A qualitative examination of sanctification: Sources and varieties of appraisals of sacredness

Most mental health professionals are expected to have some basic competency in religious and spiritual issues. Such competency includes knowledge about the role of religion/spirituality in people’s lives, particularly as it relates to mental health. The current research explored people’s cognitive appraisals of sanctification, by which individuals interpret stimuli to be sacred. To gain a better understanding of the spontaneous cognitive appraisals of sanctification people form during daily life, we randomly assigned religious and/or spiritual individuals (N = 144) to an event reconstruction of a time they experienced something as sacred, divine, miraculous, spiritual, holy, or blessed. We qualitatively coded 28 features of these event reconstructions. Participants’ most common descriptions involved sanctification of people, relationships, and places that were not considered sacred in and of themselves, but were considered sacred by association to higher powers or transcendent realities. Common features of sacredness reconstructions included emotions and sensory experiences. We also observed differences in the features associated with each sacred adjective (sacred, divine, miraculous, spiritual, holy, or blessed). We discuss implications for mental health professionals and for the advancement of the science of sanctification.