I am a bit ambivalent about Mahler's Eighth, with its "creator Hymn." This is about the Holy Spirit, in other words, Pentecostal, and that sort of demonstrative, physically animated extravagance makes me nervous. I remember a friend of mine saying "You gotta come with me to this church, you'll be surprised!" and I, indeed, was. It turned out to be a Pentecostal church, and this lady jumped up and started 'speaking in tongues.' It about scared the crap out of me.
Thus, having studied Carl Jung's ideas, I am nervous about 'the holy spirit' animating people. This is like the "God" archetype being activated psychically, and it becomes manifest in the person, like any archetype can. And when people in groups start 'activating archetypes,' like thwe Manson family did, it makes me nervous.
If Mahler had adhered to Judaism, he would have agreed that "God stopped talking directly to Man some time ago," and any good Christian would say that Christ was sent for this same reason, and while both views are different, at least The Holy Spirit is out of the picture, and Men are left to their own responsibilities and actions.
I don't know exactly what Mahler's intent was, but he surely made a very big deal out of it, both in the work itself and the people present at the premiers. Webern conducted it as well. Maybe this appeased the Christian elements in Germany at that time, but if this is true, it didn't work, because Mahler ended up quitting the Vienna opera and being 'run out of town' anyway. The growing political climate started gearing-up around this time, culminating in Nazi Germany, and the German people going along with this madness. I wonder, were they "full of the spirit" when this all happened?
I say this Eighth Symphony of Mahler's is a grim premonition, just as his Sixth was; only this time, Mahler was naïve enough to believe that Christians "filled with the Holy Spirit" would manifest their higher selves; instead, it seems that the flip-side of archetypes is revealed by what transpired later.
I know this is a rather far-fetched notion of mine, but no more far-fetched than the Holy Spirit entering people, and 'speaking in tongues.' Go ahead, have a field-day with it; I don't care.
Thus, having studied Carl Jung's ideas, I am nervous about 'the holy spirit' animating people. This is like the "God" archetype being activated psychically, and it becomes manifest in the person, like any archetype can. And when people in groups start 'activating archetypes,' like thwe Manson family did, it makes me nervous.
If Mahler had adhered to Judaism, he would have agreed that "God stopped talking directly to Man some time ago," and any good Christian would say that Christ was sent for this same reason, and while both views are different, at least The Holy Spirit is out of the picture, and Men are left to their own responsibilities and actions.
I don't know exactly what Mahler's intent was, but he surely made a very big deal out of it, both in the work itself and the people present at the premiers. Webern conducted it as well. Maybe this appeased the Christian elements in Germany at that time, but if this is true, it didn't work, because Mahler ended up quitting the Vienna opera and being 'run out of town' anyway. The growing political climate started gearing-up around this time, culminating in Nazi Germany, and the German people going along with this madness. I wonder, were they "full of the spirit" when this all happened?
I say this Eighth Symphony of Mahler's is a grim premonition, just as his Sixth was; only this time, Mahler was naïve enough to believe that Christians "filled with the Holy Spirit" would manifest their higher selves; instead, it seems that the flip-side of archetypes is revealed by what transpired later.
I know this is a rather far-fetched notion of mine, but no more far-fetched than the Holy Spirit entering people, and 'speaking in tongues.' Go ahead, have a field-day with it; I don't care.