Fire, flame, hearth
Candle –associated with religious ceremonies; lighting a candle is symbolic of a theoretical preservation of the soul (Walker, 1988); light in the darkness of life; vitalizing power of the sun; the uncertainty of life is easily extinguished; divine light in the world; the Christian Paschel Taper burns for 40 days from Easter to Ascension, it is extinguished on Ascension Day to represent Christ’s removal from Earth; it also depicts the pillar of fire which guided the Israelites for 40 years (Cooper, 1978)
Cross – resolves into ac-er-os and yields great fire-light (Jobes, 1962)
Fire – transformation; purification; light-giving and generative power of the sun; destruction; fusion; immolation; the medium for conveying messages or offerings heavenward; the means of devouring all created things to return them to original unity; baptism by fire restores primordial purity (Cooper); dual symbolism of light and heat; alchemical symbol of unifier and stabilizer; Amerindian symbol of the Great Spirit; Buddhist symbol of wisdom which burns all ignorance; Hindu representation of transcendental light and knowledge; in India a masculine principle personified by the god Agni
Flame – fire manifested as flame symbolizes spiritual power and forces; transcendence; illumination; surrounding the head as a nimbus represents divine power, potency of soul; Islamic symbol of light and heat, divinity and hell; Chinese symbol of the yang principle called huo
Fleur-de-lis – French for flower of the light; symbolic of enlightenment, fecundity, light, primal cause; emblem of Christ as light of the world
Hearth – center of clan and tribal life; an omphalos, the central point around which everything revolves; the interior spiritual center; center of the home, dominated by the feminine; warmth
Lamp – universal symbol of enlightenment; sometimes made of terra-cotta and said to burn perpetually, origin of the eternal flame; life; light of divinity; guidance; shedding light in the darkness; in Hinduism, oil in the lamp represents the ocean and devotion, the wick is the earth and mind, and the flame is love (Cooper)
Lantern – represents illumination and guidance; bringing light to darkness; used to light the way in the underworld; in the East, paper lanterns were decorated with symbols so that when lighted, the symbols would cast shadows during celebrations
Sun – brilliance; the dispeller of darkness; enlightenment; fire; mate; fury; destroyer
Star – from Sanskrit meaning disperser or stewer of light; dispeller of light; heavenly fire; guidance
Torch – used in Mythraic shrines to symbolize the rising and setting of the sun; viewed as protection from the powers of darkness; represents enlightenment; the wood represents the feminine, the fire the masculine, the “divine male principle springing from the feminine tree, the soul-flame attached to the wood-matter, hence the fecundating spiritual fire“ (Cooper)
Urim – literally late and fire; unidentified object mentioned in the Old Testament, apparently precious stones or small figures whose luster revealed God‘s will; a divine oracle; the name expresses the truth of God’s revelations (Jobes)
Yule candle – symbol of the rekindling and renewal of the sun during winter solstice