Aum Shinriyko Cult - Term Paper Example

 Aum Shinriyko Cult The Aum Shinriyko Cult (ASC) is a new religious cult which was led by Shoko Asahara, a partially blind person who was formerly a meditation teacher. It was founded in 1987. The name “Aum Shinriyko” conveys “Aum Supreme Truth” where “Aum” is the sacred Hindu word sometimes written as “Om”. The ASC reached its peak in 1995 when it had almost 40,000 members, out of which nearly three-fourths were in Russia. Many of the members of the Cult comprised of young, well-educated Japanese people. This paper attempts to discuss the characteristic features of the Aum Shinriyko Cult, the reason for its Existence, its Ideology, the Capability, Tactics and Goals of the Cult and the Attacks perpetrated by the Cult. Why the Aum Shinriyko Cult came into Existence After the World War II ended, Japan as a nation focused on single-mindedly pursuing economic development. This gradually led to the Japanese people pursuing the sole aim of materialism and consumerism. In the opinion of many Japanese social philosophers, during this time a sizeable section of the young population of Japan felt a spiritual vacuum in their lives. They wanted to add a new dimension to their lives instead of only pursuing material affluence. This led to the formation of the religious group: the Aum Shinriyko Cult (Ellington 2009 p168) . The Ideology During the early years of the ASC, it publicly espoused the Buddhist ideals of life advocating that the members should search for the middle path to salvation between excessive self-indulgence and extreme self-deprivation. They were said to believe in the sacredness of life. However, its leader Shoko Asahara advocated a different viewpoint where killing people was seen as a means to attain a higher spiritual level. Asahara imbibed this ideology in the main leaders of the ASC and actively sought the means to bring about an end to the world. Shoko Asahara constructed a theology of his own incorporating different ideas from Buddhism, Hinduism, ancient rituals, Nostradamus’s Prophecies, the apocalyptic visions of the Book of Revelation and various New Age beliefs. After being founded in 1987, the ASC started recruiting members aggressively. The people who wished to be members had to renounce their families and give up all their belongings to the ASC. The Cult managed to gather a considerable amount of fund in this way. In 1988, the ASC started constructing the Group’s headquarters in a huge compound at the base of Mount Fujiyama. The Aum Shinriyko Cult was officially recognized as a religion in 1989. (Mikul 2009) Tactics, Capability and Overall Goals Most of the members of the ASC were young and highly educated people having a scientific background in education. These included doctors, engineers, physicists, computer programmers, electronic experts etc. who joined the Cult to acquire good health and superpowers. In return, the ASC harnessed their technical skills. Most of the members led a strictly regimented life where they were required to work for long hours, ate small rations of rice and boiled vegetables and slept for only barely more than three hours. The members were also expected to adhere to the strict ideals of celibacy. Members breaking any of these rules faced punishments like solitary confinement. (Mikul, 2009) In 1989, Shoko Asahara decided that his group the Aum Shinriyko Cult would contest the elections to the Japanese Parliament, the Diet. Twenty-five candidates from ASC including Asahara himself stood for the elections and millions of dollars were spent on the election campaign. However, the campaign failed and many members of the ASC left the Cult being disillusioned. It was a huge setback for Asahara who had visioned himself as the new “Buddha” and wanted the entire world to proclaim him as its new savior. There are many philosophers who think that this rejection by the Japanese voters brought about a radical change in Asahara’s mindset. He then became a doomsday prophet and did not hesitate in being vocal about an impending apocalypse waiting to befall. He had predicted the end of the world before this too. He advocated that only his followers would survive this upheaval and their spiritual purity would protect them against radiation, poisons and other dangers. Asahara further wanted ASC to participate in this catastrophic conflict and with this goal in mind he wanted to convert his group into an army. ASC’s scientists and technicians engaged themselves in developing weapons for this purpose. (Mikul, 2009; Snow, 2003 p17) The Cult had also directed its efforts towards the development of biological weapons which ultimately did not prove to be successful (Davies & Tomlinson, 2005, p.140). Simultaneously, the ASC was also searching for other weapons for large-scale massacre. During this time, the ASC rapidly expanded in Russia. In 1992, Asahara embarked on a :Russian Salvation Tour” on which he had a meeting with the Vice President, delivered an address to 19,000 Russians in Moscow’s Olympic stadium and donated computers worth $80,000 to the Moscow State University. ASC also poured a large sum of money into its recruitment drive in Russia and following this, a huge number of Russians became members of the Cult. In 1995, almost three-fourths of ASC’s 40,000 members were Russians. Gradually the ASC developed into a well-organized group having branches in Russia, Germany and the United States apart from Japan (Mikul 2009, Kimura, 2010). Meanwhile, Asahara, delegated the responsibility of developing war weapons and infrastructure to an ASC member named Kiyohide Hayakawa. The latter then made many trips to Russia on which he developed contacts in the Russian Military Service and also with scientists who had previously been