Leonard Howell known as “The First Rasta”, bequeathed the Rastafarians six fundamental principles:
Hatred for the white race.
The complete superiority of the black race.
Revenge on whites for their wickedness.
The negation, persecution, and humiliation of the government and legal bodies of Jamaica.
Preparation to go back to Africa, and
Acknowledging Emperor Haile Selassie as the Supreme Being and only ruler of black people.
Concepts that are key to Rastafarian beliefs:
Babylon: "Babylon" is the Rastafarian term for the white political power structure that has been holding the black race down for centuries. In the past, Rastas claim that blacks were held down physically by the shackles of slavery. In the present, Rastas feel that blacks are still held down through poverty, illiteracy, inequality, and trickery by the white man. The efforts of Rastafarianism is to attempt to remind blacks of their heritage and have them stand up against this Babylon.
I and I: This concept has become the most important theoretical tool apart from the Babylonian conspiracy in the Rastafarian repertoire.I and I is an expression to totalize the concept of oneness, the oneness of two persons. So God is within all of us and we're one people in fact. I and I means that God is in all men. The bond of Ras Tafari is the bond of God, of man. But man itself needs a head and the head of man is His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia.
Jah: The Rastafarian name for God is Jah. The presence of Jah in His children and in the world is the triumph over the tribulations of everyday life. Ethiopia specifically, and Africa in general, is considered the Rastas heaven on Earth. However, there is no afterlife or hell as Christianity believes.
Rastafarian Religion has in roots in Garvinism. Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican, who promoted the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the 1920s. The organization's main goal was to unite black people with their rightful homeland, Africa. Garvey believed that all black people in the western world should return to Africa since they were all descended from Africans. He preached that the European colonizers, having fragmented the African continent, unfairly spread the African population throughout the world.
Garvey was considered a prophet by many and he even spoke in a very prophetical way. He assured his followers, "No one knows when the hour of Africa's redemption cometh. It is in the wind. It is coming. One day, like a storm, it will be here." He told blacks to "look to Africa for the crowning of a king to know that your redemption is near."
In 1930, Prince Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned the new Emperor of Ethiopia. Upon his coronation, he claimed for himself the title of Emperor Haile Selassie (Power of the Trinity). This announcement was a monumental event that many blacks in Africa and the Americas saw as the fulfillment of Garvey's prophecy years before. After the crowning of Selassie, the Rastafarian movement gained a following and officially began. Ironically, Selassie was never a Rastafarian himself, and no one is really sure what he ever thought of his following. Also noteworthy is the fact that Garvey himself was admittedly not an admirer of Haile Selassie, and he went as far as to attack the Ethiopians as "crazy fanatics.
Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on April 21, 1966, while the country was amid an ongoing national social crisis in which Rastas were perceived by the majority as a revolutionary threat that had to be defused. During this first and final trip to Jamaica, Selassie met with several Rastafarian leaders. The visit resulted in two profound developments within the Rastafarian movement. First, Selassie convinced the Rastafarian brothers that they "should not seek to immigrate to Ethiopia until they had liberated the people of Jamaica." Second, from that day forth, April 21st has been celebrated as a special holy day among Rastafarians, "Grounation Day."
In Jamaica, the reverence of Emperor Haile Selassie continued to create distinguishable movements, such as Nyabinghi, the Ethiopian National Congress or Bobo dreads, the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
The Twelve Tribes of Israel, founded by the Prophet Gad, has added another dimension in the liberation movement, to include liberation for all races through the teaching of the bible, and the acceptance of Jesus Christ. Membership is not limited, but inclusive. By identifying the spiritual sons of Jacob and finding truth for oneself through reading the bible "a chapter a day", man can find salvation. The divine lineage continues through the Ethiopian Monarchy, the seed of David, of which it is said, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from beneath his feet, until Shiloh comes and unto Him will be the gathering of the people."
