It started out as a seemingly harmless religious system that combined elements of Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Christianity. But appearances could be deceiving...
In this episode, we'll be looking into the chilling story of Aum Shinrikyo, a deadly Japanese cult led by Shoko Asahara.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a Japanese cult.
[00:00:27] On the face of it, it might have seemed like a harmless religious system that combined Hinduism and Buddhism, with a bit of Christianity thrown in for good measure.
[00:00:37] But before long it would transpire that appearances could be deceiving, and that it was a deeply dangerous group that would have far-reaching consequences.
[00:00:47] So, let’s not waste a minute, and get right into the harrowing but fascinating story of Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:00:57] In the early hours of the morning, on the 6th of July, 2018, the guards entered a prison cell in Tokyo Detention House, a large prison in Japan.
[00:01:09] In the cell, they found a man with long straggly hair and a wispy beard.
[00:01:16] They knew the man well; not only was he the country’s highest profile prisoner, but he had been in police custody since 1995, and had been on death row for the past 14 years.
[00:01:32] They politely informed him that he only had hours to live.
[00:01:37] He didn’t shout or complain. Indeed, he had not spoken a word for a decade.
[00:01:44] Shortly after they took him to the execution chamber, and fastened a noose around his neck. The order was given, the trapdoor opened. The man dropped through, his life extinguished in an instant as the rope tightened around his neck.
[00:02:02] He wasn’t the only person executed that day. Six others met the same fate, and six more would be executed later that month.
[00:02:13] What were their crimes?
[00:02:15] They were all convicted for the same crime. They were responsible for the deadliest terror attack on Japanese soil in history, the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, which killed 14 and injured a thousand more.
[00:02:32] But it was the first man, the man with the wispy beard, the man who had maintained his silence for 10 years, who would be more responsible than any of the others.
[00:02:44] His name was Shoko Asahara, and he was the founder of Japan’s most deadly cult, Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:02:53] A cult always starts with one person, a persuasive, charismatic but deluded and often dangerous individual.
[00:03:02] And in the case of Aum Shinrikyo, this individual was Shoko Asahara.
[00:03:09] This wasn’t his birth name; he was born Chizuo Matsumoto, and would only change his name when the cult really got into full swing. I’ll use both names in this episode, because they represent different stages in his life, but I am talking about the same person.
[00:03:27] He was born in 1955 to a large family. He was one of seven children, and his father struggled to support his extensive family on his meagre salary as a mat-maker.
[00:03:41] One thing that helped his parents financially was that several of their children were blind, and so they could be sent to a government-run school for the blind.
[00:03:52] Chizuo Matsumoto wasn’t completely blind, but he was blind in one eye. This qualified as “legally blind”, so he could be
[00:04:03] sent to this government school.
[00:04:06] When he got there, he would be remembered as a terrible bully. He tormented, teased and exploited his fully blind classmates.
[00:04:17] He was a big guy, and he used his strength and athleticism to completely control the kids at the school. Not only this, but his teachers would later recall how he seemed to be able to persuade the other children to do anything he wanted.
[00:04:33] You might reasonably point out that a group of blind children aren’t exactly the hardest target, especially if you aren’t fully blind yourself, but this seems to be an early indicator of his character, and this experience of realising he could bully and manipulate others to do what he wanted would come in handy later on.
[00:04:56] Now, not a huge amount is known about what he did after he left school.
[00:05:01] It’s believed that he tried to get into Tokyo University to study medicine, but was rejected.
[00:05:08] After failing to make progress with modern medicine, he got involved with acupuncture and traditional medicine, and started selling traditional cures.
[00:05:19] Now, a sceptic might say that this is an ideal job for a future charlatan, as you can sell anything as a cure and tell your customers that it might work.
[00:05:31] If this was what he thought, he would soon realise that it wasn’t completely true, as he would end up being arrested by the police for selling fake and unregulated medicine, and his pharmacy shut down.
[00:05:47] In 1977, at the age of 22, he had got married to a woman that he would go on to have six children with.
[00:05:55] And it was also at around this time that he became increasingly interested in spirituality and religion.
[00:06:03] Nothing so unusual so far, you might think. He was seeking truth, looking for answers.
[00:06:10] Religion in Japan, as you may know, is relatively fluid. Many people practise and follow elements of several religions, with Shinto and Buddhism being the most popular.
[00:06:22] Chizuo Matsumoto wasn’t content with two. Yes, he explored Shinto and Buddhism but also looked further afield. He grew interested in Christianity and Hinduism, and looked in particular at Tibetan Buddhism.
[00:06:39] He also became a keen practitioner of yoga, which has roots in both Buddhism and Hinduism.
[00:06:46] What’s more, he studied the works of the 16th century French astronomer Nostradamus, who claimed to be able to predict the future.
[00:06:55] And in 1984, after his illegal and probably fraudulent pharmacy had been forced to shut down, he opened another small business, this time, part yoga school and part publishing house.
