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ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER OF THE GEORGIA SKEPTICS
MARCH/APRIL 1991

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CONTENTS:

ON THE ASTRAL PLANE, By Larry F. Johnson, Georgia Skeptics
THERE IS LABORATORY PROOF OF EVOLUTION, By Al Martin, MCRI
EVERYDAY DEMONS, By Mary A. Long, Georgia Skeptics
URBAN LEGENDS, By Rip Strautman, Georgia Skeptics
UFO SIGHTINGS IN VIDALIA, By Larry F. Johnson
EVOLUTION AND THE MYTH OF CREATIONISM, By Keith M. Parsons, Ga. Skeptics
THE MASK OF NOSTRADAMUS, By Hugh Trotti, Georgia Skeptics
THE HUNDREDTH MONKEY, By Rick Moen, Bay Area Skeptics



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Georgia Skeptics is a non-profit local group which shares a common
philosophy with the national organization CSICOP (Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), and seeks to promote
critical thinking and scientific inquiry as the most reliable means to
gather knowledge of the world and universe.  Like CSICOP, Georgia Skeptics
encourages the investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a
responsible, scientific point of view, and helps disseminate the results of
such inquiries.

Material from the Georgia Skeptic newsletter may be used by
anyone, provided attribution is given to the author and the
organization.

For further information, contact the Georgia Skeptics through the
Astronomical Society of the Atlantic BBS at [phone],
or:

     Becky Long
     2277 Winding Woods Dr.
     Tucker, Georgia 30084
     [phone]

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ON THE ASTRAL PLANE

by Larry F. Johnson, Georgia Skeptics


At the February meeting of Georgia Skeptics, there was a conversation about
a claim by some of the UFO enthusiasts that UFOs are from the "astral
plane". Someone asked what the "astral plane" was supposed to be, and I
chimed in that I thought the concept arose primarily out of the "I AM"
(Ascended Masters) cult, and represented some sort of netherworld outside
of physical reality. I decided to research the subject.

The I AM Religous Activity and the Saint Germain Foundation (its corporate
arm) were founded by Guy Ballard, a mining superintendant, and his wife
Edna, a concert harpist, in the early 1930's. Both were deeply involved in
theosophical and occult circles. These circles had as one of their standard
tenets the belief in a supernatural group of beings known variously as the
"Ascended Masters" or the "Great White Brotherhood". These beings were
supposedly once human, but ascended into some higher plane, where they
basically run the unvierse.

Ballard claimed to have met Saint Germain, who was an  eighteenth century
mystic, while hiking around Mt. Shasta in 1930. St. Germain allegedly gave
Ballard a sip of a magical fluid, and certified him as an Accredited
Messenger of the Ascended Masters. St. Germain bestowed the same title on
Edna and their son Donald.

The I AM group's theology contains many of the occult  movement's standard
beliefs. In addition to the Ascended Masters, which is central to their
beliefs, I AM incorporates "auras", and the repetition of sacred chants, or
"decrees". I AM was intensely persecuted during the 1930's, culminating in
the conviction of the Ballards for mail fraud in the early 40's. This
caused the group to adopt a low key approach which continues to this day.
While I AM draws from the same pool of converts as New Age groups, they
don't advertise or openly promote themselves.

J. Gordon Melton's book _Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America_ had two
references to the "astral plane" which pre-date the "I AM" cult.

The first is from the Theosophy movement, a nineteenth century occult
movement founded by Helen Blavatsky, Henry  Steel Olcott, and William Q.
Judge. In Theosophical lore the "astral plane" fits into a hierarchy of
planes of existance which descend as follows: Divine, Monadic, Atomic,
Buddhic, Upper and Lower Mental, Astral (emotional), and Physical. Since
the I AM cult grew out of Theosophy, it probably borrowed some variant of
this cosmology.

