Chapter 10

Reflections

So, a year passes by in this ambiguous situation.

Brigitte less often goes to Peyreblanque, for a lot of reasons. There is winter, cold and snow, which dissuade her. The mountain is harsh, in winter. But also, little by little, Frédérique influences her. He suggests that her presence may be a problem for the sessions and the visitors, or that it is better not to disturb the intimacy of their couple. Which is arch-false: those of Peyreblanque appreciate very much Brigitte's discreet and warm presence, but they cannot openly try to make her come more often. One more lie is not a problem, for Frédérique. And Brigitte, who perfectly feels the atmosphere, cannot bear the disagreement between Peyreblanque and Frédérique.

But he is careful not to tell why it happens! Leaving Brigitte struggling with the wildest assumptions. On the contrary, from time to time, he tells a few stories against them. Often true, by the way. None of the inhabitants of Peyreblanque is perfect, and none pretended to be so. It happens to each of them, as to everybody, to make blunders, or unwise things. In Frédérique's mouth, it becomes shenanigans, revealing symptoms, serious psychological problems. Skilful, he does not openly denigrates Peyreblanque, neither he invents some gross slander which may trigger Brigitte's suspicion. He shows them rather as childish, immature beings, who play things they do not know, and sometimes do evil by stupidity.

Outside the sessions, Peyreblanque receives visitors, guests. Some of them may disagree with the residents or even get angry. When the echoes of such disputes reach Frédérique's house, they are very selectively amplified: «You see they did not understand Ludwig. Ludwig believes that trials and suffering are necessary for spiritual development. They were not tolerant enough with him, they could not accepted his truth.»

In reality, fortunately, most visitors leave Peyreblanque with more ideal, more Wisdom, or more strength to overcome their ordeals. But these visitors, Frédérique does not speak of them, they do not exist for him, they are not in «his truth».

Another reason which immobilizes Brigitte is the work Frédérique entrusts her with. She must now type his letters, because he has a scrambled writing all in barbed wire, which would undoubtedly be very revealing to a real graphologist. But this is not enough: he meddles with literature, and for hours she has to decipher his tangled perorations. Oh, if Brigitte had really read, how she would have been horrified by the way he shuffles the cards, his ability to mix good and evil, to better accept the latter! And it is this kind of twisted and ambiguous speech that beginners take for great wisdom! What a waste of time, of energy, how much useless suffering!

She still finds, between the hollow Earth and the escapades of the masters after Frédérique, some small sentences rather unpleasantly sounding to her ears. Oh we are not going to comment on them all, there will be no more room in this book for pretty things. Just take an example:

«Spiritual masters have no morals».

At the point where she is now, Brigitte knows many things, by her readings and her discussions with the people of Peyreblanque. Of course Frédérique made her swallow a lot of nonsense, but essentially anecdotal (his past lives, his sexual theories...) because as we suspect, he is far from being able to maintain even a remotely profound discussion on truly spiritual matters. This is fortunate, because he could only superficially pollute Brigitte's mind, without being able to attack her deep faculty of judgment.

But let us see this story of the morals of the masters. We actually find texts from which we can extract chains of words such as «the masters have no morals», which, taken out of context, seem to mean that the masters are free to do anything, good or bad, whatever comes in their minds. And this is what Frédérique means, clever enough never to actually say that he is a master, but never failing to implicitly assimilate himself to one of them.

 

But Brigitte has a slightly more acute view of the thing, since her monologue under the stars in her Mother Grand's village, where, as we remember, she first rejected any formal morality, to recognize then that the question was not so simple.

You can not do anything in life. Certain words, certain gestures, do good to people, help them to be themselves, or on the contrary, make suffer, destroy expressions. It is to be more sure that morality was invented. Avoiding suffering is really the only motivation worth accepting to bear moral rules and laws, all small or big freedom thieves.

