Purging is the act of the body undergoing one or more purgative actions during a psychedelic experience using plant medicine, most notably ayahuasca. These actions include yawning, sweating, crying, shivering, vomiting, or in rare cases diarrhea.
Purging is a well-recognized effect that many people experience during an ayahuasca ceremony. For some people it does not occur during their first or even first few ceremonies but occurs in following ceremonies. For others it may occur during their first ceremony and not return in a following ceremony. Everyone’s experiences with purging, as with other aspects of their journey with ayahuasca, are as unique as they are.
Purging is almost universally accommodated for by the hosts of ayahuasca retreats, through the use of a comfortable mat or surface to sit or lie on, cloths or blankets to wrap around participants, repositories for physical purgatives, and bathrooms nearby. Retreat facilitators are normally well-versed in the inevitability of purging by some participants and are trained and prepared to assist as necessary.
According to the traditional medicine practices of the native people of the Amazon, purging is an important part of the ayahuasca experience, as along with the physical purge an emotional, psychological, mental, or spiritual purge is also occurring. As has been pointed out by scholars, the purgative effects of ayahuasca are so intimately connected to the overall therapeutic importance of the medicine in Amazonian cultures that they are not and cannot be separated from one another1. In this sense, ayahuasca can additionally be thought of as a non-physical purgative, rather than only a simple physical purgative, working to expel non-physical blockages and toxins that cause dis-ease, much as physically purging removes physical things that cause dis-ease.
1 Politi, Matteo; Tresca, Giorgia; Menghini, Luigi; Ferrante, Claudio. “Beyond the Psychoactive Effects of Ayahuasca: Cultural and Pharmacological Relevance of Its Emetic and Purging Properties”. Planta Med 2022; 88(14): 1275-1286. DOI: 10.1055/a-1675-3840
