Pentacle
A marked ritual emblem or medal in the Key of Solomon. The word does not always mean a five-pointed star.
Reference · Glossary
Glossary
A guide to the words used across this site and in the texts behind it. Definitions describe historical usage, not proven supernatural effects. A term may mean different things in different traditions; the tradition label tells you which sense is meant here.
Looking for a sign rather than a word? Symbols draws the signs of astrology, alchemy and geomancy and links each to what this study says about it.
16 terms · page 1 of 1
Pentagonal Figure of Solomon
A ritual tool in Ars Goetia. A solar or lunar figure worn on the breast with the selected spirit's seal on its reverse.
Philosopher's stone
Also: Philosophers' stone
A sought-after material said to enable metallic transmutation and, in some accounts, other transformations. Its identity and preparation were deliberately obscured in many texts.
Pip card
A numbered suit card whose value is often shown by repeating its suit emblem. Some later decks illustrate its scene instead.
Pisces
The Pisces sign of the zodiac. Pisces is mutable water: the loosening of borders through sympathy, imagination, devotion, dream, and the return of separate currents to a larger sea.
Planetary hour
One of the unequal day or night periods assigned in sequence to the seven classical planets for timing astrological or magical work.
Planetary intelligence
A named being printed alongside a planet's numerical square in Agrippa. It should not be silently identified with his separate lists of planetary angels.
Planetary magic
Magical procedures keyed to the seven planets of premodern astronomy, including election of times, images and numerical squares in Agrippa's account.
Planetary square
A numbered grid assigned to a classical planet; Agrippa's seven grids are magic squares whose rows, columns and diagonals share a total. The arithmetic can be checked without accepting the magical claims.
Pleroma
The 'fullness': a term for the divine realm or totality of divine emanations in some Gnostic accounts, particularly Valentinian ones.
Pneumatic
In some Gnostic schemes, a person or aspect described as spiritual; the classification is a historical doctrine, not an assessment of people today.
Poimandres
The revelatory figure or divine intellect in the opening treatise of the Corpus Hermeticum, which presents a vision of cosmic origins.
Prima materia
Also: First matter
The starting material or first matter of an alchemical work. Authors often described it indirectly, so it should not be treated as one agreed chemical substance.
Pseudepigraphy
Writing under the name of an earlier or authoritative figure. The name on a magical text does not by itself establish its historical author.
Psychic
In some Gnostic schemes, a soul-oriented category between material and spiritual; it does not mean the modern idea of paranormal ability.
Purification
Preparatory cleansing of a person, space or object described in many ritual sources, by different material and verbal methods.