Unfortunately, it appears that this not always is the real motivation behind some allegedly moral systems, which openly call for exploitation, submission, murder, such as this «Travail Famille Patrie» of sinister memory, and all those absurd or cruel taboos which all around the world create so much unnecessary suffering... Such pseudo-morals are only systems of dogmatic and arbitrary beliefs, dangerous wrecks going adrift, which are perpetuated against and against the painful absurdities they produce. It is these arbitrary taboos, often idiots, which led to question morality, for example by the Libertines, and more recently in May 1968. Brigitte had cheerfully followed her faculty friends, before suspecting that there still must be some universal reference not to be thrown too hastily with the dirty water of this bath.

 

But even if with perfect honesty and sincerity we try to build an ideal Aristotelian moral system, then we face three big issues.

The first is that all aspects of human life cannot be apprehended by mere material, external observation. Especially the most important of them, intentions, feelings, mind, soul, are essentially not observable concrete facts, on which to rely to find a course of action. A simple example is that of a customer who forgets to present an item at the cash register. The law says that there is theft only if there is intention. Now, an intention is unobservable by any material means! As judges are rarely clairvoyant mediums, they are forced to enter the human field, sensitive, immediate and non-formal, that is to rely on their sensitivity.

The second limitation of Aristotelian rule systems (laws or morals) is that of gradation. For example, between a brutal sexual assault and a pure and healthy love, we can meet in reality a whole series of intermediate cases: simple threat, influence, consent withdrawn after the act... It is like in paint: a gradient, where we go continuously from one colour to a totally different one. When to put the barrier? Gradation plays on the degree, the quantity, but also on the meaning itself of the words. The question is important, and unavoidable, because the fact of wanting to hold in 100% yes or no statements what cannot hold there is generating a lot of unnecessary suffering.

The third limitation to rule systems is even more annoying: There are an infinity of situations, and even an infinity of sorts of situations. Now the Infinite is fundamentally unclassifiable, far-fetched and irrational: an infinite number of rules are needed to describe it in its entirety. And actually, since many years a whole human life is not enough to only read once all the law texts!

(Note of the author: I simplified this passage on morality, compared to the long original development. Instead, the most recent results are presented in a more didactical way in the sixth part of my book «General Epistemology».)(Actually it is this chapter of the Eolis which was the start for the book on Epistemology)

 

For these three reasons, it is impossible to make a law which is always right: whether it is to direct others or to direct oneself, sooner or later we must do without any convention, be it legal, moral or religious, and consult our Human Sensibility, intuition, heart, soul, flowers, titmouses or stars... And some people do it, ignoring the laws of human society. We then make of them heroes, precursors... Once they are well assassinated.

All this led us apparently far from Brigitte's ideas on the moral of the masters. But with the foregoing, it is now easy to understand why the true cosmic morality, and especially the one of the masters, cannot be described in a book: it cannot be described in propositions all in yes or no (that is, Aristotelian). Even our rigid language does not lend itself to it. The best way to make it understood, is to show it in action, as in this story.

 

Imagine a perfect master, who would have developed a gift of clairvoyance: in each situation, he would know directly what is good or not. He would not need to follow ready-made rules of morality to stay in the good, since every second he would know the exact consequences of his words and his actions, and he could always abstain if they are adverse. Even, since there always are situations where a given moral rule or formal law would be evil, they would restrain our master in his respect for the Good! Conversely, there are actions which generally are harmful, but that he would accomplish in certain justified cases. Or duties of which it would abstain sometimes, without an ordinary person being able to know exactly when or why.

In this we can effectively say that an ideal master would not need a system of moral rules to stay in the Good. But he does not go as far as amorality, let alone into immorality. Even under the pretext of freeing himself from perverted false morals. He simply does not need any pre-established rules of morality. It is to mean this gradated situation that the assertion was made that «the masters have no morals». But this expression is way too ambiguous, and it is better not to use it!

But real people are rarely clairvoyant to know the exact consequences of all their actions. Thus Brigitte, who has nevertheless acquired some understanding and above all some intuition, has adopted an attitude more within her reach: she follows a spiritually-based morality, even if sometimes she leaves it if an intuition, or if evidence indicates, always with the aim of getting closer to the ideal good. This still sometimes leaves her with embarrassing uncertainties, but at a moment we need to throw ourselves in situations, to commit, to engage, and give of ourself to testify of our choices... Only the one who dares to sing take the risks to do false notes.

Although a spiritually-based morality is fundamentally subject to the same limitations as others, it should not be inferred that it would be ambiguous or ineffective. Think of the famous «do not do to others what thou would not want them to do to thee», a strong enough precept to remain valid in the most unexpected situations! With some search, the teachings of the Gospels, the Tao or the Buddha are quite difficult to prove false, if one retains well the deep spirit and not the folkloric literal text. And a dose of intuition and sensitivity comes to soften it.

 

 

We cannot force all the spiritual teachings into Aristotelian logical propositions in all or nothing. If we try to do it, then contradictions appear, paradoxes, and even nonsenses. We can only apprehend them by meditation. This is why the true teachings are transmitted by spiritual experiences that the adept must experience himself. This is an important point, so as not to see paradoxes or contradictions between different moral and spiritual teachings. Another point is that we must not focus on a given system, and all the less have «our» ideology. We must not artificially oppose such systems between them, but on the contrary accept that they sometimes seem to lead us to paradoxes. These paradoxes do not exist: they are only an appearance due to the limits of Aristotelian thought. (See more about non-conceptual thinking in Chapter I-9 of my book «General Epistemology».)

 

Let's put a little non-duality, Yin-Yang dialectics, a seed of intuition, a good package of meditation, water with practical good sense, and everything is solved very elegantly!

Basically, in a Yin-Yang dialectic, we have two propositions (which are opposite in Aristotelian logic, or more precisely in dualism), for example, hot-cold, male-feminine, active-receptive, and so on. A little meditation helps to understand that these two are inseparable, and express themselves simultaneously. Even when one is to dominate, the other remains implicit and necessary. This only seems «illogical» and «contradictory» if one tries to put round pineapples in square boxes (apply Aristotelian reasoning to something which is not Aristotelian). There are many Yin-Yang dialectics which are important to society: rigor☯leniency (at the root of the functioning of Justice), innovation☯stability (which governs political changes), discipline☯freedom, and so on. The Yin-Yang dialectic is also at the root of important notions such as the Middle Way. (The detailed reflections which followed on non-Aristotelian logic were also moved to the first part of my book «General Epistemology»).

 

Wait a moment, friend reader, before thinking about what Brigitte feels with such a subtle thought when she discovers the crude approximations, the simplistic certainties of Frédérique, all mingled with an apparently very scholarly coating, very spiritual, but which does not support any analysis.

It is as if, entering a painting museum, she found daubs, or squeaks in a concert hall. So, in all simplicity, Brigitte concludes that Frédérique does not know everything. It is amazing from him, but it is like spiritualistic books: a lot of right things mixed with a little of fake stuff. It will be enough to explain it to him. Among spiritualists, among consciousnesses, this can not be a problem, and he will most certainly discover eagerly what Brigitte learned from her side. And then it is her intuition which guides her, so he can only listen to her.

Then Brigitte undertakes Frédérique. In long discussions (again not to go to Peyreblanque), she explains everything. The Yin-Yang dialectic, the intuitive morality, the intuition... Frédérique approves, listens to it, says yes with a studious look, questions some secondary arguments. But of course all this is way beyond his modest reach. He is still in the pre-rational stage, the poor bloke. For him, Aristotle is still in twenty-five centuries. And he does not like being caught in ignorance. He says nothing, but insensibly his jaw tightens... The honeymoon is over.

 

As formerly the Baron, Frédérique becomes heinous of Brigitte. He will avenge himself from her intelligence, her sincerity. Repetition of the same scenario, at a different level. The Baron manoeuvred in the low earth level, in the gross. Frédérique will use the spiritualizing blather, psychology.

Then: «Brigitte, you are a beginner, a truth seeker. You have not yet passed the stage of intellectual knowledge. One should not confuse intuition with a prejudice: intuition is very subtle, it takes a lifetime of asceticism to develop it. We must be careful not to judge everything, these things are beyond us, especially with regard to teachers that we are not sophisticated enough to understand...»

