AUM SHINRIKYO

Aum Shinrikyo

Aum Shinrikyo

Aum Shinrikyo is the former name of a secretive Japanese religious cult responsible for, among other things, a massive terrorist incident in Japan that involved poison nerve gas. After the cult had its legal status as a religious group revoked by Japanese officials in 1999, it reorganized itself in early 2000 under the new name of Aleph. The group's original name, to which the notoriety attaches, means, literally, “Teaching of the Truth.”

Aum Shinrikyo, meaning 'Supreme Truth Society', was founded in 1987 by Shoko Asahara (born Chizuo Matsumoto in 1955) (Cronin, 2009). Its beliefs originally stemmed from a school of Buddhism, blended with a strong emphasis on yoga and a focus on Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. As it developed it took on elements of apocalyptic Christianity - especially from the book of Revelation - as well as the prophecies of nostradamus. The initial aim of Aum Shinrikyo was to avoid the forthcoming apocalypse by the members achieving enlightenment and changing negative energy into positive energy.

The group espouses variants of Hinduism, Buddhism, and yogic teachings, with apocalyptic visions. Founded in the 1980s, Aum Shinrikyo had more than twenty branches in Japan as well as followers in several other countries. It has been called the “doomsday” cult because of its objective to “liberate” 30,000 people or else suffer the consequence of nuclear war or some other disaster. The Tokyo nerve gas attack was intended to set off a chain of events leading to armageddon. Contradictorily, when police searched and destroyed the cult's base at the foot of the Fuji mountains, they found that the cult itself was responsible for hoarding extensive classified information about nuclear installations, nuclear fuel transportation routes and procedures, and a device for plutonium processing.

On March 19, 1995, the subway system busy throughout Tokyo, ...