Melton's second reference to the "astral Plane" is from the American groups
which grew out of the SAN MAT religious  movement in India. ECKANKAR, an
American group almost wholely derivative of SAN MAT (although this is never
acknowledged in their literature) has a list similar to Theosophy's
hierarchy of "planes of existance" but even more  elaborate. The astral
plane in ECKANKAR's worldview is a rather low-rent plane full of ghosts and
psychic phenomena. To give you an idea of how mundane the astral plane is
in ECKANKAR's bumping order, there are ten levels above it.

My guess is that the New Age types borrowed the term primarily from
Theosophy, and threw it into their bag of concepts along with karma, auras,
and alchemy.

One problem when a skeptic tries to analyze the claims of some of these
groups and movements is that many of those claims are nearly totally
non-falsifiable in the sense that the scientific method demands.

In other words, if one of these folks would say "levitation is possible, I
can do it, and I intend to do it for you now", this claim of theirs is
falsifiable. Either they levitate or they don't. This is a circumstance
under which the claim can be disproven.

On the other hand, if they say "Our leader was given a drink of the magic
elixir by the Ascended Master Saint Germain, who then levitated to a higher
plane of existance", I can believe it or not believe it, but the claim
makes it difficult for me to respond except by saying that nothing in my
experience leads me to give credence to this claim.

At least the Saint Germain claim puts forward a specific event to evaluate.
In New Age circles the argument often boils down to something like this:
"There are things beyond the current understanding of science as we know,
and I believe that we are being visited by non-corporeal creatures from the
astral plane."

Another problem in analyzing these groups, while maintaining a measure of
fairness, is that the claims of the occult groups are sometimes no more
scientifically extreme than the claims of more standard relgions. Yet Guy
Ballard, who made the above claim that Saint Germain gave him the magic
elixir, was indicted and convicted of mail fraud for popularizing his
claim, while mainstream Christianity contains a number of claims of
levitation, higher planes of existance, out-of-body experiences, demon
possession, and dozens of other claims and concepts very similar to the NEW
AGE bag of tenets.

I'm not saying that we should either cut slack for the nonsensical specific
claims of the more cultish occult groups, or that we should pick apart
mainstream religions. All I'm saying is that many religions and cults have
suffered very real persecution, including, in their early days, jailing and
lynching. Our critique of these belief systems should be based on the
validity of their claims, not the fact that they are weird, unfamiliar, and
engage in rituals outside the mainstream.


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SCIENCE AND THE CREATIONISTS: THERE IS LABORATORY PROOF OF EVOLUTION!

By Al Martin, Midwest Center for Rational Inquiry
(Reprinted with Permission from MCRI)


Creationists routinely cry foul whenever evolution is presented as a
factual process, vociferously telling their benighted audiences that
evolution is "only a theory" (a "guess" in creationist parlance) yet to be
proven.  Of course, any decent college biology text describes several
categories of evidence for evolution.  These include an orderly fossil
record marked by a series of transitional fossils (e.g. the reptile to
mammal series) or fossils of strange animals unlike any forms living today
(e.g. jawless fishes or Archaeopteryx, a species intermediate between
reptiles and birds).  Texts also include evidence from homology (similarity
in structural plan reflecting common genetic ancestry), such as tails and
pharyngeal grooves ("gills") in mammalian embryos, and the striking
biochemical and genetic similarities between animals such as humans and
chimpanzees; and biogeography (the study of the distribution of organisms
within isolating barriers).  Unfortunately, these lines of evidence are not
always adequately presented by the teacher or the text, so their
significance is not always fully appreciated.

Creationists dismiss, distort, and ignore standard textbook evidence for
evolution, and most of the body of "evidence" offered in support of creation
consists of little more than attacks on the actual physical evidence. (The
book Of Pandas and People, reviewed earlier in this column, was a clever
attempt to discredit textbook evidence.  There was virtually no "postiive"
evidence for creation.)  When pressed, most creationists posit insurmountable
and unrealistic conditions for what they would accept as proof for evolution.
They would likely acknowledge nothing short of finding cellular slime crawling
out of a test tube containing a mixture of chemicals, or finding one day that
one's pet lizard had turned into a bird in its cage.  Anyone who demands such
absurd "proofs" displays a vast ignorance of evolution and of biology in
general.