Brigitte, who had not yet realized that she was no longer happy, ends up feeling unhappy. Especially since this beautiful summer passes almost entirely in the cold unhealthy shadow of Frédérique, instead of the sun of Peyreblanque.

 

What is she dreaming by these times? As it started. The house with the rotten floor above the more and more infect cellars. And the power lines which come back in force, throwing their impassable net through a tempting blue sky!

 

And she is now totally dependent on Frédérique: her little savings, she gave them full-heartedly for the typewriter. She has long ago stopped renting her purple room. There is nothing left in her bank account. Even her unemployment allowance ran out, gone to the maintenance of the small household. Without any more personal money, she can even not buy a treat or a magazine without having to discuss the opportunity with him. Without a car, not even a bike, wherever she wants to go, she must always ask him to take her... When he does not have «work». And two hours to go to Peyreblanque by foot, without boots for the snow, it is no longer very spontaneous... Even on their little mailbox, there is only the name of Frédérique («because of the visits») and you have to write to Brigitte «at Frédérique»...

She should not have a child now! She had not thought of it so far, but suddenly this event scares her. She attributes it to the gloomy prospects of misery hovering over their union. She tries to reduce the relations to the supposed infertile periods, but it is difficult for Mister to accept this limitation. He insists, becomes caressing, invading. She gives way unwillingly. To him who controls and transcends his sexual drive, it should not be a problem! But no, it is Brigitte who «has anxieties», who «is selfish», and so on. Frédérique instinctively manipulates newspeak...

The spiritual union is turning to the TV drama.

 

This deterioration of the situation makes Brigitte afraid of harmful repercussions on the development of her consciousness. Fortunately this is not true, at least not at the stage where she is in. She again has her strange half-dreams when she wakes up, with shivers, and other sensations of shocks through her body, lights in her eyes, or sounds as if a projectile passed abruptly near her head. She will be forced to recognize them for what they are: the beginning of an astral voyage! And indeed some morning... (Fortunately Frédérique is not here) during one of these so-called dreams, she successfully leaves her body. Sensation of tearing, and she floats, light. How to move? Just visualize herself doing it. And here she comes up to the ceiling, with all the sensations: acceleration, displacement of the different parts of her new body (what is called kinesthetic sense, very developed in astral). It is very pleasant, she has a feeling of breathing, or rather of impregnating herself by all her pores with a more subtle, more invigorating, more fluid and lighter air than the one of Earth! It even is somewhat bright, alive...

She contemplates the small room from an unusual point of view: the ceiling. This room is very ordinary, all cluttered with books and papers, because Frédérique also uses it as office. On top of the cheap wardrobe cabinet, are spread photos or postcards, muddled by her slightly confused vision.

Suddenly she fears she can not find her body back. But it is simple: it is enough to visualize her again in it, and instantly, without intermediary path, she reintegrates it and returns to the ordinary life.

No! It is not possible! She experienced that! She got to duplicate herself! Ah, friends readers, what a moment of emotion for any spiritualist... She who believed that it would take years of training and a great mastery of... of what exactly? She starts feeling annoyed to hear Frédérique and his visitors talking about these masters all the time, without ever knowing exactly what are these mysterious masters that we never see in real life.

Fortunately, these states only occur when Frédérique is absent. Happily, because he would disturb them by his snoring or his untimely gestures. When at last the mists of sleep are completely dissipated, here is Brigitte thinking. Was it really real? Has not she been the toy of some illusion? Did not she just dreamed? How to know? She needs something objective, a proof. The wardrobe!

Brigitte emerges from her bed, naked, grabs the chair which serves as a bedside table, and climbs like a kid in search of jams. She never poked up there. Here they are! They are there, as she had seen them, photos with characters on a background of greenery. Brigitte, ignorant of the freshness which makes her shiver, perched on her chair, stretching to see better, is all to the wonderful throbbing of the great moments! Oh yes, she went out in astral! This really exists! And she is capable of it! The mind can really live out of the body, and this time it is not a book which says it, it is her personal experience which shows her!

