The hundredth monkey debunked - telepathic group mind theory

Whole Earth Review, Autumn, 1986 by Ron Amundsen

4. The paranormal validates the paranormal: The validity of one supernatural report is strengthened by its consistency with other such reports. Watson's commentators show how this works. Keyes supports the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon by its consistency with J. B. Rhine's work at Duke, which "demonstrated" telepathy between individual humans. "We now know that the strength of this extrasensory communication can be amplified to a powerfully effective level when the consciousness of the 'hundredth person' is added." Elda Hartley's film The Hundredth Monkey invokes Edgar Cayce. And in a remarkable feat of group consicousness, four of the five secondary sources emphasize the similarities between Watson's Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon and Rupert Sheldrake's notion of the "morphogenetic field" (a mysterious patterning field generated by a natural system that organizes subsequent, similar systems). The spontaneous recognition of the similarities between Watson and Sheldrake seems to have leaped the natural boundaries between the four publications! Now there's a miracle! (Surely independent invention or natural diffusion couldn't account for such a coincidence.)

Conclusions

I must admit sympathy for some of the secondary sources on the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon. This feeling comes from the purpose for which the phenomenon was cited. Ken Keyes' book uses the phenomenon as a theme, but the real topic of the book is nuclear disarmament. Arthur Stein's article in the Phoenix Journal of Transpersonal Anthropology and (to a lesser extent) the Hartley film are inspired by Keye's hope that the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon may help prevent nuclear war. The message is that "you may be the Hundredth Monkey" whose contribution to the collective consciousness turns the world away from nuclear holocaust. It is hard to find fault in this motive. For these very same reasons, one couldn't fault the motives of a child who wrote to Santa Claus requesting world nuclear disarmament as a Christmas present. We can only hope that Santa Claus and the Hundredth Monkey are not our best chances to avoid nuclear war.

Watson's primary concern is not prevention of war but sheer love of the paranormal. His book begins with a description of a child who, before Watson's own eyes, and with a "short implosive sound, very soft, like a cork being drawn in the dark," psychically turned a tennis ball inside out -- fuzz side in, rubber side out -- without losing air pressure. Just after the Hundredth Monkey discussion, Watson makes a revealing point. He quotes with approval a statement attributed to Lawrence Blair: "When a myth is shared by large numbers of people, it becomes a reality." This sort of relativist epistemology is not unusual in New Age thought. I would express Blair's thought somewhat differently: "Convince enough people of a lie, and it becomes the truth." I suggest that someone who accepts this view of truth is not to be trusted as a source of knowledge. He may, of course, be a marvelous source of fantasy, rumor, and pseudoscientific best-sellers.