How does a legally blind Japanese man go from finding enlightenment to running an international cult set on starting World War III? Listen to the fascinating story of Shoko Asahara and the Aum Shinrikyo cult he founded. Learn how expensive melons lead to his capture!
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TuneIn3 elements make up a cult:
- Charismatic leader
- Doctrine
- Exploitation
Chizuo Matsumoto
Chizuo Matsumoto was born on March 2, 1955, into a large family of mat makers in Kumamoto located in southwest Japan. He had infantile glaucoma from birth. This made him lose all sight in his left eye and go partially blind in his right eye at a young age. He enrolled in a school for the blind. He graduated in 1977 and went on to study acupuncture and Chinese Medicines.
Japanese acupuncture has a unique characteristic: a large number of blind practitioners and their influence.
The idea is that with loss of sight comes the enhancement of the other senses. This ability allows for highly refined pulse diagnosis and treatment techniques. From the Japanese point of view, the practice of acupuncture utilizes the enhanced tactile skill of the blind and provides a profession in which they may naturally excel. To this day, a large group of blind practitioners continues to influence both the practice and theory of acupuncture and shiatsu massage in Japan.
In 1978 Chizuo married Tomoko Matsumoto and opened a practice. In 1981, Chizuo was found guilty and fined for operating a pharmacy without a license and for selling unregulated drugs.
Interest in Religion
It was around this time that Chizuo showed an interest in various religions. He became invested in the idea of religion and began studying and practicing multiple ancient religions. His goal was to “achieve the ultimate enlightenment” mentioned in multiple ancient religious texts.
While he started with Chinese astrology and Taoism he later practiced Indian esoteric yoga and Buddhism.
At the time he lived in a small one-room apartment in Tokyo’s Shibuya district with his wife and two daughters. It was during this period that he gained the support of his first and most loyal disciples. He began to teach them yoga. Financial hardship constrained his efforts, as Asahara refused to accept any payment for his coaching.
His religious principles contradicted this. Only those who have achieved enlightenment may accept material offerings.
In 1987 Asahara returned from a visit to India and explained to his disciples that he had attained his ultimate goal of enlightenment. His closest disciples offered him money, which he could now accept. Asahara used this money to organize an intensive yoga seminar that lasted several days. The seminar attracted many people interested in spiritual development. Asahara himself coached the participants, and the group quickly started to grow.
Aum Shinrikyo
That same year Shoko Asahara officially changed his name. He also applied for government registration of the group Aum Shinrikyo which means “supreme truth.” Authorities were initially reluctant to grant the status of a religious organization to Aum. However, in 1989, Aum Shinrikyo won their appeal and was granted legal recognition as a religious order.
The doctrine is based on original Buddhist sutras known as the Pali Canon along with Tibetan sutras, Yoga-Sutra by Patanjali, and Taoist scriptures. These sutras along with comments written by Shoko Asahara made up the group’s so-called Bible. The learning system (kyogaku system) has several stages. Those who complete a preliminary stage may advance to further steps if they successfully pass the examination.
Many of Asahara’s followers in Japan were students at elite universities; young people from academically pressurized backgrounds who had similarly pressurized careers ahead of them. The cult promised them a more meaningful life.
Raising Money
Now that Asahara had reached enlightenment he could also begin to accept monetary offerings for his teachings.
Former cult members have testified that they paid for rituals involving Asahara’s hair and bathwater. This despite the group urging followers to reject materialism. One member described paying more than £6,115 ($8,100) in 1988 for a “blood initiation.” This initiation involved the member drinking what was said to be the leader’s blood.
In order to be admitted into the cult’s monastic community, each member had to successfully complete three levels of initiation. To justify the achievement of a certain stage of religious practice, practitioners must demonstrate signs. These signs included the cessation of oxygen consumption, reduction of heart activity, and changes in the electromagnetic activity of the brain.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Asahara published a few books including Beyond Life and Death, Supreme Initiation and, Declaring Myself the Christ. (Copies are available in NY public library.)
Criminal Behavior
By 1988, the cult was engaging in criminal behavior. They forced donations from members and held them captive. This behavior caught the attention of law enforcement. The point of no return came in February 1989 when several of Asahara’s followers strangled cult member Shuji Taguchi to death. He tried to leave the organization and Asahara ordered his execution.
Asahara interpreted the Tibetan Buddhist concept of phowa “in order to claim that by killing someone contrary to the group’s aims, they were preventing them from accumulating bad karma and thus saving them.”
Lawyers Murder
On Nov. 4, 1989, disciples of Asahara raided the home of Tsutsumi Sakamoto. He was a lawyer handling complaints against the religious group. They kidnapped his wife and one-year-old son. Members severely beat the lawyer before killing him. They kicked his wife in the stomach while the other members strangled her. It was a crude and cruel execution.
The murders were due to an interview that the lawyer had done in which he expressed concerns about how radical the group was. The news station reached out to senior group leaders for comment prior to the release of the interview. This was enough to prompt the group to attack. The police investigation did not show the group’s involvement. The station that did the interview with the lawyer did not reveal that it could be the reason for his murder.
