Peter:

>The June 26 - July 2, issue of the French weekly L'EXPRESS has a ten
>page article on instincto and meta-psychoanalysis with color photos of
>Burger and Montrame. My French is not good enough to translate it but a
>friend of mine has promised to read it and give me a summery of it that
>I will post on the list some time next week - unless of course one of
>our French speaking subscribers does it in the meantime.

I don't know if it is worth talking about that here, since it doesn't
deal with nutrition, but rather with "meta". Since I don't know anything
about the latter theory, I don't know to what extent the article is
accurate, but given the other assumptions, I think the journalists
took the worst parts and patched them together. Maybe you should be
aware that in France, one of the subjects that are most often dealt
with is pedophilia. And another one is sects. So, when the title of an
article reads "Exclusif: le gourou de la pedophilie", you can bet that
it will attract many readers... especially when you see the photo of
a man with long hair smelling a durian, with the comment quoted from
Burger "L'amour avec un enfant, c'est une magie ou le corps n'est pas
exclu" (love with children is something magic, and doesn't exclude
the body).

Here are the main ideas of the article:

1) People working at Orkos or at Montrame, including children are exploited.
they work between 8 and 10 jours a day, for 30 F/hr (5$/hour). Given the
high price of the food, I guess that beyond working, eating and
@#$%ing, they don't have much money to spend. However, the financial status
of Orkos is quite surprising (they are highly indebted, etc).

2) Many children coming at Montrame, of various ages (boys and girls)
have undergone sexual practices of various kinds (I am reluctant to
translate the details).

The article summarizes the contents of the "meta" seminars:

Meta 1: the failure of the relationship in couples; necessity to have
triangular relationships"

Meta 2: The sole homosexual relationship is able to produce energy

Meta 3: Sexual intercourse with children are recommended

Meta 4: Sodomy is a sacred act.

[I don't know if all of that is accurate]

Then, they quote his book "les enfants du crime". The basic idea is that
children, having incestuous pulsions during their oedipian period, are
frustrated by the taboos of our society. He proposes to let children
express these pulsions.

So, nothing explicit (you of course won't expect him to publish
something explicit). And Burger denies that there could be any
sexual aggression at Montrame, says: "Personally, I am against pedophilia.
The need for love of children has nothing to do with the deeds of a
pedophile. The difference between those is the same as between a rape
and a response to love. Only 200 years ago, people were absolutely
free to perform those things. The need for love of children is something
magical, which doesn't exclude the body. The choice is up to the child, and
the adult is at first passive and open to the child. That's the
difficult part.

My $0.02 worth interpretation: Burger wants to change the sexual conventions
of society, so that sexual practices with children will no longer be
forbidden, will be natural. The sexual instinct of children shouldn't
be repressed, and having sexual intercourse with children is not
harmful if the child demands it. On the contrary, not doing so only
traumatizes the child. That shouldn't be compared with pedophilia,
because a pedophile acts egoistically (thus traumatizes the child),
whereas Burger (and others) have sexual contacts only when the
partner consents.

My opinion: Burger goes too far. He tries to justify his homosexual and
pedolhiliac pulsions with scientific theories. Those theories may
be interesting, but you cannot change society like that... Maybe
creating an instincto-land around Montrame, with its own laws, could
work, I don't know, but it would definitely look like a sect...
And in fact, it would probably fail. The foundation of instincto-nutrition
was evolution. Civilizations are also subject to evolution. If
their rules don't work, they degenerate and disappear. And Burger
wants to create a society where there are no frustrations? That would
be the ideal society, but so far, the "natural" mechanism of selection
hasn't produced any society close to that ideal... So I doubt that
a single man, were he a genius (and I don't think it is the case of
Burger), can create the ideal society.

Anyway, some kinds of frustrations exist among animals too. Many animals,
like chimps or bonobos, are social beings, they have a hierarchy, etc...
and relations of power exist. And even among non-social animals, not
finding food is a kind of frustration too. A reasonable objective is
to keep frustrations at a reasonable level. And you don't necessarily
have to sodomize boys for that.

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis