised me was that, even under these extreme conditions, the method is remarkably effective.

It only took me some months to completely erase the neurosis, without any lasting effects or relapses, and to become able to live normally with people of color. It is absolutely fantastic that such a simple method allows anyone to stop being an idiot! It should be talked about in the TV, taught in schools, etc. That they never did shown how these institutions are completely and fundamentally opposed to our happiness.

(Strictly speaking, a neurosis can reappear following new incidents. In this case, it is not a relapse, but a reinfection. And I knew exactly what to do in this case, and since then, no new racism neurosis has ever been able to take root in my mind.)

Added in August 2024: Spirituality knows meditations of this kind for millennia, and today psychology has drawn inspiration from them for «directed visualization», which is what I was doing.

While I was at it, I was also interested in sexism. Well, I have never really been sexist or phallocrat. But by constantly hearing sexist remarks, they end up appearing as «the normal way to approach women», or even that they «like it». That is what those who make these remarks feel, but not those who receive them. And I knew what these targets felt, having been a victim myself, in the primary school, in this center in Nancy, in the Lycée Victor Duruy, in the Collège Naval. So I used the same method as with racism, to erase any traces of sexism as well.

Of course I also embraced the feminist ideals of gender equality, to be consistent with my ideal. Many feminists do not recognize men's right to engage with feminism, claiming to take matters into their own hands. This is good, but there is one thing that only men can do: to cure themselves of their own neuroses of male sexism. They must be granted this right, and this responsibility, otherwise feminism remains one of those countless sadomasochistic systems, where some pretends to pursue a goal while refusing themselves the means to achieve it.

Despite this, my leftist comrades continued to call me a phallocrat, or «possessive» (This was clearly a projection, because for me, love has always been a search for happiness together, a reciprocal offering from the one to the other. Besides, at the time we were all against the idea of an exclusive couple relationship, like in the film «La Vallée», believing that love is shared in a community.) It took me very long to understand the reason for these absurd accusations: my leftist comrades, therefore completely dualistic, had gleefully crossed the middle ground, and fell into the opposite extreme: female supremacism. And for them, men were therefore inherently «class enemies»! This movement was still very much a minority at the time, but it is becoming powerful today, with actions like #MeToo or #BalanceTonPorc (French equivalent of #MeToo), which are legally inquisitions (a simple accusation leads to automatic conviction, without defense or appeal. Hence this proliferation of accusations against celebrities capable of paying hefty ransoms). My psychoeducational work at the time was therefore solitary, but I was starting to get used to it.

Another common prejudice at the time was against homosexuality. Not that I was ever truly homophobic either, but there too, jokes were made about the «faggots», just like today about Belgians or blondes. Until the day I made a comment of this style in front of one of them, which earned me a sharp rebuke. So I had to correct myself there too, but after the other two instances, it was just a formality.

Today that homosexuality is valued, and even mandatory, I realize how deep-rooted and powerful homophobia still is in the general population, far more so than sexism or racism. During my time in Mont-de-Marsan, I remember classmates talking about «gay hunts» (assaulting men using public restrooms). Of course, the matter ended up in court, with the judge turning out to have been one of their victims… Sometimes karma has a good laugh!

The rise of female supremacy is also very worrying. The only clear remedy I see is to make the teaching of non-duality between extremes mandatory in schools, for example, through Hatha Yoga or the Yin☯Yang dialectic. Plus, of course, spiritual visualization methods for correcting neuroses, actually known for millennia in spirituality, and recently rediscovered by some psychologists. They call these methods CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and my visualizations «guided visualization». Not including these things in school curricula is a conscious and deliberate support for extremism and discrimination. And of course for cults, which need spiritual ignorance to exist. So, psychologists have come a long way, catching up with and far surpassing movements like the Hippies. But they're still too naive not to have noticed that the term «CBT» was already taken: fantasy of a blonde therapist with big breasts giving me CBT, ha ha ha ha!

As for me, I was later to discover the true spiritual methods for healing our minds. So, they were already familiar to me, and I knew how to use them. But there would be several steps before reaching their true goal: spiritual liberation. We shall see that in other chapters.

The «Foyer Saint Jean» residence

(Permalink) Written in May 2020.

All my friends in Bordeaux used to meet at the Foyer Saint Jean Residence, in an alley at 44°49'45.66"N 0°34'2.11"W near the Place des Capucins. Several of them even lived there.

It was, in principle, a student residence, run by a non-profit association (under the 1901 French law), and managed by its own residents. A form of self-management, then.

We could get there via an alley which was barely wide enough for cars. The main building had several common rooms on the ground floor, including a kitchen and a dining room. The upper floor had bedrooms. Behind it was a concrete courtyard, with what had probably been a garden, eventually filled in by another building with bedrooms.

While the place was relatively clean, it also suffered from the flap toilets, which caused us one or two floods. Indeed, no one had imagined that they were not connected to the sewer system, and we learned this the hard way when the cesspool overflowed. In «normal» times, they leaked constantly and were always filthy, especially when visitors from the Third World used them… putting their feet on the toilet seat, thinking they were squat toilets. It is then understandable that in my mind, this overall feeling of filth remains associated with Bordeaux in general, and especially with the zonards («the fauna», as they are called these days).

During my first year in Bordeaux, I often went to the Foyer Saint Jean, because this is where several of my South American friends lived. We spent many evenings together, and it was there that I experienced, for the first time in my life, a normal atmosphere, of people having fun together without any problems, and above all, without the mockery and sense of superiority which had always blocked everything until then.

This is why I long kept a strong nostalgia of these happy times, not even being able to look at the photos without a strong sadness. But I lost all these later, with several moves.