We need to understand her: for her, until now, spirituality was mostly about learning somewhat odd things and mourning bad habits, such as eating meat. Not very rewarding, in fact, and it was only her powerful idealistic aspiration which supported and pushed her in this direction. Now she is savouring the first fruits!

It would be hard to get her off the spiritual path now.

Just a regret: her astral vision of Frédérique's room is in barely coloured grey, while she was told that in astral the colours are much more beautiful than those of the material world. No doubt this defect is due to her lack of habit. And then, why to think only at coming back, she would have more enjoyed this state.

 

Finally she looks at the photos. And here we are again in the TV series. It is Frédérique, his arm on the hips of an unknown woman. Probably pictures of his previous wife, that he hurriedly threw over the cabinet, just before inviting Brigitte to bed, the first night. He will have forgotten to burn them.

Brigitte, still confident, does not realize yet what the meaning is. It is true that they are not very compromising. This gesture could be familiar: a friend, a sister, or even due to a joke of the photographer. Yet they look quite as if... Try, friends readers, to intuitively differentiate photos of artificial couples and real lovers: it is pretty easy, you will see. Why, then, does the stranger lady smile so sadly? Brigitte, still pushed by a vague intuition, takes the photos and stuffs them deep in her personal bag.

From that, no more than from her astral experience, she will not say a word to Frédérique. She would de eager to tell him about her experience, but she feels restrained by a kind of modesty. That she does not explain herself. Ah...

Brigitte actually arrives at the stage where she gets a sense of déjà vu when she opens one of the spiritual books which clutter Frédérique's library. Inevitably, these books are written by so many superficial little masters who are just beating around the bush, extolling the spectacular parapsychological exploits of imaginary masters without being given other explanations than «they are strong», with no other means of verification than «if we do not see them it is because our karma does not allow it». Brigitte, who is now mastering her meditation, would like to know how to go a step further, and stop being a «proponent of spirituality» to become someone who lives her spirituality concretely. She suspects that she can, even with difficulty, develop an unconditional love for all beings, even the most vile, and be able to give them the desire to progress and to understand. But she is still very far from understanding how to get magical or extrasensory powers as if Frédérique's books...

In fact, we could qualify this literature of spirituality-fiction, just as there is science fiction. And the bad spirituality-fiction is, inevitably, as silent on how to obtain spiritual realizations as bad science-fiction is on the functioning of its spaceships! Today its authors prefer to place their stories in a distant and unverifiable past (in the time of Jesus, or better of Atlantis...) rather than ridicule themselves by telling extraordinary Tibetan stories that we can see now that no real Tibetan ever heard of them.

 

In the meantime here is Brigitte who takes a perspective of all the movements for a better world she had met so far.

Long before, when she was still a little girl, there had been the Hippies. Ah, they were beautiful, they were pure, with their flowers, Peace and Love. Hippies no more exist for a long time. They remained a pleasant dream, a naive reference. And the idiots who call you «Hippie» as an insult are only exhaling their own inner bitterness...

It is easy to see what was wrong with Hippies. But few people retained what they had delicious...

By the way, did you ever heard what the Hippies went to look for in Kathmandu? They sought Consciousness, just like Brigitte. Yes, Hippies were a spiritual movement. Is it to hide that that they were so much denigrated? Some thought they found this awareness in drugs, but few of them actually found it. To have undertaken such a long and dangerous journey, to fail so near the goal! Indeed, there just had a few kilometres more to go, just outside Kathmandu, and those who went there really found what they were looking for, and so much more.

Then there was May 1968. Is it by chance, if other movements also burst at the same time, in Prague, in Brazil, and in many other countries. An outburst oh frustration, a fever of ideals all blurred with violence, sometimes recovered by fascism, as in mao's «cultural revolution», the most horrible moment that humanity ever experienced.

May 1968 just calmed down, here are the idealists embarking on communities without leaders. The ideal was sketchy, not spiritual enough, problems badly evaluated. Most of them broke their teeth on selfishness, the desire for power, the terrible individualism. There too, it is convenient, many years after, to take excuse of the failure of this movement to remain on a timorous vision of collective life. Would it not be better to honestly draw the only true conclusion: that there is no other way than to cultivate the garden of the soul, to root out all the weeds? The few communities which were succeeded, such as the Ark of Lanza del Vasto, show us that this path is quite feasible and accessible to all. There is no excuse for the failures of communities.