There is, however, a dramatic laboratory proof of evolution that was published
over a decade ago but that has never been mentioned in any general textbook
with which I am familiar.  Working with a phenomenon called "embryonic
induction", Kollar and Fisher (Science, February 29th, 1980) were able to
demonstrate that modern birds possess the genes for making teeth!  The various
tissues of any developing organ communicate with each other, each tissue often
signaling another when and into what to develop.  Thus, the outer layer of a
tooth or enamel develops from an embryonic tissue called epithelium, which
lines the surface of the gum, and the deeper, bone-like dentin of the tooth
derives from an underlying embryonic tissue called mesenchyme.  (See diagram)
Each of these tissues, the epithelium and the mesenchyme, is influenced by the
other (embryonic induction).  In the bird, the outer epithelial layer normally
deelops into hard beak material.  In a mammal such as a mouse, the same layer
develops into the upper portion of the tooth (the enamel).  Kollar and Fisher
transplanted the deeper mesenchyme tissue from the tooth-forming region of a
mouse embryo beneath the beak-forming epithelial layer of an embryonic chick.
As a result, the chick epithelium secreted tooth-enamel proteins and induced
the mesenchyme to form several tooth parts, such as dentin and odontoblasts
(dentin-forming cells).  That is, the chick tissue made part of the tooth and
participated in synthesis of the mesenchymal portions of the tooth, something
which it would have been totally unable to accomplish unless its DNA contained
tooth-forming genes!

This experiment proves that modern birds (specifically the domestic chicken)
possess the genes for making teeth.  However, birds never make teeth in
nature, so one must ask where they got these genes and why they have them.
The only possibly conclusion is that birds have retained genes from an earlier
stage of evolution (inherited as "genetic junk") from progenitors which
themselves had and used teeth.  This finding is consistent with the fossil
record, which indicated that birds evolved from reptiles (in particular a
branch of small dinosaurs).  Fossils of Archaeoteryx indicate that this
150-million-year-old animal was a "blend" of reptilian and avian (bird-like)
characteristics.  For example, Archaeopteryx had feathers and a furcula
("wishbone") for attachment of flight muscles like a bird, but possessed many
skeletal features and teeth like a reptile.  Biologists consider Archaeopteryx
to be intermediate between reptiles and birds.

Some creationists, when confronted with solid evidence that animals change
(evolve), have responded by fabricating a "theory of devolution". This
"theory" maintains that all animal forms were created in a state of blissful
perfection, and that modern animals are their degenerate progeny resulting
from the accumulated mutations caused by ultraviolet and cosmic radiation that
bombarded the earth after loss of the "vapor canopy" that caused the Noachian
deluge.  So, might not some creationists insist that the "original" birds had
teeth that were subsequently lost?  This experiment proves that the genes for
bird teeth are fully capable of being functional rather than being degenerated
"mutants".  Also, a change from a toothed mouth to an untoothed mouth would
necessarily indicate dietary changes in birds and modification of flight
efficiency.  Flight would, in fact, become more efficient rather than
"devolving" with loss of teeth, since teeth are heavy baggage for a flying
animal.  This is evolution.  Applied to the "Case of the Birds' Teeth", the
"theory of devolution" fails miserably.

So, can laboratory scientists actually prove an instance of evolution?  Kollar
and Fisher have done precisely that!

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EVERYDAY DEMONS

By Mary A. Long, Georgia Skeptics


In his book, _Nasty_People--How_to_Stop_Being_Hurt_by_Them_Without_Becoming
_One_of Them_, Jay Carter describes individuals who employ a suppressive
mechanism which he calls invalidation to injure another person by chipping
away at that person's self esteem and causing him to examine himself to see
where he or she "has gone wrong."

