Ramakrishna’s Samadhi and Visionary Episodes

Record summary

Biographical and devotional accounts of Ramakrishna describe repeated samadhi, visions associated with Kali and other religious forms, loss of ordinary bodily awareness and reports of unusual sensitivity or knowledge. The episodes are relevant to comparison because they include recurrent, socially observed trance-like states interpreted through multiple South Asian religious frameworks. The principal sources are recollections, devotional biographies and edited conversations, not prospective clinical records. Memory, translation, hagiographic development and retrospective theological interpretation complicate assessment of what was directly observed.