So I thought I had found my place, and decided to spend my second year in Bordeaux, at the Foyer Saint Jean, rather than with a host family.

This decision met a curious response: Conf the leftist had proposed a «taking over» of the residence!

At the time, the goal seemed obvious to me: to guarantee that the atmosphere would remain friendly and free, as we had known it. Today, I understand better why it did not produce the expected result: we did not needed leftist social violence to guarantee this atmosphere. On the contrary, it actually stifled it. Not immediately. But little by little, the atmosphere deteriorated, and our self-management aspirations became chores and sources of conflict. Above all, the delightful South American party atmosphere gradually faded away, with the silent departure of most of them.

The biggest problem, however, was that no one was really managing the residence anymore, allowing zonards and delinquents to move in, of course without paying the rent. But we «should not» evict them, because it would be «being cops» or even «being racist».

This second year in Bordeaux was not negative for me in the end. But you can understand that, ultimately, I had to acknowledge the failure of our urban community at the Foyer Saint Jean to create a truly pleasant atmosphere.

So I decided to return to my real plan: Toulouse.

Indeed, all those late nights had negatively impacted my studies, and I had to repeat my second year at the University Institute of Technology (IUT). So it would be in Toulouse. Having registered myself, my parents simply had to accept it.

Community experiences in 1974

(Permalink) Written in September 2020.

The Hippie era and May 1968 in France had sparked a fermentation of new ideas and a strong, sensual desire to live outside the concrete jungle. At the time, however, these ideas were brutally rejected by society, and this eliminated many possibilities for action. The notion of community, launched by the Hippies, thus emerged as the only way to do something authentic: to be free, we had to be outside the system, on the margins. Communities were therefore known at the time as «the marginal movement», and their members as the «marginals».

This expression «marginal», however, posed a serious problem: in France it designates a person incapable of integrating into society, like a tramp, or even someone who rejects society altogether, like a delinquent or a fascist. It is therefore surprising that a political movement choose such a self-deprecating name. I don't actually know what really happened:

-Either the term did not have any pejorative connotations at the time (like a note in the margin of a text), and it was turned into newspeak by the authorities and the media, like several other expressions since.

-Or these people genuinely believed that tramps and delinquents were positive alternatives to society (or the zonards, in the 1970s version). It is actually an old mistake, with some research we can find it in publications from the Paris Commune in 1870, showing tramps campaigning for the Commune. But a colossal error, which cost the destruction of the movement: many groups welcomed tramps, drug addicts and delinquents with open arms, despite the violence, filth and destruction they brought. Almost all the communities collapsed this way! There are books written at the time by participants. I remember an incident where cleaning the premises produced one ton of dirty denim pants (yes, one ton!), abandoned by day-trippers who had left with new clothes provided by the community. Clearly, this was unsustainable.

Whoever was responsible, this ambiguity also hindered the social integration of this movement. It also cost their parents of many children who were victims of divorce, social investigations, and so on. And nobody ever was fooled: the matter never was to «protect» those children, but to repress their parents. So here we have a case of repression against children for their parents' political opinions, which, incidentally, continues today. And this is in France, not North Korea, right?

It is worth noting that the community members also called themselves «utopians». But at least everybody knows that this word was coined in a positive sense (by Thomas More). Under these circumstances, denigrating the «utopians» is clearly newspeak, and a conscious and deliberate form of mental manipulation.

Another, deeper spiritual error was the inherent dualism of this approach. At the time, in a society run by scoundrels like papon or hypocrites like Giscard, this error had no truly visible consequences. But some deliberately pushed into this error through various extremist and anti-social attitudes, labeled «liberation struggles».

But above all, by 1974, in France, the 1967 Hippie movement was definitively and truly over. Then, who were the communities in France? They were largely... marxists, engaged in one of their countless attempts to infiltrate a movement they had not created, in order to divert its energies. Attempts which always fail, like Wile E. Coyote: when people realize they are no longer in control of their movement, they leave it, and the would-be Lenins are left all alone to tyrannize each other. Besides, marxists are a pain to be around, with a dark vibe which creates a void around them, as surely as a nuclear wastes container. So many of the communities which remained in 1974 only had a superficial veneer of Hippie culture. Especially, they were far from the sexual liberation of the Hippies, on the contrary, men were considered «phallocrats», that is to say... class enemies! This is what marxist dualism had done to the sexual revolution.

Still ignorant of all this, and thinking «Hippie movement», I tried, that 1974 summer, to visit several communities, with the clear aim of integrating into one of them, or even of meeting a partner who shared these ideas. My approach was to create a «model» of a better society, in order to inspire others to do the same. But I was determined to finish my IUT studies first, either to be able to offer a technical expertise, or for a backup plan in case of failure. This prudence was surprisingly rewarded: when I finished my studies, the communities had all disappeared. My only experience with the communities movement therefore was during the summer holidays of 1974, and quite few after, no later than 1980.

The first group I encountered was the «Planel du Bis», in a high valley near Labastide de Sérou in Ariège (42°56'35.92"N 1°25'37.73"E; the current inhabitants have no connection to the epoch ones). This is where I found myself, getting off a bus they had chartered to go to the Larzac gathering in this summer of 1974. There was something strange and fascinating about suddenly finding myself in the night without electric light, in this world of silent nature, which reminded me of the Erloy of my childhood.

I stayed there for three days, in an old forestry farmhouse they had squatted in. In fact, there were several groups in several locations (and already enemies...): the Bosc, the Four, and the Planel du Bis. One of them was dedicated to rebuilding the ruins of a hamlet called Broucaillou, and so I spent most of the three days hauling cement and stones for that purpose. On one hand, there was the fervor and enthusiasm of pioneers rebuilding a new world... which is what we truly believed we were doing. But on the other hand, there also was the appalling misery of people with babies in a dirty, windowless barn... And still it was summer. It is understandable that most of these attempts did not last more than a season.