Some invalidators, according to Carter, have developed into what he has
termed a "demonic archetype" and assume this role consciously. A nice
person, who is apparently a true friend, a loving spouse, or a
mild-mannered boss suddenly becomes a ranting maniac, seemingly totally out
of control. He exudes anger, outrage and righteousness, and makes it clear
that you deserve his disapproval and that you have surely done something to
set him off in this manner. He can't think of enough ways to degrade you
and may even threaten to do outlandish things to you. He has become a true
monster.

Carter states that when someone is in this state, the demonic personality
is complete and has its own thoughts, ideas, ethics and behavior. This
behavior may be entered into consciously or, more frequently, unconsciously
when it is triggered by something in the environment. This unpredictable
and irrational personality makes this type of invalidator most difficult to
understand.

Those who are conscious of their invalidation of others never experience
genuine remorse for having hurt another person and may even work at
perfecting the technique of invalidation. Conscious invalidators justify
their behavior by assuring themselves that the "victim" somehow deserved
it, or "had it coming:. Carter states that he himself observed a practiced
invalidator drive his wife of 40 years to commit suicide.

_Nasty_People_ is available from Contemporary Books, Inc. The author is a
psychological counselor and professional speaker in the Philadelphia area.

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URBAN LEGENDS

By Rip Strautman, Georgia Skeptics


Most of us have heard the story about the couple parked on Lover's Lane who
hear a report on the radio about an escaped convict with a hook for a hand.
The couple decide to leave the lane and when they return to her house the
boy discovers a hook attached to the passenger side door.  Its a popular
story among teenagers and has been told for the last thirty years.

Maybe you know the story about the woman who returns home to discover that
her doberman is having trouble breathing.  She takes him to her
veterinarian who can not find anything wrong but tells her to return home
while he performs additional tests.  Upon her return she answers the phone
and the vet says for her to get out of the house immediately.  As she
leaves the house the police arrive and rush inside to arrest a criminal
hiding in a closet.  You see, the vet discovered the dog's breathing
problem was caused by the fact that the dog had three of the burglar's
fingers caught in it's throat.

Both of these stories are examples of what are generally called urban
legends.  Urban legends are those bizarre but believable stories that get
passed around by word of mouth as being the truth.  Most of us have
probably heard a dozen of them while growing up and may have passed them on
to family, friends, or co-workers as true incidents.

Jan Harold Brunvand is one of America's leading folklorists.  He is a
professor of English at the University of Utah and has published four books
on the subject of urban legends:  The Vanishing Hitchiker, copyright 1981,
The Choking Doberman, copyright 1984, The Mexican Pet, copyright 1986, and
Curses! Broiled Again, copyright 1989.  In addition he also writes a
syndicated national newspaper column "Urban Legends".

In each of his books Brunvand traces the origin and spread of some of
America's most popular legends.  Included are stories on famous recipes,
automobile legends, nudity, food contamination, the Proctor and Gamble
logo, celebrities, modern technology, and pets. Readers will recognize many
of these legends and perhaps be surprised to discover the truth behind some
of their own widely held beliefs.

If you enjoy a good story, but like the facts to be straight, I recommend
any of these four books.  Perhaps when you finish reading you will be able
to say to someone after hearing them tell an unusual story "that's just an
urban legend".

ADDED NOTE:  I have written to Mr. Brunvand several times over the past
five years relaying to him variations on several of the legends presented
in his books.  I have had occasion to write to him twice in the last four
months regarding urban legends making the rounds in the Atlanta area.  In
each instance he has responded by providing me with additional information
on these subjects.


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UFO SIGHTINGS IN VIDALIA, GEORGIA

By Larry F. Johnson, Georgia Skeptics


Yes folks, they are here, and threatening our onion crops and consumer
goods facilities.  On February 16, 1991, UFOs were sighted over the Walmart
in Vidalia, Ga.  Here are some of the preliminaries, gleaned from the
Eleven O'Clock News on Atlanta's Channel 5.  (For some reason, the Atlanta
Constitution didn't pick up the story the next morning.  Maybe the coverup
has already begun.)

