The Wearing of White

Candidate: 1. one that aspires to or is nominated or qualified for an office, membership, or award.  2. one likely or suited to undergo or be chosen for something specified.  3. a student in the process of meeting final requirements for a degree.


(Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary)


"Candidate" is a derivative of the Latin "candida" (white). In Ancient Rome, people running for political office would usually wear togas chalked and bleached to be bright white at speeches, debates, conventions, and other public functions."


(Source: Wikipedia)


The true candidate must indeed needs be, as the word candidus implies, a "white man," white within as symbolically he is white-vestured without, so that no inward stain or soilure may obstruct the dawn within his soul of that Light which he professes to be the predominant wish of his heart on asking for admission; whilst, if really desirous of learning the secrets and mysteries of his own being, he must be prepared to divest himself of all past preconceptions and thought-habits and, with childlike meekness and docility, surrender his mind to the reception of some perhaps novel and unexpected truths which Initiation promises to impart and which will more and more unfold and justify themselves within those, and those only, who are, and continue to keep themselves, properly prepared for them.


(Source: The Meaning of Masonry by W.L. Wilmshurst)