Reasoning as Prayer, Language as Theology

This entry records that Rastafari, a religious and social movement that developed in Jamaica in the 1930s centering veneration of Haile Selassie I, the former emperor of Ethiopia, and drawing extensively on the Hebrew Bible read through a distinctly Afrocentric and anti-colonial theological lens, structures much of its devotional life around communal gathering, called reasoning, involving discussion, biblical interpretation, chanting and prayer, without reproducing specific Rastafari prayers or chants here.

Rastafari has also developed its own distinctive religious dialect, often called Iyaric or Dread Talk, which deliberately reshapes standard English vocabulary to reflect Rastafari theological and philosophical concerns, for instance replacing words considered to carry negative or divisive connotations with alternatives judged more consistent with unity and positive selfhood, a linguistic practice itself understood by practitioners as a form of ongoing spiritual and political affirmation rather than merely stylistic preference. Rastafari also developed a distinctive set of dietary and lifestyle practices, including ital food preparation and, for many adherents, the ceremonial and sacramental use of cannabis during reasoning sessions, practices understood within the movement as inseparable from its broader spiritual and communal life rather than as incidental cultural custom.