RELIGST 2EE3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Jeremy Bentham, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Liminality
12 Dec 2017
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Autotelic activities - from greek auto = self, telos = goal. Activities requiring formal and extensive output of energy, but with few if any conventional rewards. Study of chess players, dancers, music composers, basketball players, rock climbers. A mix of team and individual activities. They engage in these activities and experienced something else. Theory: certain activities that bring out the flow. In the flow state, action follows an action. Little distinction between self and environment, between stimulus and response or between past, present, and future . Person feels completely in control of their actions. Games, play, creative activity, religious experiences, collective ritual, meditation. Flow occurs only when tasks are within one"s ability to perform, that is why one experiences flow most often in activities with clearly established rules for action. Flow happens when participants can cope with all demands. Not too hard (anxiety), not too easy (boredom) Deep play and the flow in experience in rock climbing.