In the evenings, I returned to the Planel, the only place where we could sleep under a real roof (and even then, in the straw, above the inevitable goats). There, on the very first evening, I was asked to attend a meeting about... parasites. In my beginner's naiveté, I had not even noticed that this meeting was aimed at me personally! And of course, it was late at night, despite my fatigue, and despite the fact that they had not done a thing of the whole day. Once a city dweller, always a city dweller you remain, even in the middle of the bush. In fact, these fake Hippies from Le Planel immediately started mocking at me, and of course the women to call me a male chauvinist. There was a sort of boss, Marc Sarassino, whom I asked for an explanation of this unexpected behavior, in a place which presented itself as a social ideal far superior to the surrounding society. His only answer was that it was caused by «the relations of production». I did not even asked him what production he was talking about (there was not any, these people were doing nothing in the whole day). I simply asked, «How do the relations of production force people to mock me?» Stuck he was, the Marc, faced with the meaninglessness of his discourse. He simply replied that we could not have a discussion... Indeed. So I concluded that this group was a load of rubbish. In more of being sexist bigots, they were the complete opposite of the Hippie communities they claimed to represent.

In fact, these people were just leftists, busy with one of their perennial attempts to infiltrate a movement which did not belonged to them, after having discouraged and expelled its legitimate members. Many years later, I found Marc again as... a candidate of «Les Verts» (The Greens) in the Ariège elections! You then understand why I always kept my distance from this party, despite its pretense to be the sole speaker of ecology. As for the people from the Planel, they probably labeled me «bourgeois» as soon as they saw me, according to one or another of those obscure criteria that only marxists understand. Or perhaps they were just very ordinary sociopaths who had instantly recognized me as their target, without even needing to coordinate.

So, goodbye to the Planel, and to the other similar communities. Sometimes, listening to beautiful epoch music like Yes’ «Close to the Edge», I feel a pang of nostalgia for that time, that sensual longing to live naked in nature, with friends, in a flower-filled house deep in the woods. Nostalgia for something that could have been, but which never actually existed, which remained an empty promise, see a bait. At best, it had existed, but it was already destroyed long before I arrived.

I went back to Le Planel du Bis later, around 1980. It was deserted, dark, and sad like any abandoned house. But on the way up, there still was another community, which had transformed its place into... a garbage dump, and was practicing... rifle shooting! Their «ideal» had probably become closer to the Baader-Meinhof Gang and other violent groups of the time. I was appalled, but not surprised, that their project had degenerated to this point. Today, in 2023, online maps show that the Planel du Bis is still very wild, but occupied. Although the today occupiers are probably unrelated.

Good surprise, in 2025 the maps also show that Broucaillou is today inhabited and gardened. Perhaps the return to nature is finally happening, but without ideological fanfare.

So I left the Planel, in the company of another guy, for another community which, according to Marc, «better suited my ideas» (which ideas? I had told him nothing. Always be wary of guys who know your ideas better than you do). Herein lies an incident, admittedly trivial, but highly symbolic for me. The guy I was with was supposed to be my guide for a 40km journey, partly hitchhiking, partly on foot, cutting through the mountain. He «knew the way». He started off really fast, walking at full speed, to the point where I wondered how I could possibly keep up with him for 40 kilometers. We were supposed to reach a road a bit higher up the slope. But he stayed at a constant altitude, getting further away from our destination. I then pointed out that we could simply cut uphill. He grumbled something and started following me. Okay, a steep 100-meter climb is a bit of a workout, but it is not exactly a feat. So I climbed, this time in the lead. But I could see him falling further and further behind (remember, I was always last in sports). Then, at one point, he actually started descending! I shrugged and kept going, eventually reaching the road some dozen meters higher.

This ridiculous incident is symbolic of many situations I have often found myself in: people make grand pronouncements about a big project, but ultimately, I am the one who puts in the effort alone, to make it happen. Unfortunately, carrying out alone a collective project does not make much sense. The only benefit is then for my own personal evolution. Okay, that's fine, but it is a little frustrating to find myself moving forward all alone. But hey, I'm not going to stop just for that, lol.

The advantage is that I was able to admire the majesty of the High Ariège, its forests, its rocks, and the murmur of the streams which provides the sound background. That, plus the taste of blueberries, has remained etched in my mind as a powerful moment of discovering nature. But this also is something we need to do without chatterboxes to spoil the vibe. So it was much better without that guy.

I finally arrived at another community, near Seix (pronounced «seysse», not «sex». It is a Latin name, «Aqua Septima», meaning the seven springs. If you ever are in the area, I recommend the museum displaying one of the machines which were used to cut the marble for Versailles). I stayed there for two weeks, participating in various activities, including the inevitable emptying of the manure from the unavoidable goats (curious that this always fall on the visitors, lol). Of all the communities I visited, this was the only one which even remotely represented the ideal. I have fond memories of that time, but also the feeling that something was not right. In fact, I could not really create a personal bond. The problem was that, instead of a community, it was just a clan, with no desire to accept a new member. And especially not a man, as I was later made to understand. This community later dispersed, remaining occupied only by the owner and one or two other women, whom I was to meet again at the Association Toulousaine d'Ecologie. I went to see them two or three times, and they welcomed me warmly. But nothing ever came of these encounters.

Nevertheless, I retained from the experience a definite fondness for returning to the countryside in a communal house! Especially this one, charming, with a timber-framed gallery on the first floor, and dormers on the slate roof. There are, in fact, a huge number of charming places, which would be ideal... if their inhabitants were.

