The other night my friend Phil and I were shooting the breeze about nothing much in particular, and the topic of how iTunes is revolutionizing the music biz came up (Phil’s son is a guitarist in a band called Blue of Noon). Phil made a comment that fascinated me: "You know," he said, "the sales of high end audiophile equipment is declining. People just aren’t worried about high fidelity any more." I snorted in response, "Yeah, well, the audiophile market has been overblown for quite some time now. A carefully chosen $3000 system sounds just as good as a $30,000 system, even though audiophiles are too obstinate to admit it."
The conversation meandered on to other topics, but it left me thinking about the rise and fall of the true audiophile: the person who would gladly take out a second mortgage on their house to buy the "perfect" sound system. More than once, I encountered audiophiles who, like overeager 12-year-olds, simply had to show off their expensive toys to me — with a great flourish I’d be invited to sit in the audiophile’s own chair (carefully positioned in the one spot in the room where the sound is, er, most perfect) and then, after explaining in intricate detail why their particular five-figure sound system is The Absolute Best On The Planet, my friend would cue up an album notorious for its sonic complexity (like Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Center of the Earth or the Gyuto Monks’ Tibetan Tantric Choir), and then… I’d listen.
Whenever this happened, I always bumped up against the same problem: I never heard a system that sounded any better than my medium-priced Sony CD player, JVC receiver, and Bose speakers. All of which cost roughly 10% of what my audiophile friends paid for their "perfect" systems.
When I would express my inability to detect a difference in sonic splendour, invariably my friend would smile condescendingly and lament how sad life must be for me, to suffer the curse of having plebeian ears.
• • •
Sad as it might be for my audiophile friends, science pretty much takes my side. Test after double blind test fails to demonstrate any ability, both among audiophiles or us plebeians, to detect with any consistency a difference in sound between average high quality stereo components and the super-expensive, ultra-high end audio equipment. If you think this is a bold statement, then check out some of the links from the Wikipedia article on audiophiles, and you’ll find all sorts of entertaining reading. Part of what makes it all so much fun: the audiophiles simply argue against the evidence (my favorite counter argument: "a listener needs a relaxing environment, in which over time he’ll be able to detect the true superiority of audiophile sound." Yeah, right. Incidentally, I use the pronoun "he" because most audiophiles are men, women being far too sensible to engage in such egotistical play). We human beings are so precious: we’ll believe whatever we want to believe, and come up with all sorts of arguments to bolster our position, no matter how much it flies in the face of common sense.
But back to Phil’s comment about declining sales of audiophile equipment. Here’s an online article that bears out his observation. I personally find it hard to believe that the advent of downloadable music is alone responsible for the decline of the audiophile market. I suspect that this decline originated with a younger generation that has grown up with the ordinary sonic splendor of digital technology and therefore does not need to believe in a mythical "pure sound" delivered only by über-expensive equipment. In other words, the myth of the audiophile experience has been subverted not only by measurable science (i.e., the double blind test), but also by the digital availability of beautiful sound delivered through (relatively) inexpensive equipment. The advent of the MP3 is simply an amplification of a process that began a quarter century ago with the debut of the compact disc. Of course, some audiophiles insist that their subjective ability to discern minute differences in sound still justifies the heroically large amounts of money that they will invest in stereo equipment, which they can then brag about to anyone who will listen (mostly, just others in their vanishing community).
• • •
This morning, an interesting thought occurred to me: based on my experience of the contemporary magical community, many of its members and spokespersons seem to function in ways that parallel the dynamics of the audiophile community. Just as audiophiles seek the perfect sound, so too do magicians seek the perfect experience (of magic). Like audiophiles, true believers in magic will go to herioc lengths in their quest for this perfect experience.
Like audiophiles, magicians (ceremonial, Wiccan, druidic, or otherwise — I’ve encountered the phenomenon I’m describing here in a variety of settings) claim a higher than ordinary sensory (or extrasensory) ability — the ability to perceive and direct the flow of magical energy or of controllable spiritual entities. Non-magicians who do not share in this perception/experience of magical "reality" are dismissed, either contemptuously or with seeming compassion, as "lacking" in psychic ability. Meanwhile, those magicians who have (or claim to have) the psychic skill necessary to cut the magical muster, engage in the pursuit of arcane knowledge, esoteric spellcraft, hidden ritual, and ancient ceremonial as a means to sharpen, hone, or simply celebrate their unique knowledge/skill. How do they do this? By studying under a demanding teacher or teachers, and/or by pursuing a series of intiations in a magical tradition. Such studies typically take years to complete, are highly demanding in terms of time and effort, require loyalty, perseverance (and often, obedience) and confer upon the student a "lineage" or magical pedigree. These challenging curricula, often linked to famous magical celebrities (like Aleister Crowley or Israel Regardie or Victor Anderson) are, in this analogy, the equivalent to the high-priced audiophile equipment: not only is such a training program expensive (and therefore elitist), but its value is only "discernable" to those with the "rare ability" to perceive its worth. Of course, here the "expense" is measured not in dollars, but in terms of time, effort, and commitment to the pursuit of the esoteric studies within a particular initiatory lineage.
So… if you have the goods (the magical raw aptitude), you need to buy the expensive equipment (the elitist training by the "right" teacher), in order to achieve the desired perfect experience (magical mastery). Once having achieved such mastery, you have unlimited bragging rights (i.e., you get to write dense and largely unreadable books in the tradition of Aleister Crowley or R.J. Stewart). On the other hand, if you look at this entire house of cards and decide it’s more about ego than anything else, well… clearly you are a plebeian and you have zero magical ability whatsoever. Of course, the fact that empirical science cannot demonstrate any independently verifiable and measurable evidence that magical energy exists at all (let alone has an impact on peoples’ lives) is simply evidence of science’s failings, and should not at all be taken to suggest that the emperors of magic are, in fact, naked.
What a fun world we live in!
• • •
Some of my readers will find this post supremely annoying, and simply further evidence that I went off my rocker when I decided to trade in druidism for catholicism. A few others might have an "ah ha!" moment similar to the one I myself enjoyed this morning. Granted, most of you who read these words will no doubt find them boring, either because you have no knowledge of or interest in the audiophile community, or else no knowledge of or interest in the magical community. If you belong to this last group, be thankful!
As for me, I am left with one question. When will the world of magic have its own equivalent to digital music: in other words, a phenomenon that gives the average person enough of a splendid experience of the spiritual realm — without the egotism or posturing that goes with most arcane magical studies — that he or she will see through magic’s claims to be the best or only experience of spiritual power? Of course, given how marginalized the magical communities are even in today’s postmodern world, perhaps that phenomenon has already arrived. Perhaps it is devotional mysticism. Perhaps it is science. Perhaps it is good old fashioned psychotherapy.
I think any of the three will do, as alternatives to magic for the average person. I for one would glady opt for any of these — the spiritual splendor of union with divine love; or a reasonable, constructive engagement with the natural world, or just plain and simple emotional health and well-being — over the grandiose but largely-hollow promises of the magical elite. But what do I know? I’m just a plebeian, after all.
