A sudden spontaneous and mysterious leap of consciousness achieved when a critical mass point is reached. For example, people start thinking about ending world hunger. One person gets another to start thinking about it who gets another who gets another not ad nauseam or ad infinitum but until suddenly a breakthrough is achieved when the critical mass point is reached. Then, spontaneously and mysteriously, everybody starts thinking about ending world hunger. The power to change the world is within our grasp.
The point of critical mass is referred to as the hundreth monkey after an experiment on monkeys done in the 1950's. It was alleged by Lyall Watson in his book Lifetide that one monkey taught another to wash potatoes who taught another who taught another and soon all the monkeys on the island were washing potatotes where no monkey had ever washed potatoes before. When the hundreth monkey learned to wash potatoes then suddenly and spontaneously and mysteriously monkeys on other islands, with no physical contact with the potato washing cult, started washing potatoes! Was this monkey telepathy at work?
It makes for a cute story, but it isn't true. At least, the part about spontaneous transmission of a cultural trait across space, without contact, is not true. There really were some monkeys who washed their potatoes. One monkey started it and soon others joined in. But even after six years not all the monkeys saw the benefit of washing the grit off of their potatoes by dipping them into the sea. Lyall made up the part about the mysterious transmission and the claim that monkeys on other islands had their consciousness raised to the high level of the potato washing cult. I remember seeing a documentary on the monkeys and being quite impressed with the notion that a single member of the troup did something apparently no other monkey on the island had ever done: she washed her sweet potatoes before eating them. Others started imitating her intelligent behavior, but some in the group, either because they were dim or they liked dirty potatoes, never did adopt the new behavior. Apparently, it was not enough for Lyall and his New Age compatriots that the monkeys should be intelligent and capable of the cultural transmission of learned behavior. He had to create something mystical and dull out of something ordinary and magical.
The notion of raising consciousness through reaching critical mass is being promoted by a number of New Age spiritualists, including Key Keyes, Jr. Mr Keyes has published a book on the WWW which calls for an end to the nuclear menace and the mass destruction which surely awaits us all if we do not make a global breakthrough soon. The title of his treatise is The Hundreth Monkey. In his book he write such things as "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!" Well, it seems to be working for spreading the word about the hundreth monkey phenomenon!
I'll climb out on a limb here and say that this mysterious transmission of energy and ideas is a bunch of monkey business.
further reading
Follow-Up Senior Researcher Comments on the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon in Japan by Markus P÷ssel and Ron Amundson
"The Hundredth Monkey" by Ken Keyes, jr.
The Theory of the Hundredth Monkey Debunked
"The Hundredth Monkey" by Rick Moen
"The Hundreth Monkey Phenomenon," Ron Amundson, Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1985.
"Watson and the Hundreth Monkey Phenomenon," Ron Amundsom, Skeptical Inquirer, Spring 1987.
"Senior Researcher Coments on the Hundreth Monkey Phenomenon in Japan," Markus Possel and Ron Amundson, Skeptical Inquirer, May/June 1996.
The Hundreth Monkey and Other Paradigms of the Paranormal, ed. Kendrick Frazier (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991).