The hundredth monkey

The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, were provided with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. ... The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. … One of the monkeys found she could solve the problem in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers, too. …

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!

When a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.