I see and personally would say it is a leap into the Light. As such Faith is enlightenment. The unknown self, the self that embraces the light, is pursued and knowledge of our spiritual selves is gained, whole new worlds are opened before our eyes.
That's certainly a stage along the way, but as you say, it's a leap
into the light, so it starts in darkness and, at the summit, it's a leap from the light into a whole other order of darkness.
In the Christian Mystical Tradition, there is the threefold path of Purgation - Illumination - Union.
The first 'leap' is from ignorance to knowledge, Purgation to Illumination, darkness into light. One could say this is the movement from the carnal self to the spiritual self.
The final 'leap' is from Illumination to Union, which leaves behind the 'self' as such, physically spiritually. St Paul speaks eloquently of this: "I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not, or out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up to the third heaven." (2 Corinthians 12:2)
Dionysius says:
"... the Good Cause of all things is eloquent yet speaks few words, or rather none; possessing neither speech nor understanding because it exceedeth all things in a super-essential manner, and is revealed in Its naked truth to those alone who pass right through the opposition of fair and foul, and pass beyond the topmost altitudes of the holy ascent and leave behind them all divine enlightenment and voices and heavenly utterances and plunge into the Darkness where truly dwells, as saith the Scripture, that One Which is beyond all things."
With regard to the threefold process, Dionysius goes on with an exegesis:
"(
Purgation) For not without reason is the blessed Moses bidden first to undergo purification himself and then to separate himself from those who have not undergone it; and after all purification (
Illumination) hears the many-voiced trumpets and sees many lights flash forth with pure and diverse-streaming rays, and then stands separate from the multitudes and with the chosen priests presses forward to the topmost pinnacle of the Divine Ascent. Nevertheless he meets not with God Himself, yet he beholds – not Him indeed (for He is invisible) – but the place wherein He dwells. And this I take to signify that the divinest and the highest of the things perceived by the eyes of the body or the mind are but the symbolic language of things subordinate to Him who Himself transcendeth them all. Through these things His incomprehensible presence is shown walking upon those heights of His holy places which are perceived by the mind; (
Union) and then It breaks forth, even from the things that are beheld and from those that behold them, and plunges the true initiate unto the Darkness of Unknowing wherein he renounces all the apprehensions of his understanding and is enwrapped in that which is wholly intangible and invisible, belonging wholly to Him that is beyond all things and to none else (whether himself or another), and being through the passive stillness of all his reasoning powers united by his highest faculty to Him that is wholly Unknowable, of whom thus by a rejection of all knowledge he possesses a knowledge that exceeds his understanding.
(
The Mystical Theology, Chapter I, 3.)
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