Doomsday Beliefs
In the late ’80s, the group began to take on doomsday-like beliefs. Asahara started preaching that WWIII would be started by the United States.
He claimed that humanity would end, except for the elite few who joined Aum. Aum’s mission was not only to spread the word of salvation but also to survive these End Times. According to one of the senior members of the group, the goal was to take over the world. They would accomplish this by spreading sarin in Japan and the United States, killing the Emperor, and winning over Russia with bribery.
To make this plan a reality they needed funding.
They began manufacturing methamphetamines and selling them to the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza. They also began manufacturing guns, a rare item in a country with some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.
Hideo Murai, the cult’s “The Minister of Science and Technology,” watched over the weapons development and delivered them to the Yakuza. The cult also ran legitimate businesses. These included curry shops, personal computer stores, and yoga classes. By 1995, Aum Shinrikyo had assets of close to a billion dollars.
Chemical Weapons
In 1993, the group was moving forward with the development of deadly chemical weapons. It had managed to synthesize VX gas and Sarin. The Australian Federal Police later found later that in the spring of 1993 the cult had purchased a 500,000-acre sheep farm in Baniawarn. This was 375 miles northeast of Perth. They set up a high-tech laboratory on the farm.
On June 27, 1994, the cult attacked a residential area of Matsumoto City. Aum had wanted to set up offices and factories in the southern part of Matsumoto. Over 140,000 residents (over 70%) signed a petition opposing the group’s land purchase.
The attack had 2 purposes.
- To kill 3 judges that were to preside over the real estate dispute
- To verify the effectiveness of their weapon.
Originally they wanted to attack the courthouse but arrived after it had closed. This moved their target to an apartment building where the judges resided. At 10:40 pm, a converted refrigerator truck released a cloud of Sarin which floated near the home of the judges. The truck’s cargo space held a heating unit that had been modified to turn 12 liters of liquid sarin into an aerosol gas. It also had fans to diffuse the aerosol into the judges’ neighborhood.
Causalities included, two hundred and seventy-four people were taken to area hospitals. Five residents died in their apartments, and two died in the hospital immediately after admission. After the incident, police focused their investigation on Yoshiyuki Kōno, whose wife was one of the sarin attack victims. Kōno had been storing large amounts of pesticides in his apartment. An expert claimed that you could create sarin from pesticides, which was incorrect.
Additional Sarin Attacks
In March 20, 1995 the group would play out its ultimate attack.
The original plan was to place ten small containers of Sarin on five trains. These trains were running on three major lines of the Tokyo subway system. The system has millions of riders during the morning rush hour.
The plan did not go as expected with group members leaving just five bags of Sarin in different trains. However, twelve people died and over 6,000 were sickened or injured from the bags that were left on the trains. Massive panic ensued as the gas caused victims to choke, vomit, and fall down with severe coughing.
On March 22, two days after the attacks, police launched massive raids on Aum and its facilities. Arrest warrants were issued for forty-one members including Asahara. On April 19th, an unidentified foul-smelling gas spread through Yokohama station leaving five hundred people hospitalized.
* April 21: A similar incident in a crowded Yokohama shopping center sends 24 people to hospitals.
* April 23rd, Hideo Murai, head of the cult’s “science ministry,” was fatally stabbed in front of reporters and police.
Asahara Captured
On May 16th, two thousand officers raided a four-story compound near Mt Fuji. Authorities had searched for three hours before finding Asahara meditating in a hidden room. Police found Asahara based on sightings of family members who were seen purchasing expensive melons that the guru was known to love at a local market and following them back to their residence.
Shoko Asahara faced 27 murder counts in 13 separate indictments. At trial, Asahara was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging on February 27, 2004.
Asahara Executed
Asahara was executed by hanging along with six other cult members on July 6, 2018, at the Tokyo Detention House. This was 23 years after the sarin gas attack. As of today, there are six cult members still awaiting execution on death row.
In 1998, Tomoko Matsumoto, Shoko’s wife, was found guilty of approving of the killing of Kotaro Ochida, 29. Ochida was strangled by a fellow former cult member inside an Aum complex. This was done in the presence of the guru, his wife, and other senior members of the group in 1994. Asahara ordered Hideaki Yasuda to strangle Ochida after the two former cult members were captured breaking into one of the cult’s buildings. They were attempting to free Yasuda’s mother from the cult.
The Aum cult is still active today, but have changed their name to Aleph in the early 2000s and claim to have around 1,500 members.
Resources
- Asahara’s wife given shorter prison term
- Matsumoto sarin attack
- Shoko Asahara
- Aum Shinrikyo: The Japanese cult behind the Tokyo Sarin attack
- Aum Shinrikyo: The Japanese Killer Cult That Wanted to Rule the World
- Hard Legacy for Japan Sect Leader’s Family
- Aleph | History & Facts
- Shoko Asahara