I've just finished reading this book, has anyone else here read it?

I started reading it because I wanted to dip my feet into some esoteric knowledge and I've recently heard about Kabbalah. After a cursory investigation, I discovered that it is a form of Jewish mysticism that arose in somewhat recently (13th or 16th century IIRC). I also learned that there is the Christian form Cabbalah and Hermetic form Qabbalah. Since the Jewish Kaballah was the original, I decided that I would look deeper into that.

I also wanted to see how the Jews perceive Kabbalah and found out that Kabbalah seems to be reserved only to those who are 40 years old and have a good grasp of the Torah. Some Orthodox Jews see it as bullshit, but other Orthodox (Hasidic) seem to really like the Kabbalah. I am neither Jewish nor have 40 years of experience in Judaism, but I decided not to let those formalities hold me back.

Anyways, I read the book and it really helped introduce to me the basics. I should probably give the book another read and re-read, because I'm afraid that there was a lot of Yiddish/Hebrew terminology that I can't remember.

Well, AMA?

I've dabbled into the study a bit, but I don't like most of what I find.

I dislike all of the magick (with a k!), summoning, necromancy, alchemy, tarot, horoscopes, healing, and cultivation of psychic powers on the grounds that every one of these things that I've listed are bullshit. Any person who mentions that they can or know how to do anything of this is instantly marked as lacking credibility. I fear that these types have difficulty in perceiving reality from fantasy, especially when using the Necronomicon as a reference when in fact it is a fictional grimoire written by the horror writer Lovecraft.

Now as for what I do like, I like to read about secret societies, demonology, and religious esotericism. I'm not the sort that believes in the Illuminati; instead I enjoy to read about secret societies such as the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians. Demonology is all sorts of fun to read about, I do not restrict myself to only Judeo-Christian beings, so I get to enjoy all sorts of cultural folklore. As for esotericism, I've been reading a bit about the Jewish Kabbalah, basically a religious philosophy based off of the teachings of Torah. The Kabbalah believes that the language is divine and that there exists secrets encoded in the stories of the Torah. From esotericism I've also learned about a half dozen other messianic figures, some which were also very popular during their time periods.

So I guess I prefer occult history and not practical occultism.

Most of the books that I choose to read are decades or even centuries old. Very rarely do I go to a store on the day that a book is released, because generally I am not hyping myself up for new books.

Maybe the cause is that I use Gutenberg for downloading ebooks that are within the public domain. I've found that there's a wealth of knowledge to be had there, so much so that I do not need to be current with new releases. I prefer to read philosophy, pulp mysteries, and classical literature; most of which has an enormous library in the public domain.

I'm also never up to date with movies and tv shows, but this may be a symptom of my chronic reading and my lack of TV.

What about you? Do you actively look for new books and have your calendar marked with released dates?

Hello Criminologists! Here's some Criminology and Crime-related Podcasts!

A problem with Criminology is that there is not a subculture of "Pop Criminology" (as there is Pop Science), so to supplement the academics, I've also included some social science podcasts that are not so crime-focused, but do have crime topics. Well without further ado:

Academic Criminology

• NW-SCC CRJ208 - Introduction to Criminology Distance Education. This is a video lecture featuring seventeen episodes of 50-minute segments that teaches the basics of Criminology. Features a lecturer and powerpoint slides.

Criminology/Criminal Justice Discussions & Pop Crime

• Criminal Justice Discussions with David Onek. Every episode of this podcasts features guest speakers who hold conversations on relevant Criminal Justice topics. Examples of such guest speakers are police chiefs, a professor of the Berkeley law school, the president of the NAACP, etc.

• Criminal Justice Research Podcast from the National Institute of Justice. This podcast from the NIJ features numerous brief discussions (usually under 10 minutes) on research and new improvements of the criminal justice system.

• SAGE Criminology. Features authors who have written articles that deal with Criminology and has them discuss their articles. Every episode features a different author and provides a diverse collection of issues or improvements in the CJS.

• UCT Centre of Criminology. Features lectures, interviews, and discussions on criminological topics with a variety of guest speakers.

• Inside the FBI. Discusses some of the most interesting cases handled by the FBI, including scams, murders, white collar corruption, and gangs. This podcast provides the community insight into what the FBI does, such as how they investigate or how they apprehend criminals.

• Its a Crime With Margaret McLean. Every episode is around 1 hour 36 minutes long with a variety of topics including: serial killers, organizational crime, interviews with former police, conspiracies, psychics, popular crime trials, forensics, movies, and far more.

Social Science Discussions

• Social Science Bites. Has some discussions on criminology, inequality, disgust (deviance?), death, morality, and behavioral studies.

• Thinking Allowed. Provides many discussions of crime, criminology, and inequality in numerous episodes. This podcast is expansive. There are so many topics that fall under social science and so many episodes here that it would be difficult to find this podcast uninteresting.

Well, that's all I got! Please recommend anything that I might have missed!