One reason experience is the touchstone for charismatics is their undue emphasis on the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a post-salvation experience. Charismatics generally believe that after someone becomes a Christian, he or she must seek diligently for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Those who get this baptism also experience various phenomena, such as speaking in tongues, feelings of euphoria, visions, and emotional outbursts of various kinds. Those who have not experienced the baptism are not considered Spirit-filled; that is, they are immature, carnal, disobedient, or otherwise incomplete Christians.
That kind of teaching opens the floodgates for believing that vital Christianity is one sensational experience after another. It sets in motion a contest to see who can have the most vivid or spectacular experience. And, of course, those with the most awesome testimonies are held in highest esteem spiritually. Incredible claims are made, and they almost always go unchallenged. Instead of responding to a proper interpretation of God's Word, Christianity is collecting fantastic and preposterous experiences. The Bible is either mangled to fit those experiences or simply ignored altogether. The result is pseudo-Christian mysticsm.
Mysticsm is a system of belief that attempts to perceive spiritual reality apart from objective, verifiable facts. It seeks truth through feelings, intuition, and other internal senses. Objective data is usually discounted, so mysticsm derives its authority from within. Spontaneous feeling becomes more significant than objective fact. Intuition outweighs reason.
Irrational mysticsm is also at the heart of the charismatic experience. It has subverted Biblical authority within the movement and replaced it with personal experience. The practical effect of charismatic teaching is to set one's experience on a higher plane than a proper understanding of Scripture. (Charismatic Chaos - John .MacArthur, Jr.)
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