involved with Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programme. He also made an attempt to buy fighter planes, helicopters, rocket launchers, lasers, tanks and nuclear warheads. ASC gathered the funds to buy such warfare both from Russia as well as Japan. The Russian members donated abundantly to the Cult. On the other hand, the ASC had purchased a huge amount of property including computer shops and a chain of restaurants cheaply in Japan during the country’s recession period. Now, these businesses in Japan faced a boom with several tax concessions being given to the religious group and employees working basically for free. Thus, these businesses contributed a sizeable amount of money to the ASC. During this time, ASC’s members were being trained in military warfare. They had their supply of weapons from the Supreme Science Institute, a high-level manufacturing plant situated 32 kilometers from Mount Fuji. The manufacturers at the Institute used as prototype an AK-74 automatic rifle which was smuggled out of Russia. According to Asahara’s orders, a 1000 of such rifles and a million bullets were to be produced by the end of 1995. Meanwhile the ASC remained focused in developing biological and chemical weapons for mass destruction. In 1993, ASC’s chief chemist Masami Tsutchiya finally perfected the method of producing sarin, a deadly nerve gas. (The sarin gas was invented in 1930s by the Nazi German scientists although the Second World War ended before they had a chance to produce it in mass scale) (Mikul, 2009). Analysis of the Cult’s Attacks In 1995, The Japanese Police Authorities were already investigating the previous activities of the ASC. To divert the attention of the Authorities, the ASC launched a terrible attack on the common Japanese people. On March 20 1995, the Cult released a deadly nerve gas called the sarin gas inside five Tokyo subway cars during peak hour to cause mass casualties. This attack killed 12 people and injured more than 6,000 who had to be rushed to the hospital. Many hundreds of people still suffer from the physical after-effects of the attack while some others have developed stress disorders. The gas did not prove to be strong enough to cause a large-scale massacre as had been planned by the Cult. This attack created a stir among the Japanese Police Authorities who then arrested the important members of the Cult. This weakened the organization considerably. Investigating this attack, the Police Authorities found an Aum Shinriyko compound near Mt. Fuji which housed weapons, poison gas and also torture chambers. The Police also found evidence that individuals who had tried to leave the ASC had been murdered by the Cult’s members. Shoko Asahara was finally arrested on May 16 and was sentenced to death on charges of twenty-three murders. He was waiting execution as of February 2009. After this attack, the Japanese Government made strict legal formalities for the religious groups to obtain an official status within the country (Lutz & Lutz, n.d., p 58; Davies & Tomlinson 2005, p. 140 ; Ellington, 2009, p.168) In March 2001, the Japanese Metropolitan Police Department reported that the Aum Shinriyko Cult had developed a software system which could track 150 police vehicles including cars which were not marked. Reportedly, the Cult had gained access to classified tracking data relating to 115 vehicles in order to develop the software. (Davies & Tomlinson 2005 p140) It was also disclosed by the Police Department that the ASC had worked as subcontractors to 80 Japanese firms and ten government agencies by disguising its identity. The Cult had been assigned to develop software for these firms. The Police Department presumed that in the role of the subcontractor, the ASC could have easily implanted “Trojan horses” in the systems of its clients which could launch “cyber-terrorist” attacks on these firms later on. (Davies & Tomlinson 2005, p140) Conclusion After the attack in the Tokyo subway, the Japanese Government tried to ban the ASC, but the Cult continues to exist with more than 1000 members under a new name: “Aleph”. It exists under a different leader at present and they seem to have abstained from the path of terrorism and violence. Many writers have viewed the Aum Shinriyko Cult as a peculiar Japanese phenomenon. Novelist Haruki Murakami in his book on the subway attack “Underground” echoes the sentiments of the common man when he states that the Aum Shinriyko Cult phenomenon is disturbing because it comprised of people from among the common man who were all pledged to such a terrible mission. Many people have discarded groups like the ASC declaring them to be bordering on social insanity. But the truth of the matter remains that such Cults represent the new global threat, which should be a matter of urgent concern to all of us. As human civilization progresses, such phenomena continues to remind us that it is very important to have balanced all round economic, social and spiritual development inclusive of all strata of people in the society. Otherwise the consequences could be fatal to the human race. References 1. Davies B & Tomlinson R (2005) The Spykraft Manual: The Insider’s Guide to Espionage Techniques USA: Zenith Press 2. Ellington L (2009) Japan. USA: Greenwood Publishing Group 3. Kimura R. (2010) Aum Shinrikyo: Japan’s Unholy Sect Bangkok: Bangkok Book House 4. Lifton J.R (2000) Destroying the World to Save It, Henry Holt & Co. 5. Lutz J & Lutz B (n.d.) Terrorism the Basics USA & Canada: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 6. Mikul C. (2009) The Cult Files: True Stories from the Extreme Edges of Religious Beliefs, Pier 7. Snow R.L (2003) Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers USA: Praeger Publishers Read More