A curious incident in this place was discovering a man hiding in the bushes, watching us, and running away as I approached. The people in the community explained to me that they were «young people from the village» who had come to ogle them. A truly curious approach: if they were interested in us, why not simply come and say hello, as I had done myself? This was not an isolated case, and the communities sparked a flurry of increasingly bizarre and unexpected comments, and not just in the media. One of the most egregious cases I heard about was a group of villagers who had straightforwardly entered a house, which they had decided was… a brothel! Yes, you guessed it, it was in the Landes region of France.

I visited several other communities in the following years, without ever really finding anything resembling what one might expect from a progressive movement. These places were cold, or miserable, or the people had various problems. I remember one which shocked me: they had decided that potatoes should not be peeled! Thus sidestepping the «problem» of peeling (apparently a terrible effort for all these people), at the cost of having to spit out the skins while eating, sign of their failure to control their psychological flaws. A minor detail, but one which prevented me from connecting with them. I left after that meal.

And I still peel my tatters, sorry. Nothing bad ever happened to me while peeling tatters.

These journeys were made by hitchhiking. At the time, hitchhikers were systematically checked by the police. This bullying continued until after 1985. It was the right-wing Chirac who abolished them, not even the «left-wing» Mitterrand. But these hitchhiking experiences were an opportunity to meet «people of the society», who were not any worse than the «marginals». This realization gradually led me to... reject the rejection of society.

Another community I visited later was an old house with graffiti in the hallways. I had not paid much attention to them, until the occupants told me that the graffiti dated back to... the Revolution! This house had been a kind of revolutionary commune. This created a historical continuity between the Sans-Culottes and the communities of the 1970’s. This place, called Les Brus, still seems inhabited today, with a drivable road which replaced the mule track, the only access at the time: 42°54'52.3"N 1°17'03.4"E. Google Earth says that there is an organic goat farm. But I don't know if it is still the same residents, neither what they did with the graffiti.

Electronics studies at the University Institute of Technology (IUT).

(Permalink) Written in July 2022.

Some people were disappointed with their electronics studies at the IUT: there is much more maths than soldering. This is because an electronics technician is not a wiring technician: they need to understand how a circuit operates, or even a component, in order to optimize it and effectively second the engineer. In fact, the engineer only defines the general outline; the electronics technician does all the work.

For this reason, the IUT curriculum also includes subjects like physics, with a focus on materials and electromagnetism, maths, english, and so on. On the other hand, we were finally free from school sports! And from French too, although when we read on the Internet, it is clear that this is often lacking.

The IUT in Bordeaux also included an introduction to machining: we learned how to use a lathe, a milling machine, arc welding, and so forth. I enjoyed those activities, except that the teacher was mean and mustached like a Zola's foreman.

In fact, I realized later, that the IUT (University Institute of Technology) trains us to truly understand what happens in an electronic circuit, or in any physical system related to electronics, for example, an antenna or a motor. So, many people apply for jobs thinking they will do what they see in amateur electronics magazines like Elektor: building a circuit from ready-made schematics. But this is not the electronic technician's role, it is the wiring technician’s role. The electronic technicians create the schematic, and to do that, they have to understand how each component works and how they interact. They also have to understand how the various peripherals work: antennas, motors, photoelements, logic circuits, right up to the microprocessors. And this approach paid off: while we did not yet had microprocessors when I was at the IUT, during my activities in the spatial I had to design several microprocessor-based projects. I was responsible for creating the peripheral circuits, more the program which would run on them. Thus, the fundamentals I learned at the IUT later allowed me to understand components which did not even existed at the time.

Digital electronics at that time was dominated by TTL logic circuits, the first to be available with a full range of functions, enabling the creation of powerful logic systems which would otherwise have required meters of transistorized printed circuit boards. The first generation of computers built in France was based on TTL circuits, and we had one at the IUT in Toulouse, which provided a solid introduction to programming. We shall see later what I did with it.

The IUT also offers the opportunity to complete a «project», the design of a complete electronic circuit from start to finish. This kind of experience allows a student to be immediately operational upon entering a company. However, there was a set list of projects, and some students were favored with interesting ones, such as a radio transmitter. I had requested this, thinking of community radio stations or inter-community communications. But instead, I got a pointless «electronic dice» project. I had asked for the radio project, which was therefore formally refused. I don't understand the rationale for having such a list, with good projects and bad ones, instead of allowing more autonomy for those who want it. I wonder if it was just a buddy system, or perhaps already a political ban on radio projects.

There were also genuine end-of-year internships in companies, again with a complete project. I had an internship at a television transmitter in Latronquière, and in my second year, in Toulouse at a laboratory of ENSEEIHT.

My chronic fatigue often hampered my studies at the IUT. For example, in my second year, I missed all my electrical engineering classes! They were the only ones which started at 8:00 a.m. But the biggest problem, however, was the corrupting influence of the Charlie Hebdo critics: according to them, my professors were evil «technocrats», which led me to despise them and commit several minor offenses. These did not have serious consequences in Bordeaux, but they cost me my degree in Toulouse. Even though I had the necessary qualifications, as my hiring at EREMS would later prove. Today, I regret not having experienced the healthy atmosphere I see described in scientific journals, between students and their professors. It did work out well with some, though, like with my internship supervisor at the ENSEEIHT, Mr. Atechian (pronounced Atékian). It is thrilling to finally being «recognized», by being accepted as a peer in prestigious places like laboratories or engineering schools. But I was still too anti-society to really enjoy it. Today I regret it, because it is often through these connections that a scientific career begins. As proof, the countless stories of Alumni in scientific journals.

