In order to be properly receptive to holiness, one needs to have attained a high degree of purification.
In the absence of consciousness and purification, the sense of holiness may be obscured or even scarcely grasped at all, and consequently, its effect may be the very opposite of sanctification.
Indeed, the powerful uplifting appeal of a holy place is frequently counterbalanced by feelings precisely of denial and rebellion against its holiness.
Because wherever there is holiness, there are also those parasitic forces irresistibly attracted to holiness, seeking to live off it and at the Same time to destroy it.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From The Thirteen Petalled Rose, p. 54, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz