The generally excellent /r/askhistorians booklist doesn't have anything on two subjects I find myself fascinated in, so I figured I'd create a thread, and see if anyone here could point me in the right direction.
The first subject is Gnosticism. I'm looking for relatively modern books (i.e., at least are informed by the Nag Hammadi scriptures) that can talk about Gnosticism in some depth, ideally describing differences between various branches, e.g., Valentinism, etc.
Secondly, I'm interested in any sort of scholarly work on the mystery cults, mostly (but not limited to) Orphism, Dionysian cults, etc. I understand that this subject has much less data to go on, and is more speculative, but anything is more than I know right now.
Bonus: Anything discussing charismatic religion in early Christianity (Montanism, etc.) would be super cool as well.
Thank you all, and I hope you bury me!
I've recently begun to find more books on religion as a whole, and then delved deeper into what I found interesting
Of the ones I've seen regarding Gnosticism:
The Gnostic Gospels by Elain Pagels - A great book that reflects the depth of the religion itself. It's great in that it highlights and answers common questions on other Christianities, referencing fairly recently discovered gospels. It's also interesting in that the implications it provides conflict with the texts found in more mainstream records of Christ - while I'm not Christian, it was still an interesting read.
The Nag Hammadi Library by James M. Robinson - less for the translations and more for the analyses and introductions of each text.
Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism by Kurt Rudolph - explores the relationship and development of Gnosticism from early Christianity while not beating you to a pulp from a torrent of information would be the best way I'd describe it. Comprehensive, although since it's a translation I found it rather hard to read at times.
Also, I've heard praise for * Memoirs of a Modern Gnostic* by Edward Conze, although I haven't found it or read it.
Mysticism:
This is more from my large(r) encyclopaedia of religions - specifically, Britannica Encyclopaedia of World Religions - I haven't read much on mysticism, so a lot of this is from references to books or from the bibliography itself. I do hope you find something though, and I'll annotate what I have read/browsed.
Ancient Mystery Cults by Walter Burkert - explores more of how Christianity flourished while older religions (e.g. Greek or Roman) dispersed. It looked less historical and more comprehensively written into an overview or summarisation of observations.
The Roman Cult of Mithras by Manfred Clauss
An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions by John Ferguson - illustrated encyclopaedias tend to be good places to start, but that's for me, where I like to have a brief knowledge of most things before diving deeper.
Dionysos - Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life by Carl Kerenyi
Orpheus and Greek Religion by W. K. C. Guthrie
Mysticism and the Mystical Experience - East and West edited by Donald H. Bishop