Individualism in Rastafari

Rastafari is a way of life, and since it promotes individual thought and self-recognition, it is not designed to be universally identifiable. However, through many of its ritualistic practice including singing and “chanting down Babylon” and ritualistic smoking of ganja in groups forces a diffusion of these individualistic ideas to many different people. This is an interesting quality of the religion and because of these two practices, individualism and group reasoning, it may cause many other people to recognize but not necessarily understand the Rastafari completely, especially with a western lens. How does this style of information work on a long scale timeline?

Over years and years you have a group of Rastafari who have been meeting in a group to smoke ganja and formalize their understanding. The informal leadership of the group may change over several years as other members begin to gain favor with other rastas. This individual might informally begin leading this group during discussion. Therefore, if someone joined the group before or after this specific rasta became an informal leader, their experiences might be quite different. Although each person is anchored in their own specific realm of individual thought, the disjunction between personal thought and “speechifying” is an epistemological one.

On a large scale, these groups may someday decide to become a mansion and move to a secluded space with their own means of survival and provision. They will begin dedicating a large amount of time going out and doing public works as a group, preaching and many other large group activities. This individualistic sermon is preached to anyone who will hear them and strangely enough, this is all from the result of individualistic thought originally. One observing these events from the outside has no idea where the individual begins and the mansion of rastas ends, and therefore misunderstands their message possibly until he begins wondering about it in its original, individualistic nature.