Pallas, Pallas Athena : The second asteroid discovered in the early nineteenth century, named after the Greek goddess of war, wisdom and handicrafts.

parallel : The angular relationship between two planets that occupy the same degree (within 1° orb) and direction of declination, both north or both south. Interpretational emphasis is similar to that of a weak conjunction. See also declination.

partile : The degree at which an aspect is precisely exact (0° orb). An aspect that is within 1° orb is said to be exact but not partile.

Part of Fortune : The Arabian Part most commonly used by western astrologers. Calculated by subtracting the Sun's position from the sum of the Ascendant's and Moon's positions, the degree occupied by the Part of Fortune symbolizes good fortune. Also called Fortuna and Pars Fortunæ. See also Fortuna, Arabian Parts.

penumbra : Literally partial shadow; the partially lighted area around any completely darkened area (umbra) of full shadow.

penumbral eclipse : The term applied when the Moon passes through Earth's penumbra; the shadow does not obliterate the Moon form Earth's view but causes it to appear orangish or copper-colored.

peregrine : From the Latin peregrinus, foreigner. Said of a planet that does not occupy a sign of essential dignity or debilitation and is not in mutual reception with any other planet. A peregrine planet is said to drift aimlessly and lack standing in the horoscope; its action depends upon planets with which it is aspected.

perigee : The point of orbit at which a planet is closest to Earth.

perihelion : The point in a planet's orbit that lies closest to the Sun.

periodical lunation : Term applied to the transiting Moon's monthly return to the exact position occupied in a natal horoscope.

phase : Any of the stages of variation in appearance or illumination of a planet; used most commonly to describe the various stages in the Moon's cycle. See also lunation cycle, waning phase, waxing phase.

Placidean houses : The house system devised by the Spanish monk, Placidus de Tito (seventeenth century). Placidus' system, still widely used today, is based on the trisection of nocturnal and diurnal semi-arcs. The time it takes from each degree of the ecliptic to rise from the lower meridian to the horizon (nocturnal semi-arc) and to rise from the horizon to the upper meridian (diurnal semi-arc) is adapted to space.

planet : From the Greek planetes, wanderer; used astrologically to describe any heavenly body which when viewed from Earth appears to move, as distinguished from fixed stars.

planetary hours : A system devised by ancient astrologers that assigned one of the seven planets then known to each hour of the day. The first hour of sunrise was ruled by the planetary day ruler (Sunday, Sun; Monday, Moon; Tuesday, Mars; Wednesday, Mercury; Thursday, Jupiter; Friday, Venus; Saturday, Saturn) and each hour thereafter governed by the next faster moving planet in rotation from Saturn to Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon and back to Saturn throughout the twenty-four-hour period. Planetary energy was thought to be focused during the days and hours associated with a planet.

planetary node : The point at which a planet's path intersects the ecliptic; declination, 0°. The term is usually reserved for nodes other than the Moon's Nodes.

planetary patterns : Used interchangeably with shaping. Sometimes equated with aspect patterns.

platic : Term used to describe any aspect that is not exact (within 1° orb) but within allowable orb.

Plato : Greek 429-355 B.C., studied in Egypt and elsewhere, pupil of Socrates, fellow student of Euclid, follower of Pythagoras. His contribution to Astrology was setting the problem of representing courses of the planets by circular and uniform motions.

Pleiades : A group of fixed stars in the constellation Taurus. They are called the "Weeping Sisters" because, according to Greek mythology, seven sisters, Alcyone, Merope, Celæno, Taygeta, Maia, Electra and Sterope, daughters of Atlas and the nymph Pleione, killed themselves for grief when Atlas was transformed into a mountain. According to a different version, Jupiter transformed the sisters into stars so they could escape the attentions of Orion. The largest star in the group is Alcyone at about 29° Taurus.

polarity : The contrasting and complementary qualities shown by signs opposite each other in the zodiac.

pole : Either end of the axis of any sphere such as the Earth, the celestial sphere, etc.

Porphyry : Philosopher (233-304 A.D.) of the Neo-Platonic school who devised a house system based on dividing each quadrant of a horoscope, as determined by the angles, into three houses of equal size.

Poseidon : The eighth symbolic planet used in Uranian astrology.

positive signs : All air and fire signs; used to describe the outgoing, dynamic qualities characteristic of these signs. Also called masculine signs.

precession : The circular motion of Earth's axis around the pole of the ecliptic, caused by the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon on the bulging part of the equator. One complete revolution takes approximately twenty-five thousand years to complete.

precession of the equinoxes : The gradual westward shift (about 50" each year) of the equinoctial points along the ecliptic due to the ecliptic due to the rotational movement of the poles of Earth's axis. This phenomena creates an increasing difference in the tropical (based upon the ecliptic and the Sun's ingress into the sing Aries) and the sidereal zodiacs (based upon constellations) or about 50" each year.

prenatal epoch : The astrological moment of conception. According to Ptolemy, the natal Ascendant or Descendant coincides with the Moon's zodiacal position at the prenatal epoch, ten lunar months prior to birth, more or less; used primarily in chart rectification.

primary directions : Originally, a mathematically complicated system of progressing a horoscope based upon the diurnal rotation of the Earth. The term is now loosely applied to any method of advancing house cusps, but usually does not include planetary progressions.

prime meridian : The great circle that passes through Earth's poles and Greenwich, England (0° longitude), from which longitude is measured east and west. See also longitude, geographical or terrestrial.

prime vertical : The great circle that rises vertically from the east point of the horizon and passes through Earth's zenith and nadir.

progressions : The general term applied to any method of advancing the planets and house cusps of a natal horoscope to a particular time after birth.

promittor : The slower moving of two planets in aspect; the receiver of an aspect.

Ptolemy,Claudius : A great astrologer, astronomer and geographer of the second century (ca. 100-178 A.D.) who developed the theory that Earth is the motionless center of the universe about which the planets, sun and Moon revolve. Ptolemy's work, recorded in his Tetrabiblos, was based in part upon the earlier works of Hipparchus (ca. 190-120 B.C.), who catalogued the known stars and, through his observations, discovered Precession of the Equinoxes. The Ptolmaic theory was widely accepted until replaced by the Copernican theory, put forth in the sixteenth century, which states that Earth is a moving planet, thus laying the foundation for later discoveries.

Pythagoras : Greek 569-470 B.C., studied in Egypt. Left nothing in writing but is supposed to said that the Earth, Moon and planets and fixed stars revolved round the Sun. Copernicus in the sixteenth century claimed him as the originator of the system which he revived.

quadrant : One of the four sections of a horoscope, each bounded by two angles not opposite each other.

quadrate, quartile : Synonymous with square.

quadrupedian signs : Alternate term for bestial signs. See bestial signs.

quadruplicity : One of the three qualitative groups (cardinal, fixed, mutable) in which each of the four member signs share a common mode of expression.

quincunx : A minor hard aspect, separating distance 150°, the fifth multiple of the twelfth harmonic (30°, semi-sextile). Interpretation focuses on adjustmental needs. Also called an inconjunct.

quindecile : A minor easy aspect, the fifteenth harmonic, 24°.

quintile : The fifth harmonic, 72°, a minor easy aspect.