I find it fascinating--we all should, actually--that Barry thinks of writing about spiritual experiences on FFL in terms of a contest with "winners" and "losers," and believes that such posts should be subject to critiques by the group.
I'd be interested to know if anyone here feels encouraged by this approach to post their spiritual experiences. I'd also be interested to know if anyone here believes they are competent to critique such posts (see Barry's three criteria for judgment below). And the simple reason is ego, and ego-protectiveness, the very qualities that *prohibit* and *block* both the having of and the expression of spiritual experience. If Judy were to declare some experience she once had "spiritual," she'd open herself up to people like herself -- "editors." These strangers get to decide whether 1) the thing she describes could be described by even one fellow human being as "spiritual," 2) whether she did a good (or even competent) job of describing the experience, and 3) whether any of it was worth reading in the first place. Not gonna happen. She's got too much invested in her imaginary "image" to ever risk that. Meanwhile, those of us with no real "image" to protect can write Whatever The Fuck We Want. All in all, I think we win. :-)
