The 100th Monkey – A story about social change.

If enough of us discover our own magic could it be possible that the world could make a giant leap into “De Light”? This theory, sometimes called the 100th Monkey Effect is also known as ….

Morphic and Morphogentic Fields

There is mounting evidence that as more and more people learn to do something it becomes easier for others to learn or do it. In one experiment, British biologist Rupert Sheldrake took three short, similar Japanese rhymes: – one a meaningless jumble of disconnected Japanese words, the second a newly-composed verse and the third a traditional rhyme known by millions of Japanese. Neither Sheldrake nor the English schoolchildren knew which was which, and none of them knew any Japanese. The most easily-learned rhyme turned out to be the one well-known to Japanese people.

This and other experiments led Sheldrake to consider that there is a field of habitual patterns that links all people, which influences and is influenced by the habits of all people. This field would contain (among other things) the pattern of that Japanese rhyme.

The theory suggests that the more people have a habit pattern – whether of knowledge, perception or behavior – the stronger it is in the field, and the more easily it replicates in a new person. In fact, it seems such fields exist for other entities too – for birds, plants, even crystals. Sheldrake named these phenomena morphic and morphogenetic fields – fields which influence the pattern or form of things.

The 100th Monkey – A story about social change.

Extract from the book “The Hundredth Monkey” by Ken Keyes, Jr.

“The Japanese monkey, Macaca Fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.
In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes – the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea…Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.
Thus, when a certain critical number achieves awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.

But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone.”