[Ed. note: This piece previously appeared in _Georgia Skeptic_, Vol. 4, No. 2, and originated in a post on the Usenet newsgroup sci.skeptic.] THE HUNDREDTH MONKEY by Rick Moen Have you heard of the "Hundredth-Monkey Phenomenon"? It approaches the status of holy writ among some New Agers. According to Lyall Watson's widely-quoted[1] book _Lifetide_[2], around the year 1952, young monkeys on the Japanese island of Koshima figured out how to make sweet potatoes (provided by primatologists) more edible by washing them. They then taught their peers and parents, until, by 1958, this behaviour was found among widely-spread members of the troop. So far, so good. Then, in that year, a sort of group consciousness developed among the monkeys, when, say, the _hundredth_ monkey began washing potatoes. Suddenly, almost _all_ the monkeys began doing so. Further, "the habit seems to have jumped natural barriers and to have appeared spontaneously . . . in colonies on other islands and on the mainland in a troop at Takasakiyama." This anecdote has been used to provide ideological support to such diverse notions as telepathy and nuclear disarmament -- you, the reader, could be the "hundredth monkey" necessary for global transformation. What gets lost in the shuffle is the evidence for Watson's factual claim. Like many New Agers, Watson voices the sentiment that "when a myth is shared by large numbers of people, it becomes a reality". Ron Amundson of the Hawaii Skeptics, who investigated Watson's claim[3], suggested that this latter statement could be rephrased as "Convince enough people of a lie, and it becomes the truth". (Amundson found that _all_ of Watson's claimed documentation was grossly misrepresented, and in fact contradicted the -- now famous -- claim.) Whether one buys this philosophical stance or not, the notion that this alleged mass consciousness is somehow politically progressive is a curious one. Per Watson's vision, "Peace, love, and a taste for brown rice and tofu", as commentator Tim Farrington[4] put it, "will at a given point instantly envelope the planet, and humanity will live happily ever after . . . . Neuroses, bad habits, ignorance will all be dissolved in a flash, without effort on the part of the rest of us." Let's savour, for a moment, this balmy image, before allowing ourselves to think about it. Back in 1933, there must have been some hundredth German monkey who joined the Nazi party, mustn't there? The mass consciousness of the society was transformed. As the "Herrenrace" myth became shared by large numbers of people, it transformed the reality of Europe. Farrington continues: "There is no guarantee that the hundredth monkey will be any wiser than the first, and no assurance that the first will be wise at all. The myth of critical mass, and its magic, is double-edged." Farrington suggests that, rather than admire the hundredth monkey, brainlessly falling in tune with the mass consciousness of the other 99, we instead take our hats off to the one-hundred-first monkey's "individual acts of conscience and reason, acts not effortless, nor particularly inspired, acts not necessarily validated by the herd nor telepathically obvious; but acts simply that are steps, one by one, on the difficult, intricate, sometimes ambiguous, rewarding path of a single human life." [1] _The Hundredth Monkey_, by Ken Keyes, Jr., 1982, Vision Books, Coos Bay, Oregon; Article: "The Hundredth Monkey" in "Updated Special Issue: 'A New Science of Life'" of _Brain/Mind Bulletin_, 1982; Film and videotape: "The Hundredth Monkey", Elda Hartley, producer, 1982, Hartley Film Foundation, Inc., Cos Cob, Conn. [2] _Lifetide_, by Lyall Watson, 1979. Simon and Schuster, NY. [3] Article: "The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon" by Ron Amundson, in Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1985, pp. 348-56. Follow-up in Spring 1987 issue, pp. 303-4. Watson had alleged, in _Whole Earth Review_, Fall 1986 (the "Fringes of Reason" issue) that his citations weren't really citations, and that the whole story, although contradicted by his supposed evidence, is nonetheless true. See also article "Spud-Dunking Monkey Theory Debunked" by Boyce Rensberger, _Washington Post_, July 6, 1989). [4] Article "The 101st Monkey" by Tim Farrington, in _The Node_ magazine, Winter 1987, San Francisco.