[00:07:09] All good so far. He was a mere yoga teacher with a curious mind and an appreciation for a mixture of world religions, and one who was doing what he could to feed his growing family.
[00:07:21] But beneath the surface, things weren’t quite so innocent, and it seems that Chizuo Matsumoto already had lofty ambitions for himself.
[00:07:33] His yoga school was initially free, but it was no normal yoga school; it came with a catch. It was, essentially, a religious organisation in which Matsumoto taught yoga. He would hand out flyers and preach to unsuspecting passers by, who would come to listen to his spiritual teachings and practise yoga.
[00:07:58] His organisation was initially called Aum Shinsen no Kai, which translates as something like “Immortal Mountain Hermit Association”, but in 1987 he changed it to Aum Shinrikyo, which translates to “Supreme Truth”.
[00:08:16] And it was also at about this time that he changed his own name from Chizuo Matsumoto to the more spiritual sounding Shoko Asahara.
[00:08:27] Now, Aum Shinrikyo might have started as a “yoga school”, but Asahara, as he was by this time, wanted to turn it into a fully-fledged religion, with himself firmly at the centre.
[00:08:42] And in 1989 he got exactly what he wanted; it was granted the status of a religious corporation.
[00:08:51] This was important for several reasons.
[00:08:54] Firstly, it meant that it was tax exempt, it didn’t need to pay taxes.
[00:09:00] Secondly, it meant that the authorities weren’t allowed to investigate its “religious activities or doctrine”, meaning that Aum, and initially Asahara, could say or do practically anything without fear of being investigated by the authorities.
[00:09:18] It was a complete game changer for Aum, and free from government oversight it ballooned in popularity, wealth and power.
[00:09:29] It reported having 3.4 million dollars in assets in 1989 when it was granted religious status, but this was over a billion by 1995.
[00:09:41] Similarly, its membership grew from a few hundred in 1989 up to 10,000 in 1992 and a reported 50,000 by the time of the Tokyo Subway Attacks in 1995.
[00:09:56] It was absolutely massive, so what did it actually preach? What did you believe if you were a follower of Aum Shinrikyo?
[00:10:05] Well, like most cults, it’s somewhat unclear, variable, and the only constant is undying support and belief in the leader.
[00:10:17] Aum Shinrikyo was based on a mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and later on doomsday prophecies similar to those of Nostradamus. Essentially a belief that the end of the world was imminent and the only people who would be saved were followers of Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:10:38] Shoko Asahara, the man at the centre of it all, claimed to be the first enlightened one since Buddha, and a modern day Jesus Christ.
[00:10:48] It was only through Aum Shinrikyo, and through Asahara, that you could achieve enlightenment and redemption.
[00:10:57] And what did this actually mean in practice?
[00:11:01] There were many elements that are common to almost every cult.
[00:11:05] You needed to cut off contact with everyone from the outside world, friends, family, they were all dead to you. The cult was your family now.
[00:11:16] Similarly, you needed to hand over all of your worldly possessions to the cult: property, physical objects, and of course all of your money. None of this mattered, and you needed to give it to the cult to fulfil its mission.
[00:11:33] Like in other cults, there were unusual initiation rituals, things that you needed to do to become a member of the cult. One member would report that they had to pay thousands of dollars in order to drink the blood of Shoko Asahara, and others would report having to drink tea with his hair inside.
[00:11:56] Like other cults, there were certain expectations placed on its female members. Although any form of sexual activity was banned for members of Aum Shinrikyo, female members would report going through rituals that involved so-called “energy transfers” with Shoko himself.
[00:12:18] And, as a reminder, although all sexual activity was banned by the rules of Aum Shinrikyo, its leader, Shoko Asahara had at least six children himself, so he wasn’t quite practising what he preached.
[00:12:33] Now, if you are listening to this and thinking “well this all sounds ridiculous, why were so many people falling for it?", that's perfectly fair.
[00:12:43] Drinking someone’s blood or hair-flavoured water, never speaking to your friends or family, draining your bank balance and abstaining from all sexual activity, this doesn’t sound like so much fun, so how were they able to convince 50,000 people to do it?
[00:13:01] Well, clearly, it’s complicated, but perhaps reminding ourselves of what was happening in Japan at the time might give us some clues.
[00:13:11] After the destruction of the Second World War, Japan experienced an economic boom.
[00:13:17] It became the world’s second largest economy in 1968, and the 1970s and 1980s were particular years of growth and prosperity.
[00:13:29] Business boomed, office workers spent more and more time at their desks, and, much like in the United States, there were plenty of young people who asked themselves what it was all for.
[00:13:41] What was the point of the TVs, the new cars and material goods? Was this really the meaning of life?
[00:13:50] In particular among young people, disillusionment was rife. Shoko Asahara knew it because he was one of these young people. He had tried to make his way in modern Japan, with limited success. He had sought answers in religion. Had he found them?