To Rastafarians, Selassie was much more than just a political leader; Rasta theology centered on the divinity of Selassie as a living manifestation of Jah, the all-knowing and all-loving God. To Rastafarians, the story told by the Old Testament pertains to black Africans who descend from Abraham and Jacob. But white Christians altered this fact to keep Africans in a substandard position. Rastafarians refer to this oppression as "Babylon", with obvious references to a state of slavery and cultural tyranny that all blacks must overcome. To greater represent the truth, Rasta rejects the Bible used by most Christians, opting instead for a "black man's Bible" known as the The Holy Piby
In his life, Selassie claimed to be a direct descendant of King Solomon and Queen Sheba, however he did not claim any divine powers or that he was Jesus Christ.
In 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was detained and overthrown by the Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in a 1974 coup (In 1960 Selassie's son, Asfa Wossan lead an unsuccessful coup against his father. His dad forgave him but all the other leaders of the coup are executed.)
He was detained by soldiers loyal to the new government in his palace until his death. On August 27, 1975, Haile Selassie died, and a tremendous crisis of faith ensued. With his death came various forms of rationalization from many Rastafarians. The responses concerning Selassie's death ranged from "his death was a fabrication" to "his death was inconsequential because Haile Selassie was merely a personification of God".
The circumstances of his death were mysterious but there is the consensus he was murdered by his captors. In 1992 after the Marxist government was overthrown, the remains of Emperor Haile Selassie were found buried under a toilet in the Imperial Palace. The body was exhumed and moved to a mausoleum in Addis Ababa.
Many Rastafarians believed that his death was staged by the media in an attempt to bring their faith down, while others claimed that Haile Selassie I had trodded on to the perfect flesh, and sits on the highest point of Mount Zion where He and Empress Menen await the Time of Judgement. There are others, however, who were quite logical in their approach to the theological problem surrounding the Emperor's death. They saw the death of Selassie as changing nothing, except that their God was no longer physically present. Such Rastafarians claimed that He is omnipresent in spirit and visited the clouds with the hosts of heaven.
Jimmy Cliff/ The Harder They Come
Augustus Pablo/ King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown
Dandy Livingstone/ Rudy, A Message To You
Junior Murvin/ Police & Thieves
The Paragons/ The Tide Is High
Willie Williams/ Armagideon Time
Desmond Dekker/ 007 (Shanty Town)
H.I.M. Qedamawi Haile Selassie received 7 items on his coronation day
1. Jeweled Sword Base Chakra
2. Orb Navel Chakra
3. Robe Solar Plexus Chakra
4. Imperial Gold Sceptre Heart Chakra
5. 2 Lances Throat Chakra(double
edge sword)
6. Diamond Ring Third Eye
7. The Triple Crown Crown Chakra
These 7 items (the 2 lances represent Truth or the double edged sword) are the physical representation of the chakras. The innerstanding of H.I.M and H.I.M being coronated on the same day, which was the first time in Ethiopian history, shows the correlation of male and female supporting each other.
The Law of Polarity states that everything is on a continuum, and has an opposite. We can suppress and transform undesirable thoughts by concentrating on the opposite pole. With Empress Menen being coronated on the same day as His Imperial Majesty is a historical and spiritual union. The Empress and her Ladies of Honor enter from the right and she takes a seat to the right of the Emperor.
The symbology of the Coronation is full activation of the Goddess and God state. His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie representing the Left Brain, Her Imperial Majesty Empress Menen representing the Right Brain andKundalini Energy. The Triple Crown is thePineal, Pituitary and Hypothalamus glands that sit between the left and right brain.
Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Menen being crowned on the same day as Empress implies she is not a Queen. Grimm's Law Dictionary defines Queen as whore. Though she has a King, she is setting the Empress standard from this day forth. The Queen represents the Harlot, Queen Elizabitch, riding the Beast called the British Monarchy(Rev 17:1-Rev 17:14), which has fought for the Imperial Sceptre and the riches of Ethiopia through enormous deceitful tactics to claim the birthright of Africa's only un-colonized country.
There is physically only one Haile Selassie and Empress Menen, but spiritually we are all Elects of God, Conquering Lions from 1 of the 12 Tribes of Isis, Ra and El, Light of this World which, "this world", is the mind activated by wearing the Triple Crown or raising to the Crown Chakra, riding the Feminine Kundalini Energy through the gates of Zion.
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