The term "Black Magic Autococker" refers to a specific type of paintball marker that was popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Autocockers are a type of mechanical paintball marker that were known for their accuracy, reliability, and customization options. The Black Magic Autococker was a limited edition version of the Autococker marker that was released by Worr Game Products (WGP), the company that originally manufactured Autocockers. The Black Magic Autococker was known for its sleek black design and unique features that made it highly sought after among paintball enthusiasts. One of the defining features of the Black Magic Autococker was its internal workings, which included a three-way valve, a ram, and a regulator that allowed for faster and smoother firing. These internal components, combined with the marker's high-quality barrel, resulted in improved accuracy and efficiency on the field.
Paganism is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity. This ancient religious outlook remains active throughout much of the world today, both in complex civilisations such as Japan and India, and in less complex tribal societies world-wide. It was the outlook of the European religions of classical antiquity – Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome – as well as of their “barbarian” neighbours on the northern fringes, and its European form is re-emerging into explicit awareness in the modern West as the articulation of urgent contemporary religious priorities.
Yet others think there is a supreme divine principle, that both wants and does not want to be called Zeus , as Heraclitus wrote in the fifth century BC. Within the Pagan movement, there can be found many deities, both male and female, who have various associations and embody forces of nature, aspects of culture, and facets of human psychology.
These internal components, combined with the marker's high-quality barrel, resulted in improved accuracy and efficiency on the field. In addition to its improved performance, the Black Magic Autococker also featured unique cosmetic upgrades. The marker had a compact and lightweight body, which made it easier to maneuver during gameplay.
What is Paganism?
Pagans may be trained in particular traditions or they may follow their own inspiration. Paganism is not dogmatic. Pagans pursue their own vision of the Divine as a direct and personal experience.
The Pagan Federation recognizes the rich diversity of traditions that form the body of modern Paganism. In a brief introductory booklet, it is not possible to describe each and every one. Rather than attempt this, the pages in this section – links are on the left hand side of this page contain an introduction to six examples of major Pagan traditions.
This is not an exhaustive list, but these six traditions provide a good overview of modern Pagan practice. A suggested reading list is also available.
Some authors see the emergence of Paganism in the twentieth century as a revival of an older Pagan religion and describe all the above traditions as Neo-Pagan.
This term is also used to describe all those who are recognisably Pagan, but who do not adhere to any of the above traditions per se.
A definition of a Pagan: A follower of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.
A definition of Paganism: A polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.
What Paganism Is
Paganism is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity. This ancient religious outlook remains active throughout much of the world today, both in complex civilisations such as Japan and India, and in less complex tribal societies world-wide. It was the outlook of the European religions of classical antiquity – Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome – as well as of their “barbarian” neighbours on the northern fringes, and its European form is re-emerging into explicit awareness in the modern West as the articulation of urgent contemporary religious priorities.
The Pagan outlook can be seen as threefold. Its adherents venerate Nature and worship many deities, both goddesses and gods.
Nature – Veneration
The spirit of place is recognised in Pagan religion, whether as a personified natural feature such as a mountain, lake or spring, or as a fully articulated guardian divinity such as, for example, Athena, the goddess of Athens. The cycle of the natural year, with the different emphasis brought by its different seasons, is seen by most Pagans as a model of spiritual growth and renewal, and as a sequence marked by festivals which offer access to different divinities according to their affinity with different times of year. Many Pagans see the Earth itself as sacred: in ancient Greece the Earth was always offered the first libation of wine, although She had no priesthood and no temple.
Polytheism: Pluralism and Diversity
The many deities of Paganism are a recognition of the diversity of Nature. Some Pagans see the goddesses and gods as a community of individuals much like the diverse human community in this world. Others, such as followers of Isis and Osiris from ancient times onwards, and Wiccan-based Pagans in the modern world, see all the goddesses as one Great Goddess, and all the gods as one Great God, whose harmonious interaction is the secret of the universe. Yet others think there is a supreme divine principle, that “both wants and does not want to be called Zeus”, as Heraclitus wrote in the fifth century BC. Or which the Great Goddess Mother of All Things, as Isis, was to the first century CE novelist Apuleius and the Great Goddess is to many Western Pagans nowadays. Yet others, such as the Emperor Julian, the great restorer of Paganism in Christian antiquity, and many Hindu mystics nowadays, believe in an abstract Supreme Principle, the origin and source of all things. But even these last Pagans recognise that other spiritual beings, although perhaps one in essence with a greater being, are themselves divine, and are not false or partial divinities. Pagans who worship the One are described as henotheists, believers in a supreme divine principle, rather than monotheists, believers in one true deity beside which all other deities are false.
