Sanctification occupies a complex and contested position across the depth-psychology corpus, appearing simultaneously as a theological category, a phenomenological structure of archaic religious experience, and a psychodynamic process of interior transformation. In the Philokalic tradition, sanctification designates the complete mortification of sensory desire and the progressive purification of the soul through repentance, dispassion, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit — a movement inseparable from theosis and the gradual conformity of the human person to divine nature. Eliade situates sanctification differently, reading it as the archaic structure by which the whole of human life is raised onto a transhuman plane through participation in cosmic symbolism, an ontological doubling rather than an ethical achievement. Jung and his successors approach the term obliquely, finding its functional equivalent in alchemical processes of nigredo, putrefaction, and whitening — the materia that ‘purifies and sanctifies itself’ in the opus. Woodman imports this Jungian register into the psychology of the body, reading the dogma of the Assumption as a sanctification of matter itself. William James records the mystical phenomenology of sanctification as reported by the saints. What unites these otherwise divergent treatments is the insistence that sanctification names a genuine ontological change, not mere moral improvement — a transformation of substance, whether psychic, somatic, or spiritual.
sanctification is truly the complete mortification and cessation of desire in the senses. When we have achieved this we assuage the uncouth turbulence of our incensive power
This passage delivers the Philokalic doctrine’s most precise definition: sanctification is the total extinction of sensory desire, which automatically quells the incensive power and opens the soul to divine rule.
, The Philokalia, Volume 2, 1981thesis
souls that are sluggish and indolent and do not seek in this life, and while still in the flesh, to achieve through patient endurance and long-suffering the heart’s sanctification not just partially but totally
Symeon the New Theologian insists that sanctification must be total rather than partial, and that sluggish souls who settle for partial grace remain subject to the passions and risk losing even the gift they have received.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995thesis
the whole of life is capable of being sanctified. The means by which its sanctification is brought about are various, but the result is always the same: life is lived on a twofold plane
Eliade defines sanctification phenomenologically as the process by which archaic religious man raises ordinary existence onto a transhuman, cosmic plane, transforming the profane without abolishing it.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
through repentance, confession and tears we receive a corresponding remission of our former sins and, in this way, sanctification accompanied by the grace of God
Symeon links sanctification directly to the sacramental economy of repentance: it is not an autonomous achievement but a divine gift that accompanies and crowns the penitential process.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995thesis
the seed of life shall waken to life, shall rise up, sublimate or glorify itself, transform itself into whiteness, purify and sanctify itself, give itself the redness, in other words, transfigure and fix its shape
Jung’s alchemical source describes sanctification as the climactic self-purifying movement of the materia through the stages of the opus — whitening after nigredo — offering a psychodynamic analog to theological sanctification.
, Collected Works Volume 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy, 1954thesis
The dogma of the Assumption of Mary is in fact an acceptance of matter; indeed it is a sanctification of matter.
Woodman, citing Jung, argues that the dogma of the Assumption enacts a sanctification of the material body and the feminine principle, with direct implications for the psychology of eating disorders and the repressed feminine.
, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Repressed Feminine: a Psychological Study, 1980thesis
He presents her to God the Father, in that perfection of sanctity with which He had dowered her… she remained endowed with the plenary fullness of the blessing of Sanctity, bestowed on her by Omnipotence, by Wisdom, and by Love
James records the mystical experience of St. Gertrude as a phenomenological specimen of sanctification as total divine endowment — a trinitarian bestowal of holiness that the soul passively receives.
, The Varieties of Religious Experience Amazon, 1902supporting
the bodies of these incorruptible men are immune to sickness, for their bodies have been sanctified and rendered incorruptible
John Climacus extends sanctification to the body itself, arguing that advanced souls achieve a somatic sanctification in which the physical frame becomes immune to disease as a sign of realized angelic existence.
, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 600supporting
The Lord had himself baptised, not that he had need of it for himself, but so that he might sanctify all water for those that are regenerated in it
Edinger, drawing on patristic sources, presents Christ’s baptism as a cosmic act of sanctification whereby elemental water is transformed into a vehicle of spiritual regeneration for all who follow.
, The Christian Archetype: A Jungian Commentary on the Life of Christ, 1987supporting
I put on record the excellencies and the sufferings of those who have walked in His footsteps, that I may sanctify myself
John of Damascus treats veneration of the saints as a means of self-sanctification, arguing that contemplating their virtues and martyrdom is itself a sanctifying act of participation in their holiness.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016supporting
religious man attempts to approach the gods and to participate in being; the imitation of paradigmatic divine models expresses at once his desire for sanctity and his ontological nostalgia
Eliade frames the desire for sanctification as ontological nostalgia — the archaic religious drive to recover participation in divine being through ritual reenactment of primordial sacred time.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957supporting
in this poison and gall there is hidden in Mercurius the most precious medicament against the poison, namely the life of life
Jung’s alchemical text situates the hidden life within the most destructive substance, establishing the paradoxical logic that underlies his psychological analog to sanctification through suffering.
, The Practice of Psychotherapy: Essays on the Psychology of the Transference and Other Subjects, 1954aside