Gershom Scholem"s Origins of the Kabbalah provides a painstakingly detailed history of Kabbalah"s rise among medieval French and Spanish Jews, describes the first publication of Jewish mystical texts, and investigates the growth of their influence on Jewish religious life. The book also doubles back to describe secret traditions of Jewish Gnosticism, which describe a Creation story so numerological and esoteric it makes the New Testament book of Revelation look as simple and straightforward as a Saturday-morning cartoon. This book is much denser than Scholem"s excellent On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, but for readers with a basic knowledge of Kabbalah, it shouldn"t be rough going. --Michael Joseph Gross