The book was developed from Kripal's Ph.D. dissertation on Ramakrishna at the University of Chicago, advised by Wendy Doniger.
The primary thesis of Kali's Child is that a Ramakrishna's mystical experiences were generated by the lingering results of childhood traumas, and sublimated homoerotic and pedophiliac passions; and that "Ramakrishna's mystical experiences..were in actual fact profoundly, provocatively, scandalously erotic."[REF]