← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 115/235
Platic aspect
A platic aspect is one that is within orb but not exact — more precisely, not partile, not in the same degree. The Moon at 10° Cancer and Venus at 16° Scorpio are in platic trine: six degrees short of exact, yet close enough to count. The word comes from the Greek platys, "broad" (the root of plate and platypus): a platic aspect is a broad one, felt across a span rather than at a point.
Most aspects in any chart are platic. The term matters less for what it says — "this aspect is not exact" — than for the way of thinking about influence it carries.
How it is worked out
Two planets are in platic aspect when the distance between them falls short of, or exceeds, the exact angle by less than the allowed orb. In Lilly's system the allowance came from the planets themselves. Each planet sends out its light over a certain span, and the two are in platic aspect when they come within the moieties — the half-orbs — of each other. Lilly's example: Saturn's orb is 10°, its moiety 5°; the Sun's orb 17°, its moiety 8½°; Saturn and the Sun are in platic aspect when within 13½° of an exact angle.
So the picture is of two lights reaching towards each other. A platic aspect begins when the edges of the two lights touch, grows as they overlap, peaks at the partile point, and fades as they draw apart. That is why Lilly can say an aspect is in force well before it is exact — and why he treats its direction, applying or separating, as part of its meaning.
Modern astrologers usually set orbs by the aspect instead of the planet (wider for conjunctions and oppositions, narrower for sextiles and the minor aspects), but the idea is the same: everything within orb and short of exact is platic.
How it is read
- Softer, broader. A platic aspect is read as a real tie between two planets, but a quieter one than a partile contact. The wider it is, the more it acts as background — a colour in the chart rather than a headline.
- Direction matters. An applying platic aspect is often read as a theme still growing, or (in horary) a matter still to come; a separating one as something passing, or already behind. A wide applying aspect can outweigh a tighter separating one.
- Wide is not nothing. Many astrologers warn against ignoring an aspect just because it is wide, especially when it involves the Sun, the Moon or the chart ruler, whose lights reach furthest.
In the tradition
The partile/platic distinction is as old as the Latin astrological textbooks and was standard in English by Lilly's day. It sits naturally beside his scheme of moieties, because both rest on the idea that a planet's influence spreads around it like light from a lamp — strongest at the centre, weaker towards the edge. Some later authors used "platic" loosely for any aspect not exact; others reserved it for an aspect within the moieties of the two planets. In ordinary use today it simply means "within orb, but not exact".
In a reading here
The aspects in charts here carry a strength, from 1 at exact to 0 at the edge of the allowance — in effect a measure of how platic an aspect is. Most aspects shown are platic; the closest ones are listed first.