A local radio station reported receiving thirty calls describing low flying
objects over the Walmart.  The people observing them included police
Lieutenant P. McNeese.

The UFOs were described as "silver disks with red and white lights" (brake
and headlights?) "flying from Vidalia to Hazelhurst".  One man said that
one of the four UFOs hovered over his car which then stalled, and wouldn't
restart until the objects flew away.

Lt. McNeese stated that there were no missing persons or livestock.  But
what about onions? Kitchenware?  Maybe someone with connections to the
"astral plane" can explain why these creatures have suddenly developed an
interest in onion-producing areas.

In the meantime, if anyone gets any more information, either logical
explanation or wild claim, I'd be interested in hearing it.


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BOOK REVIEW:  EVOLUTION AND THE MYTH OF CREATIONISM by Tim M. Berra,
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 198 pp., paperback).


By Keith M. Parsons, Georgia Skeptics


Creationists haven't been in the news so much lately.  They seem to
have dropped out of view since the 1987 Supreme Court decision
overturning Louisiana's "Creation Science" law.  However, though they
are less visible, the creationists remain as active as ever.  Setbacks
such as legislative and judicial defeats only serve to fan the flames
of zealotry.  Hence, scientists, educators, and others interested in
the quality of science education in this country should remain on
guard.

Tim M. Berra's Evolution and the Myth of Creationism is the latest of
a number of excellent works critical of creationism (e.g. Arthur
Strahler's exhaustive Science and Earth History, Douglas Fuytuyma's
Science on Trial, and Philip Kitcher's Abusing Science).   Like those
earlier works, Berra's book presents concise refutations of salient
creationist claims.  Written very clearly and well-illustrated,
Berra's book is perhaps the most accessible of its kind for
laypersons.  Berra presents the basics of evolutioary biology in an
effective manner and non-technical style.  One thing he makes very
clear is that there is no scientific debate over the occurrence of
evolution, and, indeed, that differences have been greatly exaggerated
between those who do disagree over the rate or mechanicms of
evolution.  Berra is particularly strong in his presentation of human
evolution.  I especially enjoyed his description of Homo Sapiens
Neanderthalensis, who were shorter, more muscular, and more
barrel-chested than modern humans, but who, with a shave, haircut, and
business suit, says Berra, could probably pass for television
evangelists.

The sub-title of Berra's book is "A Basic Guide to the Facts in the
Evolution Debate," and, as I have indicated, I think it serves such a
purpose admirably.  This is just the problem, though.  The facts,
however, well presented, are not all that are needed to combat
creationism.  The essential point about "creation science" is not just
that it is not genuine science, but that it cannot be.  Creationism is
a classic pseudoscience:  It lacks a coherent theory, and hence is
explanatorily vacuous; its claims are either untestable or
demonstrably false; it has not provided a single puzzle-solving
strategy that can be taken up by the scientific coummunity.  Indeed,
it is entirely parasitic upon genuine science since, having nothing of
its own to offer, it can only grow by raising specious objections
against real science.

These are philosophical rather than scientific points which have more
to do with the logic and methodology of science than with its factual
content.  Hence, it is a shame that, with the exception of Kitcher's
book, the replies to creationism have been written by scientists
rather than philosophers.  Since the creationists have transgressed as
much against philolosophy as science, I wish that philosophers would
take a more active hand in their prosecution.