In France, the community were also known as Marginal. The Marginal movement has entered history today, and despite its flaws, the social projects, the self-help economy and the other positive ideas it has attempted to embody, are now belonging to the collective heritage of Humanity. It is then surprising that the word «marginal» is nowadays used to describe people who are maladjusted to all social life: delinquents, drug addicts, tramps, devoid of any ideal and any project? Should we see in this modification of meaning a deliberate mental manipulation of the newspeak type? (Added later: or was it this movement which condemned itself with taking such a pejorative name?)

Then came the ecologist movement, which was a little out of energy by the time of this story, in 1984. It had abandoned its people friendly organization, where each member was responsible and Sincere with himself, to become an ecologist party. It was the last solution after sacrificing a joyful and powerful egregore to interior quarrels of little value. A clear influence of the extreme left had brought to the movement a political sense and a vision of social justice, but also violence and the rejection of spirituality. Ecology has been able to emerge from this violence, but the weakness in spiritual insight already leads to a certain isolation, and could cost a lot when some deadlines will come...

Despite this, the ecology movement is the most positive by its achievements. Things went much faster than Brigitte had extrapolated! Fortunately, ideas do not spread only through newspapers and the media, they also go through intuitive ways, they even appear spontaneously where and when they are needed. The Spirit blows where it wants, towards the West, towards the East, towards the South. The barbed wire can not stop it, not even the television stupidity mongering. To inform a Chilean that ecology exists seemed utopian, it was said. And yet there are, in Chile and elsewhere, ecologists. The good thing about the «utopias» is that they are often the only ones to keep going where all the «realistic» theories failed.

Another movement to echo in public opinion is the movement for Peace. At the time of this narrative, it is running out of steam in front of the promises of the rulers and the negotiators. Curiously, in this era of cold war between the US and the USSR, Brigitte feels that the arrival of a man of peace at the head of the USSR (What was not obvious at the time of the story in 1984) is the only solution to loosen the blockade of the East. But it is not the panacea: he will have the tough task. indeed confusing freedom with market economy would bring a hard disillusionment! (Note of the author during the re-reading of 1998: It was! But how to get by, as long as there are some who do not understand...)

An extremely important action of the peace movement was the series of global meditations for peace. The most powerful, which probably gathered more than half a billion people, thanks to the action of the great religious leaders, had not yet taken place at this moment of the story. But it undoubtedly had a considerable influence. It is thanks to such actions that humanity evolves much more quickly than if relying on individual means alone.

Other movements also appeared, but without yet crossing the ramp of the big media, like the defence of animals.

What diversity! This goes from dog advocates who eat other animals (inconsistency!) to vegetarians, including struggles against vices such as vivisection, hunting, bullfights. Good, but Brigitte begins to become aware of an inconsistency: She is vegetarian so as not to make animals suffer, but animals... eat each other. There are raptors, predators, parasites... Brigitte now understands why she felt uncomfortable on her first mountain trip with her ecologist friends, when they suddenly remained agape while seeing a raptor, despite there were plenty of other more appealing birds around. But what to do? Does this natural evil answer to some necessity, or is it also to be rejected? Brigitte cannot bring herself to eliminate predators. But at least we should not reintroduce them where they disappeared! Ah, if she went to Peyreblanque instead of being encrusted with this Frédérique with narrow conceptions, she would learn that there are harmonious solutions even for these apparently insoluble problem!

As for the very fact of being vegetarian, it is the main spiritual value, which is made concrete: Love. Respect. Now, when Brigitte meets someone (not often at Frédérique's) she inquires if he is a vegetarian, or if at least he admits that vegetarian practice is a good thing. In case of a negative answer to these two questions, she does not look further. She proclaims loudly that to be hostile to vegetarians is a sure sign of hatred of life, more or less hidden. Even Frédérique is careful not to contradict her, oh la la! He feels that this is her sensitive point, that he would lose all credit to touch it...

