Human beings live in symbolic social life worlds.
Sacred places thus have the same real, partial, existence as do non-sacred places. Jerusalem, as a sacred place, has same symbolic interactional origins as, say, Philadelphia, London, Jakarta, Lima, Moscow or Tokyo. Both sacred and profane spaces are created by a four-part symbolic interactional process which begins with human definitions of the situations and ends with humans organizing their behavior to fulfill the prophecy inherent in the definition. In like manner, the de-sanctification of sacred space is entirely a human process. The most general point I want to make about sanctification is that it everywhere and always involves the treatment of some human beings as cherished social objects filled with a gift of grace which others must honor.