This is only everyone I’ve ever known who claims the slightest power of perception beyond the average human. If there is an online test for this, I’d love to send it to a few people.
It’s fine when they check the boxes on the first tier; “I help others whenever possible on their path to greater wisdom and insight,” “I gladly help others to acquire my insights too,” and “I am patient with others, because I understand it takes time to gain the insights that I gained in my life and my education.”
But when they get to the “superiority” questions, those just make them annoying people; “I am more in touch with my senses than most others,” “I am more aware of what is between heaven and earth than most people,” and “The world would be a better place if others too had the insights that I have now.”
I strongly agree with the author’s assessment that spiritual (or also, for that matter, religious) “training” may attract people who are already feeling superior.
Both of these social-cultural worldviews greatly emphasize an individualized “personal” connection to a source of spiritual inspiration (or to a god), which I would argue appeals to those already convinced of their enhanced special-ness and can serve to amplify it.
Throw in a splash of dogma and you’ve got a truly vexatious person who knows what they believe and with prejudice. And is entitled to splash it onto others.
Would you really expect different results from a bunch of predominately middle-age women, mostly empty-nesters, probably 50% of them divorced, trying to bring some sense of worth and purpose back into lives spent subjugated to a husband’s career and children’s wants? Of course, after feeling abandoned by their children and no longer pursued sexually by a husband, they want to be told that they have value, that they matter, that they can still contribute, and that they really didn’t piss away their lives. They need to receive that message to avoid looking to pills and alcohol to ease the depression that can come with growing old.
Hey, I got remarried to a man who has been chasing me ever since we met two years after I divorced my sons’ dad and continued for over 23 years until I married him 5 years ago. He still sees me as sexy after menopause and my kids growing up and leaving home. Seems to me you have no taste for older women, which is OK, just don’t equate that view with other men, who may prefer older women or are truly in love with a woman who happens to be middle aged.