There is not really a vegetarian organization... which makes many opportunities missed. But, this way, we can not make a fashion with a practice which requires a concrete personal commitment. This does not prevent this inescapable ideal of spreading through the plays of friendships, and, like a rhizome, to sink deep into the collective consciousness of Humanity, and to resurface and bloom in the most unexpected places, after an enigmatic underground journey. Thus the vegetarian ideal flourishes in the whole world, in ordinary families of which it is often the only asset, and which often do not dare to stand out. Hence the frequent attitude of being a vegetarian at home and eating «normally» in public.

The stake of vegetarian practice is significant: slaughterhouses and animal farms (industrial, traditional and «organic» all combined) are by far the greatest source of suffering in the world! A single non-vegetarian human needs thousands of animals slaughtered in his life, the suffering of which, between exploitation, transportation and murder, is comparable to that of the deportees to the death camps. Even in the darkest of nazi barbarism, the increase in human suffering did not weigh heavily in front of the usual toll of animals.

Where all this suffering is leading? To poison the human spirit, to blacken it, to confuse it, to stir up hatreds, conflicts. To favour, and even to create terrible diseases, which find in our weakened psyches an ally opening the doors of our normally impassable immune defences.

Meat, although it is not a drug in the chemical sense of the word, is addictive through the perversion of taste, smell and appetite. Above all, it produces a very serious form of mental intoxication: to accept the suffering and the destruction of other beings as a legit means to satisfying one's personal pleasure. No hard drug has such a terrible effect.

 

But the most important movement by its significance is undoubtedly the spiritualist movement. Because it goes to the bottom of things, and seeks the deep meaning of life, without which nothing leads nowhere.

Studying and applying spiritual laws, love between beings, mutual respect, mutual help, harmony, karma, reincarnation.

Brigitte, after her brief but striking experience in the astral world, ends up feeling all this, no longer as beautiful theories, but as a superior reality, at work behind the theatre scenery of ordinary life. Already she begins to aspire to a more interior spirituality, deeper than the bookish spirituality she sees around her.

 

A common problem for all these movements, ecology, animals, peace, spirituality, is compartmentalization, specialization. Brigitte has a feeling of an exhausting fragmentation, which in the long run is expensive. All these movements would gain so much from fertilizing each other! And it is a shambles, with dubious theories which take the opportunity to spread.

Worse, Brigitte feels that all these movements have more or less in common the same defect: rejection of science. Of course science is not innocent, it must be reoriented, but its spirit of method and rigour is out of the question. It is precisely this rigour which is missing in all these movements!

Brigitte regrets not being able to talk about ecology with Frédérique. (Of course she cannot!) The efforts of the latter to bring back organic food from his shopping are becoming more and more distant.

But she is thinking. Her who was criticized for wanting to change the world alone, now the world is changing. Millions of people are starting to wake up. Bridgeheads everywhere are popping up. Of course, instead of eliminating the limits, most of these people just carry them a little further. But, compared to a world where there would be only square houses, this situation is still a progress.

The bridgeheads will grow. Most movements are progressing. If an obstacle slows down somewhere, then a new wave shakes up the sclerotic frames and pushes the boundaries again. We must not go too fast. To hurry slowly. There is extreme urgency, but also an absolute need to give the majority the time to understand. Would a single movement integrating all trends be accessible to the entire population? Did not Brigitte started her own journey with a quite outdated small group of leftist pals? Did not she started with refusing all spirituality? Had she not been braying with E... against the «sectarian vegetarians» and the «mystic nutters»?

What progress since her debuts in the faculty, so close in the calendar but already so far in her mind! She thinks of Roger who told her about «another movement» which would go «even further than ecology». Oh how this had intrigued her! It is not one, but several other movements she discovered. And what a discovery! The friendly organic farmers (the first), the poems of their children, all this spiritual splendour, the astral journey, the eternal life of the soul in the strange circumstances we have seen, the important vegetarian practice... Ah these stories in the faculty, the despicable false union, the crooked teacher who falsified the notes, the friends who smoked weed, as all this seems childish to her...