The Hundredth Monkey Effect
by Owen Waters
Posted on September 8, 2024
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| Japanese snow monkeys |
The Hundredth Monkey Effect was first introduced by biologist Lyall Watson in his 1980 book, Lifetide. He reported that Japanese primatologists, who were studying Macaques monkeys in the wild in the 1950s, had stumbled upon a surprising phenomenon.
His book was soon followed up with a deeply inspired work by Ken Keyes in 1981, called The Hundredth Monkey Effect. In this, Ken Keyes made an impassioned appeal for an end to the Cold War and its policy of mutually assured destruction. Here, in the words of Ken Keyes, is a description of the key elements of the Hundredth Monkey Effect:
“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 monkeys 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 an 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!”
Lyall Watson had originally researched and assembled the story from the available testimonies of the primate researchers. Because the phenomenon took the researchers so much by surprise, they had not counted how many monkeys it took to trigger this effect. So, Watson proposed an arbitrary figure of ninety-nine monkeys, and said that one more, the so-called one-hundredth monkey, would then provide the critical mass of consciousness necessary to trigger the effect.
The new behavior pattern spread to most, but not all, of the monkeys. Older monkeys, in particular, remained steadfast in their established behavior patterns and resisted change. When the new behavior pattern suddenly appeared among monkey troupes on other islands, only a few monkeys on those islands picked up on the new idea. The ones most receptive to new ideas started imitating the new behavior and demonstrating it to the impressionable younger ones. Thus, they too began their own path toward their eventual hundredth monkey effect.
How the Hundredth Monkey Effect Works
The mechanism for this transference of ideas works the same way for monkeys as it does for all sentient beings. We exist within a global atmosphere of consciousness – a mind belt. The human brain is constantly receiving and transmitting mental pictures and information to and from that mental atmosphere in which we are immersed.
The mind belt, otherwise known as Jung’s collective unconscious, does not cease to function because a few skeptics don’t like its effects. It functions just like it always has, passing information from one individual to another based upon their common frequency of consciousness. If progressive monkeys had a new idea, then so did other progressive monkeys on other islands. They resonated at the same frequency of consciousness.
Inventions often occur at the same time by inventors who are not in physical contact with each other. For example, in 1941, Les Paul designed and built the first solid-body electric guitar just when Leo Fender of Fender Musical Instruments was doing exactly the same thing.
Have you ever had an idea, then seen other people express or use that idea. You probably said, “Hey! I thought of that first!” Well, that’s the way the mind belt works. It’s an atmosphere that you share with all other sentient beings, but you tune in especially to the particular topics and frequencies of mind that interest you the most.
What This means to The Shift
The Shift is the awakening of humanity’s heart. This transformation of consciousness, the greatest one ever recorded, first became apparent in the mid-1960s and has been building momentum ever since.
The Shift is a collective transformation consisting of the sum of each individual’s step into the New Reality. Each person, in their own time, is moving forward into a stage of consciousness which brings a wider vista and an awareness which springs from the heart. When enough people’s primary attention becomes focused through their heart chakras, then the hundredth monkey effect will occur.
When enough people have gone through their personal version of The Shift to the new consciousness, then a critical mass will form and suddenly everyone will become aware of the New Reality and its heart-centered values.
That is the day when heart-centered values will become the focus of everyday thinking for the vast majority of people. That is the day when humanity will begin to look back on what has changed and realize that a massive shift has occurred, one that will be simply be referred to as The Shift.
The Power of Lightworkers
The term “The Shift” was popularized by the 2005 book, The Shift, to describe the revolution in consciousness since the 1960s. Six thousand copies of the first edition were printed in 2005 and many more spiritual seekers were exposed to its concepts. Lightworkers, as always, inspired the mind belt with their uplifting ideas, in this case making “The Shift” a widely-used term in today’s world.
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