Tiphateth, Hebrew TPhARTh, “beauty,” is the sixth and central Sephirah of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, located in the center of the Pillar of Balance or Consciousness.
Universal symbolism:
Name of God: YHVH ALVH VDAaTh, Tetragrammation Eloah va-Daath (Lord God of Knowledge)
Archangel: MKIAL, Michael, (He Who Is As God)
Angelic Host: MLKIM, Malakim, (Kings)
Astrological Correspondence: ShMSh, Shemesh (the sun)
Tarot Correspondence: The four Sixes and four Knights or Princes of the pack
Elemental Correspondence: Air
Magical Image: A naked child; a crowned and throned king; a crucified man
Additional Symbols: The cube, the cross of six squares, the truncated pyramid
Additional Title: Microprosopus, the Lesser Countenance
Colors:
in Atziluth – clear rose pink,
in Briah – golden yellow,
in Yetzirah – rich salmon pink,
in Assiah – golden amber
Corrospondence in the Microcosm: The imagination of Ruach
Correspondence in the Body: The solar plexus
Grade of Initiation: Adeptus Minor
Qlippoth: ThGRIRVN, Tagirion (the Disputers)
Text from the Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom corresponding to this Sephirah: “The Sixth Path is called the Mediating Intelligence, because in it are multiplied the influxes of the Emanations, for it causes that influence to flow into all the reservoirs of the blessings, with which these themselves are united.”
In Tiphareth God’s love is revealed as the plentitude and blissful harmony of all his possibilities. They appear as many particular archetypes, each connected by essential fusion and qualitative interpenetration. Each archetype truly representing God, is God, is unique by itself but joined to the others through the essence of God, thus also displaying his unity.
This Sephirah reveals the “heart” of God or his compassion which infuses everything which is “above” and “below,” “on the right” or “on the left” in the world of emanation. The true knowledge of such emanation is that even though all of the particular archetypes are shown they all emanate from a “center” and are of the same essence.
The essential principle of this divine love is the identity of the absolute (ain)-which excludes everything not of itself-and of the infinite (en sof)-which includes all that is real. From this essential principle of divine beauty radiates both the pure truth of the only reality, eclipsing all that it is not, and at the same time unlimited bliss that each thing effortlessly floats in the essence of God, Kether.
Divine love necessarily embodies both rigorous truth and generous bliss; the measurement of created things requires the judgment of their qualities, universal law on one hand and on the other the unlimitedness of grace, giving rise to all life, joy, and freedom; in other words, two opposites working in harmony. The manifestation of divine love illustrates grace crystallizing in the created “measures” or forms and radiating through them, leaving the imprint of the author on the work of his creation.
The final product, specie or thing, exhibits the fullness of the possibilities of its kind. Simply, every one of its kind, in its personal way, exhibits qualities of the spiritual archetype. A thing is ugly only if it participates only imperfectly in its pure archetype, or if its species is not in conformity with divine perfection.
A perfect creation most likely displays an “inner” and “outer” beauty; the outer aspect, or aspects, revealing an inner quality. This can be observed in things, and both non-human and human species with the consideration of man’s reasoning, free-will and a relationship with the divine or the lack of the thereof which can effect the appearance. A.G.H.
Sources:
Greer, John Michael. The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. St. Paul, MN, Llewellyn Worldwide. pp. 487-488
Schaya, Leo, The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah, Secaucus, NJ, University Books. 1971. pp. 49-54