The Goddess
Pagan religions all recognise the feminine face of divinity. A religion without goddesses can hardly be classified as Pagan. Some Pagan paths, such as the cult of Odin or of Mithras, offer exclusive allegiance to one male god. But they do not deny the reality of other gods and goddesses, as monotheists do. (The word ‘cult’ has always meant the specialised veneration of one particular deity or pantheon, and has only recently been extended to mean the worship of a deified or semi-divine human leader.) By contrast, non-Pagan religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, often but not always, abhor the very idea of female divinity. The (then) Anglican Bishop of London even said a few years ago that religions with goddesses were ‘degenerate’!
Other Characteristics
The many divinities of Pagan religion often include ancestral deities. The Anglo-Saxon royal houses of England traced their ancestry back to a god, usually Woden, and the Celtic kings of Cumbria traced their descent from the god Beli and the goddess Anna. Local and national heroes and heroines may be deified, as was Julius Caesar, and in all Pagan societies the deities of the household are venerated. These may include revered ancestors and, for a while, the newly dead, who may of may not choose to leave the world of the living for good. They may include local spirits of place, either as personified individuals such as the spirit of a spring or the house’s guardian toad or snake, or as group spirits such as Elves in England, the Little People in Ireland, Kobolds in Germany, Barstuccae in Lithuania, Lares and Penates in ancient Rome, and so on. A household shrine focuses the cult of these deities, and there is usually an annual ritual to honour them. The spirit of the hearth is often venerated, sometimes with a daily offering of food and drink, sometimes with an annual ritual of extinguishing and relighting the fire. Through ancestral and domestic ritual a spirit of continuity is preserved, and by the transmission of characteristics and purposes from the past, the future is assured of meaning.
So, not all Pagan religion is public religion; much is domestic. And not all Pagan deities are humanoid super-persons; many are elemental or collective. We are looking at a religion which pervades the whole of everyday life.
One consequence of the veneration of Nature, the outlook which sees Nature as a manifestation of divinity rather than as a neutral or inanimate object, is that divination and magic are accepted parts of life. Augury, divination by interpreting the flight of birds, was widespread in the ancient world and is in modern Pagan societies, as is extispicy, divination by reading the entrails of the sacrificed animal, itself a larger scale version of divination by reading the tea-leaves left in a teacup. As well as reading the signs already given by deities, diviners may also actively ask the universe to send a sign, e.g., by casting stones to read the geomantic patterns into which they fall, by casting runes or the yarrow stalks of the I Ching. Pagans usually believe that the divine world will answer a genuine request for information. Trance seership and mediumship are also used to communicate with the Otherworld.
Magic, the deliberate production of results in this world by Otherworld means, is generally accepted as a feasible activity in Pagan societies, since the two worlds are thought to be in constant communication. In ancient Rome a new bride would ceremonially anoint the doorposts of her new home with wolf’s fat to keep famine from the household, and her new-born child would be given a consecrated amulet to wear as a protection against harmful spirits. The Norse warriors of the Viking age would cast the magical ‘war fetter’ upon their enemies to paralyse them, and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts record spells to bring healing and fertility. Specialist magical technologists such as horse-whisperers and healers are common throughout Pagan societies, but often the practice of magic for unfair personal gain or for harm to another is forbidden, exactly as physical extortion and assault are forbidden everywhere.
Modern Paganism
With its respect for plurality, the refusal to judge other ways of life as wrong simply because they are different from one’s own, with its veneration of a natural (and supernatural) world from which Westerners in the age of technology have become increasingly isolated, and with its respect for women and the feminine principle as embodied in the many goddesses of the various pantheons, Paganism has much to offer people of European background today. Hence it is being taken up by them in large numbers. When they realise that it is in fact their ancestral heritage, its attraction grows.