Mr. Atechian was working on a curious project: electronic circuits in stochastic logic. These are ordinary logic circuits which inputs jump randomly between zero and one, the useful value being the average. AND or OR gates then allow for multiplication and addition, respectively, in stochastic computers. The advantages were low cost and speed, compared to the complex analog multipliers, which led to the use of this system in industrial automation. Microprocessors made this technology obsolete, performing the same task better and more simply. But today, there is renewed talks on stochastic artificial neurons. Indeed, today (2022) artificial neurons are all analog, while biological neurons are impulse-driven. Stochastic neurons would therefore be closer to biological neurons.

My beginnings in computing, and the twelve-semitones musical scale

(Permalink) Written in June 2020.

Of course, we had an introduction to computer programming at the University Institute of Technology (IUT). At the time, programming was still a novelty, reserved for a few engineers and organizations able to buy a computer, the cheapest of which was costing millions. Ours was a Mitra15, a fantastic novelty by the time, French, the first computers with TTL integrated circuits (and also the last, as subsequent ones used microprocessors), with 64k of ferrite cores RAM, a processor frequency of around 10 to 20 MHz, a 5MB hard drive the size of a washing machine with interchangeable rotors—all very advanced features for the time. For creating programs, we still used Fortran code sheets, with one letter per cell, and a typist who converted them in punched cards. The program took an electronic form only when the cards were entered into the machine, and we received the results several days later, in the form of listing paper lined in pale blue and folded accordion-style.

This way of working required careful thinking of the code, as the slightest error entailed a correction cycle lasting several days. Everything had to be calculated: the >n or >=n in the loops, the printing formats, and the program structure itself. For this reason we started by drawing a flowchart, with rectangles for instructions, diamonds for choices, and so on. At the time, this was the only way to manage the program's structure: blocks, loops, routines, etc. Then the instructions had to be created, and in unstructured Fortran, the slightest error ruined the program. This is nothing like how we do today, with structured code that we compile every three minutes, because it is faster to rely on the compiler than to proofread, even for typos.

Of course, we were given a simple exercise, involving a loop and the basic concepts. Strictly speaking, I do not remember exactly what it was. But I saw there an opportunity to verify a curious fact: why is the musical scale divided into twelve semitones, instead of eleven, or thirteen, or ten? Was this choice justified from the point of view of beauty, or was it a «bourgeois censorship» of a different kind of music? To the uninitiated, it might seem odd to use a computer to answer such a question. However, my tinkering on my own electronic organ had taught me that certain chords, for example, C-G, are harmonious chords, the basis of the perfect chord. I had thus discovered that harmonious musical chords are simple ratios of frequencies (using a slide rule, back then!). And the C-G chord corresponds to a 3/2 ratio on a tuned instrument. On a tempered keyboard, like a piano, the ideal ratio is 1.49831, which is close enough to 3/2 for the ear to still find the chord pleasing. But if the frequency difference is too great, beats appear in the lower frequencies, making the chord dissonant. This is how I could, using a computer, check if other scales, based for example on ten, eleven, or thirteen divisions per octave, might contain more harmonious chords than the twelve divisions scale. Something which was completely impossible to test on a keyboard or fretted instrument, and which would have required learning the violin.

I had no trouble convincing the professor to add this program to my exercise. He was even quite pleased with this initiative, and he encouraged me. Despite the working conditions described above, I managed to get my program running on the first try, with just a display error which still left the results legible. And the result was unequivocal: the twelve semitones scale is indeed the best, in terms of the number of possible harmonious chords. The only equally valid alternative is the scale with six divisions, but it is well-known and playable on the piano without modification.

This realization had a profound spiritual significance for me.

Indeed, I was accustomed, from my leftist or Cabuesque reading and buddies, to think that everything was rotten in this society, and the limitation to twelve must have been a bourgeois norm intended to conceal some unknown nook and crannies of the musical landscape. In fact, this was not the case at all, and if the first musicians made this choice, it was with good reason, and not to censor some unknown beauty. (Incidentally, flutes tuned to this twelve-semitone scale have been found dating back… 30,000 years. So the «first musicians» go back a very long way)

Thus, I began to understand that people «from the society» could have done something good, that society was not «entirely rotten», despite what Cabu and the leftists said, despite the toxic example of the papon and polluters.

This idea would also help me to understand the non-duality between progressive action and maintaining a functional society. But it would take me a few more years to fully grasp this. The first step, however, was taken in Bordeaux, a stone's throw from the Foyer Saint Jean, as we are to see in a later subsection.

The non-organic oil mill.

(Permalink) Written in May 2020.

The University Institute of Technology (IUT) wants to be very practical: we have to be ready to work in a company, as soon as we graduate. And for young people new to the workplace, there is a lot to learn about the strange world of companies, and the exotic creatures that inhabit it, like the chiefs and the trade-unionists. The IUT therefore organizes visits of companies to see how things work. For this, we had a two months company internship at the end of our second year. But at the beginning, there also was an afternoon dedicated to visiting a company.

We were offered three to choose from. Two electronics companies, of course, but also an oil mill.

I chose the oil mill, even though I was not interested in that kind of thing, and I found the place rather unpleasant. The reason was what I read in the Vie Claire brochures, or in La Gueule Ouverte (the only ecology press at the time): common cooking oils were heavily adulterated. So I was not going to miss such an opportunity to see things with my own eyes.

And it was true: heating at 250°C, injecting caustic soda, and hexane extraction allowed them to use rotten peanuts (waiting for them to rot at the producers' farms, so that they could buy them cheaper), and to make this tasteless, colorless, odorless stuff, devoid of all its vitamins, which fills the supermarket shelves by pallet-loads.

