254 ■ NOTES
a recluse displaying eccentric and paranoid behavior. For parallels with
Bobby Fischer’s career, see Waitzkin (1988). There are two lines of
explanation for such coincidences. One is that people with fragile psy
chic organization are disproportionately attracted to chess. The other is
that chess, at highly competitive levels, requires a complete commitment
of psychic energy and can become addictive. When a player becomes a
champion, and exhausts all the challenges of the activity into which so
much of his attention has been invested, he runs a serious risk of
becoming disoriented because the goal that has given order to his con
sciousness is no longer meaningful.Gambling among American Indians is described by Culin (1906),
Cushing (1896), and Kohl (1860). Carver (1796, p. 238) describes Iro
quois playing until they have lost everything they owned, including their
moccasins, and then walking back to their home camp in snow three feet
deep. An observer of the Tarahumara in Mexico reported that “he... may go on playing [stick-dice] for a fortnight to a month, until he
has lost everything he has in the world except his wife and children; he
draws the line at that” (Lumholtz 1902 [1987], p. 278).
Surgeons who claim that performing operations can be “addictive” are
quoted in Csikszentmihalyi (1975, pp. 138-39).“It’s a Zen feeling.. is from ibid., p. 87.
63 “So one forgets oneself.. is from Moitessier (1971, p. 52) cited in
Macbeth (1988, p. 22). “I understand something.. is from Sato
(1988, p. 113).64 For the sense of self-transcendence while involved in rock climbing
see Robinson (1969); while involved in chess, see Steiner (1974).65 The danger of losing self as a result of “transcendent” experience has
been extensively written about. One of the earliest treatments of this
possibility is by Le Bon (1895 [I960]), whose work influenced that of
McDougall (1920) and Freud (1921). Some recent studies dealing with
the relationship of self-awareness and behavior are by Diener (1979),
Wicklund (1979), and Scheier & Carver (1980). In terms of our model
of complexity a deindividuated person who loses his or her self in a
group is integrated, but not differentiated. Such a person yields the control
of consciousness to the group, and may easily engage in dangerous
behavior. To benefit from transcendence one must also have a strongly
differentiated, or individuated self. Describing the dialectical relationship between the I, or the active part of the self, and the me, or the
reflected self-concept, was the very influential contribution of George
Herbert Mead (1934 [1970]).