[00:14:10] He certainly said that he had, and, if people were prepared to follow his teachings, and devote their life to Aum Shinrikyo, they too could discover the path to redemption.
[00:14:23] But there was more. The end of the world was nigh, so Asahara preached.
[00:14:30] Channelling his inner Nostradamus, Asahara spoke of an imminent third world war between Japan and the United States. The only people to survive this war, so he said, would be followers of Aum.
[00:14:46] For someone who is disillusioned with the modern world, you can understand how this message of divine salvation could be a powerful one.
[00:14:56] This was the carrot, the attraction, but there was also plenty of stick, plenty of punishments if you fell out of line.
[00:15:06] Like other cult leaders, he backed all of this up with threats, bullying, intimidation and even murder. Once you joined Aum Shinrikyo, you couldn’t leave. Anyone who tried to leave would be beaten and forced to change their mind.
[00:15:25] The group even murdered a lawyer who was investigating the cult, and this was in 1989, the same year that it was granted the coveted and protected religious status by the Japanese government.
[00:15:40] And in 1990, Asahara tried to take the cult to the next level. It was growing in size and popularity, but he wanted political power too.
[00:15:53] He instructed twenty Aum members to stand in the Japanese parliamentary elections. Unfortunately, they all lost; not a single one was elected.
[00:16:05] And this was something of a turning point. The group started to stockpile weapons, in preparation for this so-called World War Three.
[00:16:15] This included traditional weapons, guns and so on, but also chemical and biological weapons. They acquired chemicals to make Anthrax, the deadly bacteria. Members of Aum even travelled to Zaire during an Ebola outbreak in the early 1990s. They claimed to be on a humanitarian mission but it's believed that the real objective was to collect samples of Ebola to then release it as part of a biological attack in Japan.
[00:16:47] Now, why would the group want to attack its own country?
[00:16:51] Well, the objective was supposedly to trigger this third world war and apocalypse that Asahara spoke of. Perhaps it needed some encouragement, a match to be lit under the bonfire, so Asahara instructed his followers to launch attacks on their own people to get things moving.
[00:17:11] The group started with some small scale attacks in Japan, releasing anthrax from the roof of their headquarters in 1993. Fortunately no innocent civilians died, but several members of the cult were injured.
[00:17:27] Shoko Asahara’s delusions of grandeur had been growing, and he declared himself to be the messiah in 1992. And his predictions about the apocalypse, brought about by this American attack on Japan, were getting revised, he was bringing them closer and closer.
[00:17:46] The date he set was 1997, only a few years away.
[00:17:52] Understandably, the Japanese authorities were getting nervous. Not because they really believed the US was about to attack, this was a ridiculous idea, but rather what the tens of thousands of Aum followers would do in the lead up to this date, or what they would try to do to provoke this apocalypse Asahara preached of.
[00:18:15] On the 20th of March, 1995, the lengths that the group was prepared to go to would, unfortunately, become clear for everyone to see.
[00:18:26] During the morning rush, five members of the cult entered the Tokyo subway system, while another five stayed behind as getaway drivers. They entered the subway carriages, placed their bags down in front of them, and punctured them with umbrellas, releasing the deadly nerve agent sarin into the air.
[00:18:50] Sarin is a horrible chemical weapon that attacks the nervous system. It can be fatal if breathed in large amounts, and even a small amount results in serious injury.
[00:19:03] Within seconds, people on the subway started coughing and spluttering as the deadly agent got to work. The effect was intensified as the doors remained closed, creating a lethal gas chamber inside the carriage.
[00:19:20] We won’t go into all of the details of the attack, as clearly it is still a painful memory for millions of people. The end result was 14 direct deaths and over a thousand people injured, many of whom were unable to live a normal life afterwards. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Japanese history.
[00:19:42] If there were those who had thought that Aum Shinrikyo was simply a collection of unusual, quirky religious fanatics, well it was now clear the threat that the group posed.
[00:19:55] Surprisingly enough though, it took quite some time for the guilty parties to be tracked down and arrested. The headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo wasn’t raided by police until May 16th, almost a full two months after the attacks. In a small, hidden room, they found the cult leader, Shoko Asahara. He was arrested and brought into custody, with the prosecution lawyers arguing that he wanted to, and I’m quoting directly, "overthrow the government and install himself in the position of Emperor of Japan".
[00:20:32] This was in 1995, and it wasn’t until 2004 that he was sentenced to death, and–as you heard at the start of the episode, 2018, 23 years after the attacks, that he was finally executed.
[00:20:49] Lawyers for his defence argued that he wasn’t criminally responsible as he was insane and he was mentally unfit to stand trial. Indeed, during his trial he didn’t say anything in his own defence, only talking to himself like a madman.
[00:21:08] Still, the judge didn’t buy it. He had been manipulating people his entire life, from his childhood at the school for the blind through to forcing cult members to pay thousands of dollars to drink his blood.
[00:21:22] He was guilty, but it took a long time for him to be executed. This was partly due to the fact that his trial was linked to the trial of other members of Aum Shinrikyo, many of whom weren’t arrested until years after. It was also a very complex case; the cult was shrouded in mystery, and assigning blame directly to Asahara took quite some time.
[00:21:49] During the time that he was in police custody, there were heightened fears that members of Aum would continue their attacks, both because this was what Asahara had instructed them to do, and because they wanted to free him.
[00:22:02] Indeed, there were several attempted attacks, all of which were thwarted.
[00:22:08] And it might surprise you to learn after all of this that Aum Shinrikyo is still around today, although it has gone through a substantial rebranding process.
[00:22:20] It is now called “Aleph”, and although it has a new name and exists without its charismatic and dangerous founder, much of the original teaching remains the same.
[00:22:32] And it is far from a handful of cult members left over from the 1980s; it’s estimated that it has anywhere from 1,500 to 30,000 members.
[00:22:44] Understandably, the Japanese security forces are, to this day, keeping a very close eye on it.
[00:22:51] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Aum Shinrikyo and its dangerous leader, Shoko Asahara.
[00:23:01] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:23:05] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode, particularly if you are one of our Japanese listeners.
[00:23:11] Do you remember the 1995 attacks? Do you know of anyone who was a follower of Aum Shinrikyo?
[00:23:19] Where do you think the line should be drawn between religious freedoms and individual protections?
[00:23:24] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:23:28] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community dot Leonardo English dot com, and get chatting away to other Curious Minds.
[00:23:36] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:23:42] I'm Alistair Budge, you stay safe and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a Japanese cult.
[00:00:27] On the face of it, it might have seemed like a harmless religious system that combined Hinduism and Buddhism, with a bit of Christianity thrown in for good measure.
[00:00:37] But before long it would transpire that appearances could be deceiving, and that it was a deeply dangerous group that would have far-reaching consequences.
[00:00:47] So, let’s not waste a minute, and get right into the harrowing but fascinating story of Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:00:57] In the early hours of the morning, on the 6th of July, 2018, the guards entered a prison cell in Tokyo Detention House, a large prison in Japan.
[00:01:09] In the cell, they found a man with long straggly hair and a wispy beard.
[00:01:16] They knew the man well; not only was he the country’s highest profile prisoner, but he had been in police custody since 1995, and had been on death row for the past 14 years.
[00:01:32] They politely informed him that he only had hours to live.
[00:01:37] He didn’t shout or complain. Indeed, he had not spoken a word for a decade.
[00:01:44] Shortly after they took him to the execution chamber, and fastened a noose around his neck. The order was given, the trapdoor opened. The man dropped through, his life extinguished in an instant as the rope tightened around his neck.
[00:02:02] He wasn’t the only person executed that day. Six others met the same fate, and six more would be executed later that month.
[00:02:13] What were their crimes?
[00:02:15] They were all convicted for the same crime. They were responsible for the deadliest terror attack on Japanese soil in history, the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, which killed 14 and injured a thousand more.
[00:02:32] But it was the first man, the man with the wispy beard, the man who had maintained his silence for 10 years, who would be more responsible than any of the others.
[00:02:44] His name was Shoko Asahara, and he was the founder of Japan’s most deadly cult, Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:02:53] A cult always starts with one person, a persuasive, charismatic but deluded and often dangerous individual.
[00:03:02] And in the case of Aum Shinrikyo, this individual was Shoko Asahara.
[00:03:09] This wasn’t his birth name; he was born Chizuo Matsumoto, and would only change his name when the cult really got into full swing. I’ll use both names in this episode, because they represent different stages in his life, but I am talking about the same person.
[00:03:27] He was born in 1955 to a large family. He was one of seven children, and his father struggled to support his extensive family on his meagre salary as a mat-maker.
[00:03:41] One thing that helped his parents financially was that several of their children were blind, and so they could be sent to a government-run school for the blind.
[00:03:52] Chizuo Matsumoto wasn’t completely blind, but he was blind in one eye. This qualified as “legally blind”, so he could be
[00:04:03] sent to this government school.
[00:04:06] When he got there, he would be remembered as a terrible bully. He tormented, teased and exploited his fully blind classmates.
[00:04:17] He was a big guy, and he used his strength and athleticism to completely control the kids at the school. Not only this, but his teachers would later recall how he seemed to be able to persuade the other children to do anything he wanted.
[00:04:33] You might reasonably point out that a group of blind children aren’t exactly the hardest target, especially if you aren’t fully blind yourself, but this seems to be an early indicator of his character, and this experience of realising he could bully and manipulate others to do what he wanted would come in handy later on.
[00:04:56] Now, not a huge amount is known about what he did after he left school.
[00:05:01] It’s believed that he tried to get into Tokyo University to study medicine, but was rejected.
[00:05:08] After failing to make progress with modern medicine, he got involved with acupuncture and traditional medicine, and started selling traditional cures.
[00:05:19] Now, a sceptic might say that this is an ideal job for a future charlatan, as you can sell anything as a cure and tell your customers that it might work.
[00:05:31] If this was what he thought, he would soon realise that it wasn’t completely true, as he would end up being arrested by the police for selling fake and unregulated medicine, and his pharmacy shut down.
[00:05:47] In 1977, at the age of 22, he had got married to a woman that he would go on to have six children with.
[00:05:55] And it was also at around this time that he became increasingly interested in spirituality and religion.
[00:06:03] Nothing so unusual so far, you might think. He was seeking truth, looking for answers.
[00:06:10] Religion in Japan, as you may know, is relatively fluid. Many people practise and follow elements of several religions, with Shinto and Buddhism being the most popular.
[00:06:22] Chizuo Matsumoto wasn’t content with two. Yes, he explored Shinto and Buddhism but also looked further afield. He grew interested in Christianity and Hinduism, and looked in particular at Tibetan Buddhism.
[00:06:39] He also became a keen practitioner of yoga, which has roots in both Buddhism and Hinduism.
[00:06:46] What’s more, he studied the works of the 16th century French astronomer Nostradamus, who claimed to be able to predict the future.
[00:06:55] And in 1984, after his illegal and probably fraudulent pharmacy had been forced to shut down, he opened another small business, this time, part yoga school and part publishing house.
[00:07:09] All good so far. He was a mere yoga teacher with a curious mind and an appreciation for a mixture of world religions, and one who was doing what he could to feed his growing family.
[00:07:21] But beneath the surface, things weren’t quite so innocent, and it seems that Chizuo Matsumoto already had lofty ambitions for himself.
[00:07:33] His yoga school was initially free, but it was no normal yoga school; it came with a catch. It was, essentially, a religious organisation in which Matsumoto taught yoga. He would hand out flyers and preach to unsuspecting passers by, who would come to listen to his spiritual teachings and practise yoga.
[00:07:58] His organisation was initially called Aum Shinsen no Kai, which translates as something like “Immortal Mountain Hermit Association”, but in 1987 he changed it to Aum Shinrikyo, which translates to “Supreme Truth”.
[00:08:16] And it was also at about this time that he changed his own name from Chizuo Matsumoto to the more spiritual sounding Shoko Asahara.
[00:08:27] Now, Aum Shinrikyo might have started as a “yoga school”, but Asahara, as he was by this time, wanted to turn it into a fully-fledged religion, with himself firmly at the centre.
[00:08:42] And in 1989 he got exactly what he wanted; it was granted the status of a religious corporation.
[00:08:51] This was important for several reasons.
[00:08:54] Firstly, it meant that it was tax exempt, it didn’t need to pay taxes.
[00:09:00] Secondly, it meant that the authorities weren’t allowed to investigate its “religious activities or doctrine”, meaning that Aum, and initially Asahara, could say or do practically anything without fear of being investigated by the authorities.
[00:09:18] It was a complete game changer for Aum, and free from government oversight it ballooned in popularity, wealth and power.
[00:09:29] It reported having 3.4 million dollars in assets in 1989 when it was granted religious status, but this was over a billion by 1995.
[00:09:41] Similarly, its membership grew from a few hundred in 1989 up to 10,000 in 1992 and a reported 50,000 by the time of the Tokyo Subway Attacks in 1995.
[00:09:56] It was absolutely massive, so what did it actually preach? What did you believe if you were a follower of Aum Shinrikyo?
[00:10:05] Well, like most cults, it’s somewhat unclear, variable, and the only constant is undying support and belief in the leader.
[00:10:17] Aum Shinrikyo was based on a mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and later on doomsday prophecies similar to those of Nostradamus. Essentially a belief that the end of the world was imminent and the only people who would be saved were followers of Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:10:38] Shoko Asahara, the man at the centre of it all, claimed to be the first enlightened one since Buddha, and a modern day Jesus Christ.
[00:10:48] It was only through Aum Shinrikyo, and through Asahara, that you could achieve enlightenment and redemption.
[00:10:57] And what did this actually mean in practice?
[00:11:01] There were many elements that are common to almost every cult.
[00:11:05] You needed to cut off contact with everyone from the outside world, friends, family, they were all dead to you. The cult was your family now.
[00:11:16] Similarly, you needed to hand over all of your worldly possessions to the cult: property, physical objects, and of course all of your money. None of this mattered, and you needed to give it to the cult to fulfil its mission.
[00:11:33] Like in other cults, there were unusual initiation rituals, things that you needed to do to become a member of the cult. One member would report that they had to pay thousands of dollars in order to drink the blood of Shoko Asahara, and others would report having to drink tea with his hair inside.
[00:11:56] Like other cults, there were certain expectations placed on its female members. Although any form of sexual activity was banned for members of Aum Shinrikyo, female members would report going through rituals that involved so-called “energy transfers” with Shoko himself.
