Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna

by Jeffrey J. Kripal

In a book now marked by both critical acclaim and cross-cultural controversy, Jeffrey J. Kripal explores the life and teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a nineteenth-century Bengali saint who played a major role in the creation of modern Hinduism. Through extended textual and symbolic analyses of Ramakrishna's censored "secret talk," Kripal demonstrates that the saint's famous ecstatic and visionary experiences were driven by mystico-erotic energies that he neither fully accepted nor understood. The result is a striking new vision of Ramakrishna as a conflicted, homoerotic Tantric mystic that is as complex as it is clear and as sympathetic to the historical Ramakrishna as it is critical of his traditional portraits.

In a substantial new preface to this second edition, Kripal answers his critics, addresses the controversy the book has generated in India, and traces the genealogy of his work in the history of psychoanalytic discourse on mysticism, Hinduism, and Ramakrishna himself. Kali's Child has already proven to be provocative, groundbreaking, and immensely enjoyable.

"Only a few books make such a major contribution to their field that from the moment of publication things are never quite the same again. Kali's Child is such a book."—John Stratton Hawley, History of Religions

Winner of the American Academy of Religion's History of Religions Prize for the Best First Book of 1995

Genres: Religion, Hinduism, History, Nonfiction

420 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Jeffrey J. Kripal, Ph.D. (History of Religions, The University of Chicago, 1993; M.A., U. Chicago; B.A., Religion, Conception Seminary College, 1985), holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he serves as Associate Dean of Humanities, Faculty and Graduate Studies. He also has served as Associate Director of the Center for Theory and Research of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

Reviews

[Nick Mather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Kripal examine's Ramakrishna's 'secret' teachings via Freudian psychoanalysis. His conclusions upset a good number of Hindus who held public burnings. No book deserves that, particularly not this one. Agree or not with Kripal, this is a fascinating examination of the life of one of the most influential of Indian saints.

[Signe Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This controversial investigation of homoerotic subtexts in the visions of the great Bengali saint and mystic Ramakrishna is a fascinating read. The book is well-written erudite, and insightful. Definitely worth reading whether or not one agrees with the author's interpretations.

[Vineet Menon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible, atrocious and foolish.

Using psychoanalysis which has been long proven to be faulty in diverse environment. Kripal, borrowed this technique from his mentor and guide, Wendy Doniger only to apply it to Ramakrishna.

Kripal's obsession with penis and little boys seems suggestive of the fact that he has latent pedophilia and homosexual tendencies.

[Neal Javia]

Cocacolonization

In the past, I have talked about the still prevalent phenomena of Western intellectual and cultural imperialism, and this book is a perfect example of it. Western intellectuals, scholars, and academics, who claim to be open-minded, gaze down and analyze non-Western cultures and traditions with Western-centric worldviews (ontological materialism, reductionism, liberalism, secularism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, and other paradigms that they take for granted) rather than having a genuine curiosity to appreciate and understand other cultures and traditions from their own point of view. Kripal is just one of the many imperialist frauds hired by prestigious American universities who claim to teach about non-Western cultures but are, in reality, just engaging in a new form of imperialism: intellectual and cultural imperialism.

An alternative way for Western intellectuals, scholars, and academics of studying non-Western cultures (India in this case) would be the way chosen by those like Huston Smith, Richard Alpert, and Edwin Bryant, for whom I have high respect.