The classic work on the history and beliefs of the Rastafarians, whose roots of protest go back to the seventeenth-century maroon societies of escaped slaves in Jamaica. Based on an extensive study of the Rastafarians, their history, their ideology, and their influence in Jamaica, The Rastafarians is an important contribution to the sociology of religion and to our knowledge of the variety of religious expressions that have grown up during the West African Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere.

The Lost Bible of Rastafarian Wisdom and Faith from Ethiopia and Jamaica.

Since his pasing in 1981, Bob Marley's music, like tribal drumming, has been sending out a message of love and freedom for all humanity. Twenty years later, Julia and Robert Roskind traveled to Jamaica to learn more about Rastafari-the people and philosophy that inspired his music. Their life-changing odyssey through the towns, villages and mountains of this beautiful island, revealed not only the Rasta way of life but an ancient mystery as well. "RASTA HEART" is truly a journey into One Love. "Riveting... An incredible adventure that reveals the true essence of Rasta!" Dr. Dennis Forsythe author of "Rastafarians:The Healing of the Nations."

First published in 1924. Widely acclaimed as the foundation writings of Rastafarian. Also known as the BLACK MAN BIBLE.

This anthology explores Rastafari religion, culture, and politics in Jamaica and other parts of the African diaspora. An Afro-Caribbean religious and cultural movement that sprang from the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1930s, today Rastafari has close to one million adherents. The basic message of Rastafari the dismantling of all oppressive institutions and the liberation of humankind even has strong appeal to non-believers who are captivated by reggae music, the lyrics, and the 'immortal spirit' of its enormously popular practitioner, Bob Marley. Probing into Rastafari's still evolving belief system, political goals, and cultural expression, the contributors to this volume emphasize the importance of Africana history and the Caribbean context. Author note: Nathaniel Samuel Murrell is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and Visiting Professor at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston, Jamaica. William David Spencer serves as Pastor of Encouragement at Pilgrim Church in Beverly, MA, and was an Adjunct Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's Center for Urban Ministerial Education in Boston. He has authored, co-authored, or edited "The Prayer of Life of Jesus", "Mysterium and Mystery: The Clerical Crime Novel", "God through the Looking Glass", "Joy through the Night", "2 Corinthians: Bible Study Commentary", and "The Global God". Adrian Anthony McFarlane is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY. He is author of "A Grammar of Fear and Evil: A Husserlian-Wittgensteinian Hermeneutic".

Going far beyond the standard imagery of Rasta-ganja, reggae, dreadlocks -- this book offers an uncensored vision of a movement with complex roots, and the exceptional journey of a man who taught an enslaved people how to be proud and impose their culture on the world. In the 1920s a handful of Jamaicans had a revelation concerning the divinity of Haile Selassie, king of Ethiopia, and founded the most popular mystical movement of the 20th century. This is the astonishing tale of Leonard Percival Howell and the first Rastas. Although jailed, ridiculed, and treated as insane, Howell, also known as the Gong, established a Rasta community of 4,500 members, the first agro-industrial enterprise devoted to producing marijuana. In the late 1950s the community was dispersed, disseminating Rasta teachings throughout the ghettos of the island. A young singer named Bob Marley adopted Howell's message, and through Marley's visions, reggae was ready to explode.

So much has been written about the Rastafari, yet we know so little about why and how people join the Rastafari movement. Although popular understandings evoke images of dreadlocks, reggae, and marijuana, Rastafarians were persecuted in their country, becoming a people seeking social justice. Yet new adherents continued to convert to Rastafari despite facing adverse reactions from their fellow citizens and from their British rulers.Charles Price draws on in-depth interviews to reveal the personal experiences of those who adopted the religion in the 1950s to 1970s, one generation past the movement's emergence . By talking with these Rastafari elders, he seeks to understand why and how Jamaicans became Rastafari in spite of rampant discrimination, and what sustains them in their faith and identity.Utilizing new conceptual frameworks, Price explores the identity development of Rastafari, demonstrating how shifts in the movement's identity—from social pariah to exemplar of Blackness—have led some of the elder Rastafari to adopt, embrace, and internalize Rastafari and blackness as central to their concept of self.

Rasta and Resistance is a study of the Rastafarian movement in all it's manifestations, from its evolution in the hills of Jamaica to its present manisfestations in the streets of Birmingham and Shashamane Settlement in Ethiopia. It traces the cultural, political and spiritual sources of this movement of resistance, hightlighting the quest for change among an oppressed people. This book serves to break the intellectual traditions which placed the stamp of millenarianism on Rasta.