Annihilomancy
AKA Annihilists, Sternos, Burners Note: Annihilomancy first appeared in Unknown Armies 1st Edition, in the source book Post Modern Magick. All I have done is update it slightly for 3rd Edition. The cherry end-table, antiqued lace doily, and turn-of-the-century lighting device. Matching three-piece cushy loveseat and divan, fastidiously doilied and fluffed. Exquisite Matisse over the divan, coffee table, magazines fanned out, carefully diverse to demonstrate the owner’s renaissance upbringing. Egyptian wall hangings, precisely casual draperies. The dust ruffles, tea cozy, novelty spoon collection, printer’s boxes carefully dusted and stuffed with one-of-a-kind salt shakers, a spray of flowers, subtle wallpaper, clever doormat. Clutter. Trash. The office affair, the one-night stand, the once-friends and occasional-companions who drop into and out of your life daily, forgettably, leaving no impression or regret. One thousand things, filling your life every day, demanding your attention, in need of dusting, maintaining, purchasing, collecting, taxing, arranging, and complementing. The jetsam of a thousand days, pushed on you, occupying you, distracting you from life. Clean the gutters, walk the dog, oil the car, rake the leaves, flush the pipes, rewire the garage. Somedays, it’s too much. Sometimes, you feel like dousing the whole goddamn thing in gasoline and lighting a match. Good for you. Annihilomancy is about truth, about clearing out the clutter, burning down the lies of responsibility and public expectations, and focusing on the essential nature of life. While the school’s whole mojo is based on destruction, destruction is not the goal. It is the means to a goal. And that goal, simply enough, is truth. No façades, no lies, no presuppositions, no acts. Pure truth. Things get in the way because they give us unnecessary weight and responsibility, burdening us with our social position and the accompanying expectations. Relationships, while not necessarily a sham, nevertheless stand in the way of enlightenment. As long as you have someone else to depend upon, you can never learn the value of yourself. The annihilomancer’s path to epiphany is a downward spiral, a series of losses and purges that take the practitioner lower and lower. Enlightenment lurks in the basement of a burned out building, not the cloud-crowned peaks of some distant mountaintop. If you want to conquer a thing, destroy the thing. If you want to know your life, destroy your life. This is how it works. Annihilomancers get their power from setting things back to the primal zero, by brushing aside the trappings of contrived modern life. Sure, they destroy things, they ruin lives, they break up empty marriages, but they aren’t simple vandals. They’re zealots, devoted to a primal reality. Only by losing everything can you know what really matters. Want to know more about Annihilomancy? Read the entire adept school here.
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About UsWe play pen and paper bullshit and record it. That's why this podcast is called Pen & Paper Bullshit. Archives
November 2018
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