We were not allowed into the hexane extraction plant, because of the fire risk. But I remember very well that the metal hexane tanks were in a street, and that there were houses just on the other side, twenty meters away. Fifty deaths minimum guaranteed, in case of a mishap.

I do not mention the brand of oil, as I am no longer entirely sure. But it is among the most well-known brands in France. The establishment was located in the heart of Bordeaux (in 1973).

Macrobiotics and the Yin☯Yang Dialectic

(Permalink) Written in August 2019.

The leftist atmosphere in Bordeaux, especially between 1974 and 1975 at the Foyer Saint Jean, had somewhat diminished my interest in ecology and spirituality. But not completely: I continued to read the ecology and scientific press. I also continued to eat wholegrain bread or to bring brewer's yeast as a condiment to the university cafeteria (which earned me disapproving looks several times—how far does the pretense of some to define social norms?). Strictly speaking, I no longer remember where I bought this wholegrain bread in Bordeaux, only that it was a shop in the city center.

But spirituality is patient, even when it has to take circuitous routes. While my aversion to religions hindered me in the form, it did not hindered me in the substance. Thus, some steps from the Foyer Saint Jean, Place des Capucins, there was a macrobiotic shop. (The building seems to no longer exist today, unless it was actually on Rue Jean de Malet). I was already familiar with macrobiotics, having read articles in «La Gueule Ouverte» (which covered everything and often had a much higher intellectual level than its name suggested).

Macrobiotics, or Zen macrobiotics, was founded by a Japanese man, Georges Oshawa. When I was in Bordeaux, it was said that he invented his method while trying to treat the «mysterious illness» (radiation poisoning) of Hiroshima survivors. Today wikipedia gives a different version: «In 1912 he regained his health thanks to the method of Dr. Sagen Ijizuka (1850-1909), who advocated a dietary therapy based on the sodium/potassium balance». Georges Oshawa was a committed pacifist, which, in the fascist Japan of the time, led him to be tortured and sentenced to death twice. He was even censored by the American General MacArthur, head of the occupation forces in Japan. Later, he contributed to the World Federalist Movement with Albert Einstein, Norman Cousins, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Thomas Mann, and Pierre Gevaert, the latter having founded the first company selling macrobiotic products. Still later, Oshawa collaborated with Shri Aurobindo (Auroville) and Taizen Deshimaru (who introduced Zen in the West), wrote or translated spiritual books, built a mini-airplane, and much more.

However, regarding macrobiotics, Georges Oshawa explicitly referred to Zen, and therefore he was familiar with the Middle Way of Buddhism. More precisely, this concept is expressed, in Japanese culture, through the Chinese Yin☯Yang dialectics. The value of macrobiotics lies in presenting the sodium-potassium balance, thus a biochemical concept, using the Yin☯Yang dialectic. This makes this biological parameter directly accessible to our alliesthesia sense (a complement to the sense of hunger, which produces attraction or aversion to food, depending on our internal state). It is therefore a very interesting method for balancing our diet using simple meditations, instead of complex analyses. I still practice it, for example, by eating raw tomatoes with gomasio. Later, in Toulouse, I learned how to make gomasio and I even had a suribachi. But all that was lost in the Faitg catastrophe. You can find gomasio everywhere now, anyway.

The problem with macrobiotics in France, which I think had considerably distorted the movement, is that «the macrobiotes» had interpreted the Yin☯Yang dialectic in a... dualistic way! Such a fundamental contradiction completely ruined their movement, from the very beginning. And they pontificated: «Modern food is Yin, therefore «bad». We must Yang-ify our diet.» As a result, the ingredients sold in the macrobiotic shop were reduced to gomasio and hard dry biscuits, the shopkeeper himself was dry and grumpy (far too Yang, lol), and the «macrobiotes» had a reputation for being intransigent. The only acceptable way to eat vegetables was nikute, a traditional Japanese cooking method involving simmering until the water has reduced, almost like grilling. These ideas even spread beyond the macrobiotic context, and years later I saw people scandalized when I put zucchini in water to make a soup.

As for me, however, I easily understood this dialectic, even back then in Bordeaux, within the leftist context. It must be said that I was already trained in logic and axiomatics, thanks to the Sets Theory and the philosophy I studied in my final year of high school. But I had also already identified the inherent difficulties of these systems, particularly the need for an infinity of Aristotelan statements to describe certain fuzzy or gradated situations, leading to shaky conceptual scaffolding, or to multiple contradictory systems that nothing can discriminate. Yin☯Yang dialectics provides a simple and elegant solution to these problems, by using the intrinsic workings of our neural networks, instead of trying to emulate an Aristotelian calculator. But «curiously», I could not speak about these things with my leftist companions. It was even more taboo than male heterosexuality, lol! This is the subtle reason why I eventually broke with those circles, among other more crass reasons (and even very crass for some, as we shall see).

But if you read about Yin☯Yang dialectics in the press and the media, you will hear that it is «mysticism». For a long time, Wikipedia was speaking of «cosmic energies», and a wikicretin even deleted my Taoist corrections as «personal philosophy»!! On the «rationalist» side, they rant that Yin and Yang are «unobservable», and you even see real scientists repeating this nonsense.

