Kali's Child

Jeffrey Kripal's controversial psychoanalytic and tantric reading of the 19th-century Bengali mystic Ramakrishna — arguing that his mystical experiences were shaped by homoeroticism and transgressive tantric sexuality.

Reads Ramakrishna's mystical experiences through a hermeneutic that takes seriously both the tantric context (in which transgressive sexuality is a genuine spiritual technology) and psychoanalytic categories. Argues that the authoritative English hagiography suppressed the erotic dimensions of Ramakrishna's experience. Sparked major controversy in both Hindu communities and academic religious studies.