Carl Olson on Kali's Child

[Guest guest]

Re: Carl Olson's 1997 review (excerpts of which were recently

posted on this list), let's remember that at least 99% of Kali's

Child's readers have: 1) no knowledge of Bengali, and 2) no access to

the original source documents. The reader will naturally presume that

Jeffrey Kripal's documentation and translations are accurate and

faithful to the texts. Unfortunately, this is not the case. However,

unless a person has a good background in Bengali and also has a

thorough knowledge of the Ramakrishna literature, he or she will not

necessarily see the real problems inherent in Kali's Child.

To make a serious discussion even more difficult, many of

those who condemn Kali's Child haven't bothered to read the book.

GOOD LUCK trying to find someone who has the requisite Bengali

background, has a thorough knowledge of the Ramakrishna literature

AND has read Kali's Child.

One final point: Jeffrey Kripal's claim, reiterated by

Carl Olson, regarding "the secrets that the orthodox leaders of

the religious movement have kept hidden for so long from the

public" has been nicely refuted by Swami Tyagananda in his

article "Kali's Child Revisited: Or Didn't Anyone Check the

Documentation?" (http://home.earthlink.net/~tyag/Home.htm)

Pravrajika Vrajaprana