What is Rastafari ? Haille Sellassie & Rasta Marijuana Rasta & Reggae
The Rastafarians' use of marijuana is perhaps the most dominant force in themovement's religious idealogy, as well as the most controversial. Its use grounded in the Bible, ganja, also known as the "holy herb", took on the role of a religious sacrament for the Rastas as the movement gathered speed in the 1930's, and symbolized a protest of the oppressive White Babylon, or power structure, which had deemed its use illegal. The term ganga refers to a specially cultivated type of Indian hemp derived from female plants, as opposed to the Mexican-Spanish variety, marijuana. The flowering clusters from the tops of the plants are carefully cut off, producing a resin with special properties capable of producing altered states of consciousness when used in smoking mixtures (Barrett 128). Ganja, then, represents a finer quality of weed, and is said to be as much as four times stronger than the Mexican-Spanish variety .
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While its use is largely associated with Rastafarians, ganga use among Jamaicans was by no means unique to the Rastafarian movement. Prior to their emergence in the 1930's, ganga was used by native herbalists as a folk medicine, particularly in teas and as smoking mixtures with tobacco. Although its use had been prohibited very early in Jamaica, most peasants had no knowledge of its illegality. With the emergence of the Rastas, however, the smoking of the herb came to take on new significance.
Ganja is though to have become a religious ritual of the Rastafarians during the era of the Pinnacle Commune in the early 1940's. The Commune was founded by Leonard Howell a leading figure of the Rastafarian movement. This was after Marcus Garvey's departure from Jamaica in 1917. Having started a ministry in the slums of Kingston, Howell developed an immediate following and began to publicly advocate six principles, which soon led to his arrest: 1) hatred for the White race; 2) the superiority of the Black race; 3) revenge on Whites for their wickedness; 4) the negation, persecution, and humiliation of the government and legal bodies of Jamaica; 5) preparation to return to Africa; 6) acknowledgment of Emperor Haile Selassie I as the supreme being and the only ruler of the Black people. Charged with uttering seditious speech in which he abused both the Government of Great Britain and the Island, Howell was sentenced to two years imprisonment. It was upon his release that he organized the "Ethiopian Salvation Society," recruited a large following, and by 1940 had established a cult commune by the name of Pinnacle, deep in the hills of St. Catherine overlooking the city of Kingston . It's remote location served its purpose, at least temporarily, in keeping the authorities away.
It was during this time at the Pinnacle Commune that ganja is believed to have been adopted as a religious ritual by the Rastafarians. Grown in abundance as a native cash crop, the isolation of the Rastafarian commune led to a freedom to indulge in the drug that was "virtually unimpeded" . Pinnacle, then, became a bridge burning act, the solidifying movement around certain rites and practices with which they are now identified.
In 1941, however, the Pinnacle Commune was broken up by the police, and the majority of the Pinnacle dwellers moved to Kingston. Unlike the earlier peasants who had used the ganja, these urban dwellers knew of the illegality of the herb. It would therefore be right to assume that as a protest against society, ganga smoking was the first instrument of protest engaged in the movement to show its freedom from the laws of the "Babylon".
For the Rastafarians, however, whose beliefs are not only a religion, but a way of life, the smoking of the herb symbolizes much more than an attempt by the movement to "show its freedom from the laws of the 'Babylon'." Rather, it is an intensely religious experience, the key to a new understanding of the self, the universe, and God. According to a leading Rastafarian: Man basically is God but this insight can only come to man with the use of the herb. When you use the herb, you experience yourself as God. With the use of the herb, you can exist in this dismal state of reality that now exists in Jamaica. You cannot change man, but you can change yourself by the use of the herb. When you are God you deal or relate to people like a God. In this way you let your light shine, and when each of use lets his light shine, we are creating a God-like culture and this is the cosmic unity that we try to achieve in the Rastafarian community .
According to the Rastafarians, the average Jamaican is so brainwashed by colonialism that his entire system is programmed in the wrong way. His response to the world is conditioned by unseen forces due to European acculturation, and can only be "loosened up" through the use of the herb. The use of the herb results in a true revelation of Black consciousness which brings about the proper love for the Black race. One's true identity can finally be experienced, along with the revelation that Haile Selassie is God and that Ethiopia is the home of the Black people.
For the Rastafarians, then, the smoking of the herb is both a reactionary device to society, freeing the follower from the establishment, and a religious sacrament, enabling the Rastafarian a oneness with both God and himself. Today, however, as he or she recites the prayer preceding the lighting of the herb: Glory be to the Father and to the maker of creation As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be World without end: Jah Rastafari: Eternal God Selassie I. The Rastafarian movement is threatened by the emergence of crack as the drug of choice among Rastafarian youth, on Kingston's streets and elsewhere in Jamaica. If nothing else, this moral decline over which the older generations of Rastas are so disturbed illustrates precisely how they themselves view the use of the herb, a religious sacrament, in comparison with other illegal drugs.