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BOOK REVIEW:  THE MASK OF NOSTRADAMUS, By James Randi (New York, Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1990, 256 pages, $19.95)

James (The Amazing) Randi has again produced something well worth the
reader's consideration:  a serious study of the sixteenth century "prophet"
whose latinized name was Nostradamus.  The subject is a fit one for Randi's
no-nonsense style, which is concise and logical--and impatient with foggy
notions and far-reaching speculations masquerading as some sort of
"science" of foreseeing future events.  Such impatience may apply (and is
applied by Randi) even more to Nostradamus's later "interpreters" than to
the original figure.  Randi makes a good case for taking hostile views of
prophets, and offers explanations of what they do and how they produce
material convincing to some.

But the book is not a simple attack, for Randi has approached the subject
in a serious way.  He has enlisted the aid of historians and historical
documents, and has himself actually travelled to the places in France
frequented by Nostradamus.  Such care on his part has resulted in revealing
insights as to the meaning of some of the written efforts produced by the
seer.

Randi's translations from his French text are straightforward and well
justified, and seem reasonable.  Take for example quatrain 4-68 (Randi's
Example Number 9, op. cit., page 215), which is translated by him thusly:

     In the year very near, not far from Venus,
     The two greatest of Asia and Africa
     From the Rhine and Lower Danube, which will be said to have come,
     Cries, tears at Malta and the Ligurian coast.

In our age, followers of Nostradamus have taken the allusions to "The two
greatest of Asia and Africa" to mean Japan and Mussolini (Randi citing
James Laver's interpretation).  Hitler enters through the name "Hister",
based on the ancient name "Ister" for the "Lower Danube".  According to
Randi, the quatrain actually predicts trouble for perhaps Venice and Genoa,
as well as Malta.

Here, I should like to say that the literate men of the time of Nostradamus
read the rediscovered classics of the Greeks and Romans.  In the works they
read, "Asia" is to be taken to be Asia Minor; and the "greatest" of Asia
Minor at that time was, obviously, Turkey, which had already captured
Constantinople and marched on Europe.   The "greatest" of Africa we might
take to be Egypt, where the Mamlukes were once part of the Ottoman Empire.
The Turks were the real menace during the time of Nostradamus.  Randi noted
this point elsewhere in his book, but I, myself, think it might also bear
upon quatrain 4-68.  Turkey might menace parts of Europe, as well as such
islands as Malta.

In any event, those with any fascination for the works of Nostradamaus--as
well as those suspicious of them--will find this volume well worth their
time.

As a matter of interest, I would add to Randi's opinion that as a
physician, Nostradamus's use of remedies from roses was fallacious, the
note that such usage was tradiational:  see Moses Maimonides' recipes, for
instance.  That twelfth-century physician/philosopher/author mentioned the
medical use of rose products extensively in his work The Preservation of
Youth; he had begun in Spain but ended his days in Cairo, an older man at
the time of Richard Lion-Heart's crusade.  The use of the rose shows that
the medieval views and "ancient knowledge" were still being taught at the
time of the northern Renaissance in Europe.  The rose itself, whether used
for medicinal or aesthetic reasons, goes back to the ancient world--see the
photograph of a coin of Rhodes of c. 80 BC following page 42 of Michael
Grant's The Visible Past, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990, illus.,
4.4.b.  This coin shows an opened rose face on one side, with the head of
the sun god Helios on the other (the god of the huge bronze "Wonder of the
World" statue).

Finally, I should like to remark that if one finds the writings of
Nostradamus to be difficult, they are yet considerably clearer than the
so-called "Prophecies of Merlin", which are marvels of obscurity.  The
interested reader can find thse latter in Geoffrey of Monmouth's The
History of the Kings of Britain (available from Penguin Paperback Books,
pp. 170-1850).



Editor's Note: For further reading on this subject, the book Nostradamus
and His Prophecies, by Edgar Leoni, has been highly recommended by Larry
Kitsch, Vice President of the Midwest Committee for Rational Inquiry, who
has also extensively researched Nostradamus.


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THE HUNDREDTH MONKEY

By Rick Moen, Bay Area Skeptics


Have you heard of the "Hundredth-Monkey Phenomenon"? It approaches the
status of holy writ among some New Agers.

