φωτισμός
Photismos
Illumination — the stage where the nous begins to see
Photismos is the stage of the spiritual path in which the nous — purified through sustained katharsis — begins to perceive spiritual realities directly. The word means "illumination," and the tradition uses the metaphor of light consistently: the person undergoing photismos is experiencing the gradual restoration of spiritual sight.
Diadochos of Photiki described this process as the awakening of the spiritual senses — a genuine perceptual faculty that perceives what the physical senses cannot. Symeon the New Theologian wrote about it with the urgency of personal testimony: he had seen the light, and he insisted that everyone could.
The tradition's boldest claim about photismos comes from Gregory Palamas: the light experienced in deep prayer is not a created phenomenon, not a product of the imagination, not a metaphor. It is the uncreated light of God's own energies — the same light that shone on Christ's face at the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. This claim is the theological foundation of the entire hesychast tradition.