Democracy, for example, was pioneered by the ancient Athenians and much later reinvented by the Pagan colonisers of Iceland, home of Europe’s oldest parliament. Our modern love of the arts was fostered in Pagan antiquity, with its pageants and its temples, but had no place in iconoclastic Christianity and Islam. The development of science as we know it began in the desire of the Greeks and Babylonians to understand the hidden patterns of Nature, and the cultivation of humane urbanity, the ideal of the well-rounded, cultured personality, was imported by Renaissance thinkers from the writings of Cicero. In the Pagan cities of the Mediterranean lands the countryside was never far from people’s awareness, with parks, gardens and even zoos, all re-introduced into modern Europe, not by the religions of the Book, and not by utilitarian atheists, but by the Classically-inspired planners of the Enlightenment.
In the present day, the Pagan tradition manifests both as communities reclaiming their ancient sites and ceremonies (especially in Eastern Europe), to put humankind back in harmony with the Earth, and as individuals pursuing a personal spiritual path alone or in a small group (especially in Western Europe and the European-settled countries abroad), under the tutelage of one of the Pagan divinities. To most modern Pagans in the West, the whole of life is to be affirmed joyfully and without shame, as long as other people are not harmed by one’s own tastes. Modern Pagans tend to be relaxed and at ease with themselves and others, and women in particular have a dignity which is not always found outside Pagan circles.
Modern Pagans, not tied down either by the customs of an established religion or by the dogmas of a revealed one, are often creative, playful and individualistic, affirming the importance of the individual psyche as it interfaces with a greater power. There is a respect for all of life and usually a desire to participate with rather than to dominate other beings. What playwright Eugene O’Neil called “the creative Pagan acceptance of life” is at the forefront of the modern movement. This is bringing something new to religious life and to social behaviour, a way of pluralism without fragmentation, of creativity without anarchy, of wisdom without dogma. Here is an age-old current surfacing in a new form suited to the needs of the present day.
Kind thanks to Prudence Jones for the wording of this page
Leviticus 26:1-46 - “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. 'If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely.'"
It also had a distinctive black anodized finish, which gave it a sleek and intimidating appearance. The Black Magic Autococker gained a reputation for being a reliable and durable marker. It was known for its ability to withstand harsh playing conditions and remain functional even after extensive use. This made it a popular choice among both recreational players and tournament competitors. However, as technology advanced and paintball markers evolved, Autocockers began to decline in popularity. The rise of electronic markers and the shift towards faster-paced gameplay led to a decrease in demand for mechanical markers like the Black Magic Autococker. Despite its nostalgic appeal, the Black Magic Autococker is now considered a collector's item rather than a competitive marker. Many paintball enthusiasts still appreciate its unique design and historical significance in the evolution of paintball markers. As a result, it is often bought and sold among collectors and can fetch a high price in the paintball market. In conclusion, the Black Magic Autococker is a limited edition version of the Autococker marker that was known for its sleek black design, improved performance, and durability. While it may no longer be a competitive marker, it holds a special place in the history of paintball markers and continues to be appreciated by collectors..
Reviews for "Black Magic Autococker: Is It Worth the Hype?"
1. John - 2/5 - I recently purchased the Black magic autococker and I have to say, I was extremely disappointed. The gun felt cheap and poorly made. The trigger pull was stiff and uncomfortable, making it very difficult to accurately shoot. Additionally, I found that the paintball marker had a tendency to jam frequently, causing frustration during gameplay. Overall, I would not recommend the Black magic autococker to anyone looking for a reliable and high-quality paintball gun.
2. Sarah - 1/5 - I regret purchasing the Black magic autococker. The gun constantly leaked air, even after multiple attempts to fix it. The accuracy was also horrendous, with the balls spraying all over the place instead of hitting my targets. The gun was also very loud, making it hard to remain hidden during gameplay. I ended up selling it and investing in a different brand. Save yourself the trouble and avoid the Black magic autococker.
3. Mark - 2/5 - The Black magic autococker looked great on paper, but it failed to live up to its promise. It had a very inconsistent shot, with some balls barely leaving the barrel while others flew too far. The gun was also quite heavy, causing fatigue during long matches. I also had issues with the paintballs breaking inside the gun, leading to frequent cleanings and maintenance. Overall, I was left unimpressed and would not recommend this paintball marker.