In many eastern tantric and western magickal traditions there is a great emphasis on working with symbols in order to gain insight/gnosis, in addition to/rather than just being mindful of whats going on right now. What are your thoughts on this method? Maybe it works a bit like direct pointing? Or maybe it's a different path entirely and the gnosis that comes from symbol work in a magickal context is not the same as the insight which comes through mindfulness? A reason I think this might be the case is that the mystical maps of the rosicrucian tradition I'm currently exploring is in some ways very different from the stages of insight model.
There are a lot of very weird and interesting experiences on it, and their concept of the Dark Night is very different from the one established here: they too experience hard painful recuring periods which seem to correspond to "our" DN, but at -one- advanced stage on the path they go through hell on earth and the astral plane and all other planes too after which they gain something which might be 3rd or 4th path (I'm really just guessing here).
This process is supposed to correspond to the death and resurection of Jesus. If you're interested, here are two articles about their maps:

http://alkemiskaakademin.se/Initiation%20and%20death.pdf

http://alkemiskaakademin.se/Initiation%20alchemy%20and%20life.pdf