According to Lyall Watson's widely-quoted (1) book "Lifetide" (2), around
the year 1952, young monkeys on the Japanese island of Koshima figured out
how to make sweet potatoes (provided by primatologists) more edible by
washing them.  They then taught their peers and parents, until by 1958,
this behaviour was found among widely-spread members of the troop.

So far, so good.  Then in that year, a sort of group consciousness
developed among the monkeys, when, say, the *hundredth* monkey began
washing potatoes.  Suddenly, almost *all* the monkeys began doing so.
Further, "the habit seems to have jumped natural barriers and to have
appeared spontaneously ... in colonies on other islands and on the mainland
in a troop at Takasakiyama."

This anecdote has been used to provide ideological support to such diverse
notions as telepathy and nuclear disarmament -- you, the reader, could be
the "hundredth monkey" necessary for global transformation.  What gets lost
in the shuffle is the evidence for Watson's factual claim.  Like many New
Agers, Watson voices the sentiment that "when a myth is shared by large
numbers of people, it becomes a reality".  Ron Amundson of the Hawaii
Skeptics, who investigated Watson's claim (3), suggested that this latter
statement could be rephrased as "Convince enough people of a lie, and it
becomes the truth". (Amundson found that ALL of Watson's claimed
documentation was grossly misrepresented, and in fact contradicted the -
now famous - claim.)


Whether one buys this philosophical stance or not, the notion that this
alleged mass consciousness is somehow politically progressive is a curious
one.  Per Watson's vision, "Peace, love, and a taste for brown rice and
tofu", as commentator Tim Farrington (4) put it, "will at a given point
instantly envelope the planet, and humanity will live happily ever
after.... Neuroses, bad habits, ignorance will all be dissolved in a flash,
without effort on the part of the rest of us."  Let's savour, for a moment,
this balmy image, before allowing ourselves to think about it.


Back in 1933 there must have been some hundredth German monkey who joined
the Nazi party, mustn't there?  The mass consciousness of the society was
transformed.  As the "Herrenrace" myth became shared by large numbers of
people, it transformed the reality of Europe.

Farrington continues: "There is no guarantee that the hundredth monkey will
be any wiser than the first, and no assurance that the first will be wise
at all.  The myth of critical mass, and its magic, is double-edged."

Farrington suggests that, rather than admire the hundredth monkey,
brainlessly falling in tune with the mass consciousness of the other 99, we
instead take our hats off to the one-hundred- first monkey's "individual
acts of conscience and reason, acts not effortless, nor particularly
inspired, acts not necessarily validated by the herd nor telepathically
obvious; but acts simply that are steps, one by one, on the difficult,
intricate, sometimes ambiguous, rewarding path of a single human life."

References:

(1) "The Hundredth Monkey" by Ken Keyes, Jr., 1982, Vision
Books, Coos Bay, Oregon; Article: "The Hundredth Monkey" in
"Updated Special Issue: `A New Science of Life'" of
"Brain/Mind Bulletin", 1982; Film and videotape:  "The
Hundredth Monkey", Elda Hartley, producer, 1982, Hartley
Film Foundation, Inc., Cos Cob, Conn.

(2)"Lifetide" by Lyall Watson, 1979.  Simon and Schuster, NY.

(3)Article: "The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon" by Ron Amundson, in
"Skeptical Inquirer", Summer 1985, pp.348-56.  Follow-up in Spring 1987
issue, pp. 303-4.  Watson had alleged, in "Whole Earth Review", Fall 1986
(the "Fringes of Reason" issue) that his citations weren't really
citations, and that the whole story, although contradicted by his supposed
evidence, is nonetheless true.  See also article "Spud-Dunking Monkey
Theory Debunked" by Boyce Rensberger, "Washington Post", July 6, 1989).

(4) Article "The 101st Monkey" by Tim Farrington, in "The Node" magazine,
Winter 1987, San Francisco.


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                                 THE END