[00:12:18] And, as a reminder, although all sexual activity was banned by the rules of Aum Shinrikyo, its leader, Shoko Asahara had at least six children himself, so he wasn’t quite practising what he preached.
[00:12:33] Now, if you are listening to this and thinking “well this all sounds ridiculous, why were so many people falling for it?", that's perfectly fair.
[00:12:43] Drinking someone’s blood or hair-flavoured water, never speaking to your friends or family, draining your bank balance and abstaining from all sexual activity, this doesn’t sound like so much fun, so how were they able to convince 50,000 people to do it?
[00:13:01] Well, clearly, it’s complicated, but perhaps reminding ourselves of what was happening in Japan at the time might give us some clues.
[00:13:11] After the destruction of the Second World War, Japan experienced an economic boom.
[00:13:17] It became the world’s second largest economy in 1968, and the 1970s and 1980s were particular years of growth and prosperity.
[00:13:29] Business boomed, office workers spent more and more time at their desks, and, much like in the United States, there were plenty of young people who asked themselves what it was all for.
[00:13:41] What was the point of the TVs, the new cars and material goods? Was this really the meaning of life?
[00:13:50] In particular among young people, disillusionment was rife. Shoko Asahara knew it because he was one of these young people. He had tried to make his way in modern Japan, with limited success. He had sought answers in religion. Had he found them?
[00:14:10] He certainly said that he had, and, if people were prepared to follow his teachings, and devote their life to Aum Shinrikyo, they too could discover the path to redemption.
[00:14:23] But there was more. The end of the world was nigh, so Asahara preached.
[00:14:30] Channelling his inner Nostradamus, Asahara spoke of an imminent third world war between Japan and the United States. The only people to survive this war, so he said, would be followers of Aum.
[00:14:46] For someone who is disillusioned with the modern world, you can understand how this message of divine salvation could be a powerful one.
[00:14:56] This was the carrot, the attraction, but there was also plenty of stick, plenty of punishments if you fell out of line.
[00:15:06] Like other cult leaders, he backed all of this up with threats, bullying, intimidation and even murder. Once you joined Aum Shinrikyo, you couldn’t leave. Anyone who tried to leave would be beaten and forced to change their mind.
[00:15:25] The group even murdered a lawyer who was investigating the cult, and this was in 1989, the same year that it was granted the coveted and protected religious status by the Japanese government.
[00:15:40] And in 1990, Asahara tried to take the cult to the next level. It was growing in size and popularity, but he wanted political power too.
[00:15:53] He instructed twenty Aum members to stand in the Japanese parliamentary elections. Unfortunately, they all lost; not a single one was elected.
[00:16:05] And this was something of a turning point. The group started to stockpile weapons, in preparation for this so-called World War Three.
[00:16:15] This included traditional weapons, guns and so on, but also chemical and biological weapons. They acquired chemicals to make Anthrax, the deadly bacteria. Members of Aum even travelled to Zaire during an Ebola outbreak in the early 1990s. They claimed to be on a humanitarian mission but it's believed that the real objective was to collect samples of Ebola to then release it as part of a biological attack in Japan.
[00:16:47] Now, why would the group want to attack its own country?
[00:16:51] Well, the objective was supposedly to trigger this third world war and apocalypse that Asahara spoke of. Perhaps it needed some encouragement, a match to be lit under the bonfire, so Asahara instructed his followers to launch attacks on their own people to get things moving.
[00:17:11] The group started with some small scale attacks in Japan, releasing anthrax from the roof of their headquarters in 1993. Fortunately no innocent civilians died, but several members of the cult were injured.
[00:17:27] Shoko Asahara’s delusions of grandeur had been growing, and he declared himself to be the messiah in 1992. And his predictions about the apocalypse, brought about by this American attack on Japan, were getting revised, he was bringing them closer and closer.
[00:17:46] The date he set was 1997, only a few years away.
[00:17:52] Understandably, the Japanese authorities were getting nervous. Not because they really believed the US was about to attack, this was a ridiculous idea, but rather what the tens of thousands of Aum followers would do in the lead up to this date, or what they would try to do to provoke this apocalypse Asahara preached of.
[00:18:15] On the 20th of March, 1995, the lengths that the group was prepared to go to would, unfortunately, become clear for everyone to see.
[00:18:26] During the morning rush, five members of the cult entered the Tokyo subway system, while another five stayed behind as getaway drivers. They entered the subway carriages, placed their bags down in front of them, and punctured them with umbrellas, releasing the deadly nerve agent sarin into the air.
[00:18:50] Sarin is a horrible chemical weapon that attacks the nervous system. It can be fatal if breathed in large amounts, and even a small amount results in serious injury.
[00:19:03] Within seconds, people on the subway started coughing and spluttering as the deadly agent got to work. The effect was intensified as the doors remained closed, creating a lethal gas chamber inside the carriage.
