Glossary-PQ

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Panaenus: A Platonic philosopher in the Alexandrian school of Philalethians.

Pandora: In Greek Mythology, the first woman on earth, created by Vulcan out of clay to punish Prometheus and counteract his gift to mortals. Each god having made her a present of some virtue, she was made to carry them in a box to Prometheus, who, however, being endowed with foresight, sent her away, changing the gifts into evils.  Thus, when his brother Epimetheus saw and married her, when he opened the box, all the evils now afflicting humanity issued from it, and have remained since then in the world.

Pantheist: One who identifies God with nature and vice versa.  If we have to regard Deity as an infinite and omnipresent Principle, this can hardly be otherwise; nature being thus simply the physical aspect of Deity, or its body.

Paramatman (Sans): Supreme Soul

Paranirvana (Sans): In the Vedantic philosophy, the highest form of nirvana --beyond the latter.

Pranayama:  a method of controlling life force (prana) through regulation of breathing.

Parsees (or Parsis): The present Persian followers of Zoroaster, now settled in India, especially in Bombay and Guzerat; sun and fire worshippers.

Personality: Man's impermanent existence; it dwells in the lower Quaternary and embraces all the characteristics, including memory and consciousness of each physical life in turn; the Individuality or Higher Ego (Manas), clothes itself in a new personality at every new birth.

Phallic Worship: Sex worship; reverence and adoration shown to those gods and godesses which, like Siva and Durga in India, symbolize respectively the two sexes.

Philadelphians: Lit., "those who love their brother-man."  A sect in the seventeenth century, founded by one Jane Leadly.  The objected to all rites, forms or ceremonies of the Church, and even to the Church itself, but professed to be guided in soul and spirit by an internal Deity, their own Ego or God within them.

Philosopher's Stone: A term in Alchemy; called also the Powder of Projection,  a mysterious "principle" having the power of transmuting the base metals into pure gold.  In Theosophy, it symbolizes the transmutation of the lower animal nature of man into the highest divine.

Plane: From the Latin planus (level, flat), an extension of space, whether in the physical or metaphasical sense.  In Occultism, the range or extent of some state of consciousness, or the state of matter corresponding to the perceptive powers of a particular set of senses or the action of a particular force.

Planetary Spirits: Rulers and governors of the Planets. Planetary Gods.

Plastic: Used in Occultism in reference to the nature and essence of the astral body, or the "Protean Soul."

Pleroma: "Fulness;"  an agnostic term used also by St. Paul.  Divine world or the abode of gods. Universal space divided into metaphysical AEons.

Plotinus: A distinguished Platonic philosopher of the third century, a great mystic, renowned for his virtues and learning. He taught that the spirit soul emanating from the One Deific Principle was after its pilgrimage on earth reunited to it.

Pot Amun: A Coptic term meaning "one consecrated to the god Amun," the Wisdom-god.  The name of an Egyptian priest and occultist under the Ptolemies.

Pragna, or Prajna (Sans): the "Universal Mind;"  a synonym of Mahat.

Pralaya (Sans): Dissolution, the opposite of Manvantara, one being the period of rest and the other of full activity (death and life) of a planet, or of the whole universe.

Prana (Sans): Life Principle, the breath of life, Nephesh.

Protean Soul: A name for Mayavi rupa or thought-body, the higher astral form which assumes all forms and every form at the will of an adept's thought.

Psychism: The word is used now to denote every kind of mental phenomena, e.g., mediumship as well as the higher form of sensitiveness.

Publicans:  Regarded as so many thieves and pickpockets in Jesus' time.  Among the Jews, the name and profession of a publican was the most odious thing in the world.  They were not allowed to enter the Temple, and Matthew 18:17 speaks of a heathen and a publican as identical.  Yet they were only Roman tax-gatherers, occupying the same position as the British officials in India and other conquered countries.

Puranas (Sans): Lit., "the ancient,"  referring to Hindu writings or Scriptures, of which there is a considerable number.

Pythagoras: The most famous mystic philosopher, born at Samos about 586 B. C., who taught the heliocentric system and reincarnation, the highest mathematics and the highest metaphysics, and who had a school famous throughout the world.

Quaternary: The four lower "principles in man," those which constitute his personality (i.e., Body, Astral Double, Prana or life, organs of desire and lower Manas, or brain-mind), as distinguished from the Higher Ternary or Triad, composed of the Spiritual Soul, Mind and Atman (Higher Self).