What is the symbolic meaning of light in Craft Masonry?

Light symbolically signifies intellectual, moral, and spiritual illumination rather than mere physical vision. The ceremony of initiation takes a candidate who is in a state of darkness and restores him to Light (the Grand Lodge of India). When the candidate's blindfold is removed upon the request for light, this moment represents enlightenment rather than physical sight (the United Grand Lodge of England).

Across the three degrees, the ceremonies represent a quest after supernatural Light: tracing the transition from darkness to light, the pathway itself, and the ultimate Light attained by faithfully pursuing that path to the end (the Grand Lodge of India). In this sense, light directs a Mason to stimulate his intellectual faculties and achieve inner illumination and a purified understanding (the Grand Lodge of India).

In masonic scholarship, light symbolizes the awakening of dormant higher faculties of the soul, granting enhanced consciousness and enlarged perceptive faculties to the postulant 1. It represents the divine spiritual principle latent within the individual 1. Within the lodge structure, different aspects of light illustrate stages of human and spiritual development; for instance, the light associated with the Sun symbolizes illuminated human intelligence and spiritual intuition acting in balance, allowing one to discern the divine presence within oneself 1. Even in times of darkness or symbolic adversity, the inner divine spark remains unextinguished, and steadfast loyalty to that light restores ultimate truth and self-knowledge 1.