This bachelor’s thesis examines the relationship between Parmenides’ poem, archaic conceptions of the soul, and religious and experiential elements that some scholars have associated with shamanism. It first presents shamanism as a comparative category and discusses its fundamental characteristics, such as altered states of consciousness, soul flight, ritual withdrawal, and access to knowledge beyond sensory perception. It then situates Parmenides’ thought within the religious context of archaic Greece, focusing on divination (Gk. mantiké), iatromanteis, incubation, and the relationship between the soul, the body, and cognition. It proposes that the distinction between dóxa and alétheia concerns not only what is known but also how it is known. Access to truth is therefore not merely the result of correct reasoning but requires a transformation of the knowing subject. This transformation is expressed through the motifs of Parmenides’ journey and divine revelation, while the form of the proem prepares the listener for a different mode of knowing. The comparison with shamanism thus illuminates the interconnection among philosophical teaching, religious experience, and ritual elements in his poem.
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