[00:19:20] We won’t go into all of the details of the attack, as clearly it is still a painful memory for millions of people. The end result was 14 direct deaths and over a thousand people injured, many of whom were unable to live a normal life afterwards. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Japanese history.
[00:19:42] If there were those who had thought that Aum Shinrikyo was simply a collection of unusual, quirky religious fanatics, well it was now clear the threat that the group posed.
[00:19:55] Surprisingly enough though, it took quite some time for the guilty parties to be tracked down and arrested. The headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo wasn’t raided by police until May 16th, almost a full two months after the attacks. In a small, hidden room, they found the cult leader, Shoko Asahara. He was arrested and brought into custody, with the prosecution lawyers arguing that he wanted to, and I’m quoting directly, "overthrow the government and install himself in the position of Emperor of Japan".
[00:20:32] This was in 1995, and it wasn’t until 2004 that he was sentenced to death, and–as you heard at the start of the episode, 2018, 23 years after the attacks, that he was finally executed.
[00:20:49] Lawyers for his defence argued that he wasn’t criminally responsible as he was insane and he was mentally unfit to stand trial. Indeed, during his trial he didn’t say anything in his own defence, only talking to himself like a madman.
[00:21:08] Still, the judge didn’t buy it. He had been manipulating people his entire life, from his childhood at the school for the blind through to forcing cult members to pay thousands of dollars to drink his blood.
[00:21:22] He was guilty, but it took a long time for him to be executed. This was partly due to the fact that his trial was linked to the trial of other members of Aum Shinrikyo, many of whom weren’t arrested until years after. It was also a very complex case; the cult was shrouded in mystery, and assigning blame directly to Asahara took quite some time.
[00:21:49] During the time that he was in police custody, there were heightened fears that members of Aum would continue their attacks, both because this was what Asahara had instructed them to do, and because they wanted to free him.
[00:22:02] Indeed, there were several attempted attacks, all of which were thwarted.
[00:22:08] And it might surprise you to learn after all of this that Aum Shinrikyo is still around today, although it has gone through a substantial rebranding process.
[00:22:20] It is now called “Aleph”, and although it has a new name and exists without its charismatic and dangerous founder, much of the original teaching remains the same.
[00:22:32] And it is far from a handful of cult members left over from the 1980s; it’s estimated that it has anywhere from 1,500 to 30,000 members.
[00:22:44] Understandably, the Japanese security forces are, to this day, keeping a very close eye on it.
[00:22:51] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Aum Shinrikyo and its dangerous leader, Shoko Asahara.
[00:23:01] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:23:05] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode, particularly if you are one of our Japanese listeners.
[00:23:11] Do you remember the 1995 attacks? Do you know of anyone who was a follower of Aum Shinrikyo?
[00:23:19] Where do you think the line should be drawn between religious freedoms and individual protections?
[00:23:24] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:23:28] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community dot Leonardo English dot com, and get chatting away to other Curious Minds.
[00:23:36] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:23:42] I'm Alistair Budge, you stay safe and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a Japanese cult.
[00:00:27] On the face of it, it might have seemed like a harmless religious system that combined Hinduism and Buddhism, with a bit of Christianity thrown in for good measure.
[00:00:37] But before long it would transpire that appearances could be deceiving, and that it was a deeply dangerous group that would have far-reaching consequences.
[00:00:47] So, let’s not waste a minute, and get right into the harrowing but fascinating story of Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:00:57] In the early hours of the morning, on the 6th of July, 2018, the guards entered a prison cell in Tokyo Detention House, a large prison in Japan.
[00:01:09] In the cell, they found a man with long straggly hair and a wispy beard.
[00:01:16] They knew the man well; not only was he the country’s highest profile prisoner, but he had been in police custody since 1995, and had been on death row for the past 14 years.
[00:01:32] They politely informed him that he only had hours to live.
[00:01:37] He didn’t shout or complain. Indeed, he had not spoken a word for a decade.
[00:01:44] Shortly after they took him to the execution chamber, and fastened a noose around his neck. The order was given, the trapdoor opened. The man dropped through, his life extinguished in an instant as the rope tightened around his neck.
[00:02:02] He wasn’t the only person executed that day. Six others met the same fate, and six more would be executed later that month.
[00:02:13] What were their crimes?
[00:02:15] They were all convicted for the same crime. They were responsible for the deadliest terror attack on Japanese soil in history, the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, which killed 14 and injured a thousand more.
[00:02:32] But it was the first man, the man with the wispy beard, the man who had maintained his silence for 10 years, who would be more responsible than any of the others.
[00:02:44] His name was Shoko Asahara, and he was the founder of Japan’s most deadly cult, Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:02:53] A cult always starts with one person, a persuasive, charismatic but deluded and often dangerous individual.
[00:03:02] And in the case of Aum Shinrikyo, this individual was Shoko Asahara.