In reality, the Yin☯Yang dialectic is an alternative to the yes/no of Aristotelian logic, or the first axiom of Set Theory. This axiom posits an absolutely true or absolutely false belonging, without gradation. But instead of this all-or-nothing true/false, a Yin☯Yang statement can encompass a whole gradation of values between the Yin or Yang terms, without either term ever being truly excluded: it remains underlying, potential, even giving meaning to the term in action. Moreover, contrary to another widespread misconception, Yin and Yang have the same «moral value», of good or evil, true or false, etc. For example, in a discipline-freedom dialectic, discipline is just only if it serves freedom, and freedom needs discipline in its exercise, otherwise it is inconsistency. This idea can be applied to an infinite number of situations: masculine-feminine, hot-cold (a classic example, also used to explain alliesthesia), freedom-discipline, rigor-leniency (the basis of how the court functions), etc.

These things had been simmering in my mind for years (with a strict prohibition against discussing them, even in the Faitg, lol), and they finally resulted in the first part of my book, «General Epistemology Version 1», which I published in 1999. But the «online publisher» was a crook, charging authors exorbitant fees but not trying to sell, hence the limited distribution of my book. So I decided to put it online shortly after, around 2003, this time in Version 2, correcting errors from the Version 1. I have been working on additions ever since.

More precisely, the Quadripolar Logic© of Chapter I-4 eliminates the risk of a dualistic interpretation of the Yin-Yang dialectic: in a square diagram, Yin is on the right, Yang is on the left, Good is at the top, and evil is at the bottom. Thus, there is no longer room for erroneous or dishonest interpretations, such as saying that Yin would be evil, that women would be inferior, etc.

All of this started with some discussions in a shop in Bordeaux... and a lack of discussion at the Foyer Saint Jean.

We hear less about macrobiotics today. But they were among the pioneers of organic food.

Leftist love experience:
from the sublime to the sordid.

(Permalink) Written in August 2019.

As a teenager, I dreamed several times that I met a woman and we fell in love. She was blonde and dressed in a white tunic. Curiously, she was not the ethereal beauty of fairy tales, instead she had a somewhat rough, ruddy complexion, like that of a peasant. But this gave her a kind of strength, absent from the Disney fairies. These dreams awakened a desire for a magical love story, like in fairy tales. Today, I would say that I desired something elven. Clearly, even the biological desire for love union seeks something of this nature. And it expresses it through dreams, some being very beautiful. It was these dreams, several of which were set in Brittany, which inspired the character of Tuima (a bud, in Quenya) in my story «An Elvish Dream». These fairy-like love dreams are distinctly different from the purely erotic dreams associated with nocturnal emissions, themselves far superior to pornographic dreams. Above all, they are much more satisfying, appealing both to the body, the heart, and the mind.

But, well, the brutal physical desire of my twenties often took precedence over the other aspects.

So, at the Foyer Saint Jean and in the various places I frequented, I made several propositions to women, not all of them fairies. But desire is blind, and I was no exception!

However, I always got the same reply: «Phallocrat! Phallocrat! Phallocrat!» Yet I was very careful not to display any psychological disorder of this kind. Emboldened by my victory over racism, I had tackled other prejudices, especially sexism, and I think I was doing rather well. Being accused of being sexist like a beauf was deeply vexing: the non-recognition of my spiritual efforts to become a better person. And no matter how hard I tried to improve even simple cohabitation, the result remained the same, and even seemed to worsen: «Phallocrat! Phallocrat! Phallocrat!»

More the leftist jargon: the «mecs» (men) and the «nanas» (women), highly offensive terms everywhere else. Indeed, «mec» was initially meaning a pimp, while «Nana», Zola's character, was a man-eater and a prostitute. A language which thus perpetuates what it claims to denounce. I even suspect a marxist influence on these terms: the «mec» (pimp) exploits women, while the «nana» (man-eater) is a proletarian fighting against men! However, in Zola's character, it was pure vice, so taking her as an example significantly diminishes this already shaky marxist view of the battle of the sexes.

These airheads were ultimately very lucky in their ignorance and naiveté that their leftism and pseudo-feminism were harmless pastimes, and that I was already partly non-violent. They would have been far less arrogant if they had ever faced a genuine phallocrat, like that stinking pork Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's right-hand man, who sent millions of people to the Gulag, and above all, was an unrestrained sexual predator: he used to kidnap women every day in his black NKVD limousine, terrorizing Moscow nights and even the gates of schools (!). From there, he deported, killed, or tortured whose who refused him. And the worse is that he was ugly as sin. Sure, if he he had been handsome, he would not have needed to become a marxist.

It was only years later that I understood the incredible absurdity of these people: they had not taken feminism as the emancipation and equality of women, but as a marxist «class struggle» of women against men! The solution to which was... homosexuality between women, in order to put an end to the... «exploitation» by men, that is to say, any heterosexual relationships!! Thus, one of them rejected me, claiming to be a lesbian, and another bluntly asked me, «Why don't you just have sex with X?» (a man)!!! In fact, this misandry is simply the antithesis of phallocracy, and our little leftist community foreshadowed today's female supremacists, who are hijacking the women's equality movement. But who would have talked about quadripolar logic back then, allowing to understand these things without gross mistakes? But I have published this logic since 2003, so that nobody can be a phallocrat or a female supremacist by mistake or from misunderstanding: today it is clearly a choice.

Well, I had already spent a night with a woman in Mont-de-Marsan (and no, she was not from Mont-de-Marsan; they were far too stuck). This young lady was pretty and kind, but we could not conclude, since we had no contraception. By the time, it was a novelty, the Neuwirth Law had just been passed, without yet offering all the possibilities we have today. Even today, some pétainist doctors refuse to insert an IUD in a woman who has never given birth!

Well, that first contact with the female body made a good impression on me: the warm scent of the pubic area, a bit like bread, and the pleasant fruity fragrance of the sex (some call it «pineapple smell», while Asian people speak of «lotus perfume», so that I can say that this perfume exists, it is not a myth). I also remember noticing this perfume on a girl, while playing when I was a small boy (nothing sexual at our ages, lol). I therefore think it is perfectly possible for a woman to remain, if not in the realm of fairies, at least presentable. Can you imagine a Disney princess, or Galadriel, dirty and stinking? These creatures are necessarily sweet and perfumed all over their bodies. With a real woman, we understand that it is more difficult. But I think that no woman who takes care of herself has anything to be ashamed of in the comparison.

At the Foyer Saint Jean, then, I noticed one day that a woman seemed to desire me. If it was her, no accusations of male chauvinism! Things worked out well, and we ended up in the bed in my small room in the Foyer Saint Jean. It was the first time I had ever penetrated a woman. I have seen some buddies in the Foyer making love and scream with pleasure for long minutes! But she remained completely unmoved, to the point where I started to lose my composure, wondering if it was her or me. She quickly made me understand that she wanted a cunnilingus instead of a penetration. Problem: she stank like a dead rat! She had a yeast infection, vaginitis, and probably other firlth. In short, her sex was rotten, emanating an unbearable, fetid odor. Not just the smell of sweat, not even of «locker room» stench, but something sickly, purulent. Useless to say, I lost my erection faster than my shadow did.

So this is what some call sexual liberation: the loss of the most basic respect for their partner! To show up in such a state is far worse than being a chauvinist, it is rape, a denial of humanity. Personally, I would never have dared to approach a woman if I smelled like that.

The truth is that this woman was a tramp in formation. It was not yet visible when I first met her, because she still had decent clothes and a fresh complexion. But she needed no more than three months for her face to start withering! And to scrounge brown tramp clothes…

(Added in December 2025: I now realize that this woman may have been a victim of the flap toilets. But I do not absolve her: she could have consulted. Other possible causes: bad baby hygiena, rape, or men who put their sausage in the gutter. Then the contaminated vaginal flora can remain for life...)

If you are wondering how tramps, zonards and other beaufs can bear their own smell, here is the answer: they like it! (See also the sub-chapter «Drugs and Filth», which strictly speaking begins at this point.). Some leftists even went as far as openly embracing this «right to be dirty», like Jerry Rubin, who stank. He created his own movement, the «Yippies»: communist Hippies (yes, really... only in the USA). Then, not afraid of incoherence, he became a «yuppie» capitalist, before dying of stupidity while crossing a six-lane highway on foot.

I admit that this experience was traumatic. For a long time, the smell of that sow was what came in my mind when I saw a female sex. It had a lasting impact on my relationships with women, far more than the sexism I experienced during my childhood. I consider presenting oneself in such a state to be a fully-fledged sexual assault. Legally, rape, since there was penetration.

Of course, I did not do what she asked.

And of course, she was the one who became furious with me. She even opposed «my ideas» (which she did not even knew, always be wary of people who know your ideas better than you do). She quickly found another companion, seemingly not disgusted by the horror: Conf, our leftist «leader»! This is how this guy appeared to me for what he truly was: pathetic and disgusting. I don't dare to think about it, but I imagine he must have applied his marxist principles, namely that disgust for filth is a bourgeois conditioning.

You now understand that this was one of the reasons which finally led me to leave this pathetic group, and more generally, Bordeaux and the horrible vibe of its tens of thousands of cesspools. Once, the one at the Foyer overflowed into the common courtyard: we thought we were normally connected to the sewer system, so we had not thought at emptying it.

When I left the Foyer, I allowed this woman to keep my room, in exchange for a small service: to safely store here a box of my most valuable belongings, including my class notes. She agreed, but when I came back for them, she had dumped the box in the damp cellar, exposed to all the thieves.

Lame.

(To be continued in the next chapter: how the ecologists manage with sex and love)

Memories of Richard Trigaux:
Bordeaux and the leftists, 1973-1975

Why Bordeaux?

How I missed spirituality… and cults.

Short ethnographic lexicon of the 1970’ in France

The leftists.

Other groups at Bordeaux

The sociopathic coup d'état by pinochet in Chile.

The Free Clinic.

The MLAC
(Movement for the freedom of abortion and contraception)

The Shadow of maurice papon

My victory over racism and sexism

The «Foyer Saint Jean» residence

Community experiences in 1974

Electronics studies at the University Institute of Technology (IUT).

My beginnings in computing, and the twelve-semitones musical scale

The non-organic oil mill.

Macrobiotics and the Yin☯Yang Dialectic

Leftist love experience:
from the sublime to the sordid.

Small collection of leftist sophistry.

The young women from the child «welfare» system

The Foyer Saint Jean: the end.

Memories of Richard Trigaux:Bordeaux and the leftists, 1973-1975

Why Bordeaux?

How I missed spirituality… and cults.

Short ethnographic lexicon of the 1970’ in France

The leftists.

Other groups at Bordeaux

The sociopathic coup d'état by pinochet in Chile.

The Free Clinic.

The MLAC(Movement for the freedom of abortion and contraception)

The Shadow of maurice papon

My victory over racism and sexism

The «Foyer Saint Jean» residence

Community experiences in 1974

Electronics studies at the University Institute of Technology (IUT).

My beginnings in computing, and the twelve-semitones musical scale

The non-organic oil mill.

Macrobiotics and the Yin☯Yang Dialectic

Leftist love experience:from the sublime to the sordid.

Small collection of leftist sophistry.

The young women from the child «welfare» system

The Foyer Saint Jean: the end.

Memories of Richard Trigaux:
Bordeaux and the leftists, 1973-1975

The MLAC
(Movement for the freedom of abortion and contraception)

Leftist love experience:
from the sublime to the sordid.