[00:03:09] This wasn’t his birth name; he was born Chizuo Matsumoto, and would only change his name when the cult really got into full swing. I’ll use both names in this episode, because they represent different stages in his life, but I am talking about the same person.
[00:03:27] He was born in 1955 to a large family. He was one of seven children, and his father struggled to support his extensive family on his meagre salary as a mat-maker.
[00:03:41] One thing that helped his parents financially was that several of their children were blind, and so they could be sent to a government-run school for the blind.
[00:03:52] Chizuo Matsumoto wasn’t completely blind, but he was blind in one eye. This qualified as “legally blind”, so he could be
[00:04:03] sent to this government school.
[00:04:06] When he got there, he would be remembered as a terrible bully. He tormented, teased and exploited his fully blind classmates.
[00:04:17] He was a big guy, and he used his strength and athleticism to completely control the kids at the school. Not only this, but his teachers would later recall how he seemed to be able to persuade the other children to do anything he wanted.
[00:04:33] You might reasonably point out that a group of blind children aren’t exactly the hardest target, especially if you aren’t fully blind yourself, but this seems to be an early indicator of his character, and this experience of realising he could bully and manipulate others to do what he wanted would come in handy later on.
[00:04:56] Now, not a huge amount is known about what he did after he left school.
[00:05:01] It’s believed that he tried to get into Tokyo University to study medicine, but was rejected.
[00:05:08] After failing to make progress with modern medicine, he got involved with acupuncture and traditional medicine, and started selling traditional cures.
[00:05:19] Now, a sceptic might say that this is an ideal job for a future charlatan, as you can sell anything as a cure and tell your customers that it might work.
[00:05:31] If this was what he thought, he would soon realise that it wasn’t completely true, as he would end up being arrested by the police for selling fake and unregulated medicine, and his pharmacy shut down.
[00:05:47] In 1977, at the age of 22, he had got married to a woman that he would go on to have six children with.
[00:05:55] And it was also at around this time that he became increasingly interested in spirituality and religion.
[00:06:03] Nothing so unusual so far, you might think. He was seeking truth, looking for answers.
[00:06:10] Religion in Japan, as you may know, is relatively fluid. Many people practise and follow elements of several religions, with Shinto and Buddhism being the most popular.
[00:06:22] Chizuo Matsumoto wasn’t content with two. Yes, he explored Shinto and Buddhism but also looked further afield. He grew interested in Christianity and Hinduism, and looked in particular at Tibetan Buddhism.
[00:06:39] He also became a keen practitioner of yoga, which has roots in both Buddhism and Hinduism.
[00:06:46] What’s more, he studied the works of the 16th century French astronomer Nostradamus, who claimed to be able to predict the future.
[00:06:55] And in 1984, after his illegal and probably fraudulent pharmacy had been forced to shut down, he opened another small business, this time, part yoga school and part publishing house.
[00:07:09] All good so far. He was a mere yoga teacher with a curious mind and an appreciation for a mixture of world religions, and one who was doing what he could to feed his growing family.
[00:07:21] But beneath the surface, things weren’t quite so innocent, and it seems that Chizuo Matsumoto already had lofty ambitions for himself.
[00:07:33] His yoga school was initially free, but it was no normal yoga school; it came with a catch. It was, essentially, a religious organisation in which Matsumoto taught yoga. He would hand out flyers and preach to unsuspecting passers by, who would come to listen to his spiritual teachings and practise yoga.
[00:07:58] His organisation was initially called Aum Shinsen no Kai, which translates as something like “Immortal Mountain Hermit Association”, but in 1987 he changed it to Aum Shinrikyo, which translates to “Supreme Truth”.
[00:08:16] And it was also at about this time that he changed his own name from Chizuo Matsumoto to the more spiritual sounding Shoko Asahara.
[00:08:27] Now, Aum Shinrikyo might have started as a “yoga school”, but Asahara, as he was by this time, wanted to turn it into a fully-fledged religion, with himself firmly at the centre.
[00:08:42] And in 1989 he got exactly what he wanted; it was granted the status of a religious corporation.
[00:08:51] This was important for several reasons.
[00:08:54] Firstly, it meant that it was tax exempt, it didn’t need to pay taxes.
[00:09:00] Secondly, it meant that the authorities weren’t allowed to investigate its “religious activities or doctrine”, meaning that Aum, and initially Asahara, could say or do practically anything without fear of being investigated by the authorities.
[00:09:18] It was a complete game changer for Aum, and free from government oversight it ballooned in popularity, wealth and power.
[00:09:29] It reported having 3.4 million dollars in assets in 1989 when it was granted religious status, but this was over a billion by 1995.
[00:09:41] Similarly, its membership grew from a few hundred in 1989 up to 10,000 in 1992 and a reported 50,000 by the time of the Tokyo Subway Attacks in 1995.
[00:09:56] It was absolutely massive, so what did it actually preach? What did you believe if you were a follower of Aum Shinrikyo?
[00:10:05] Well, like most cults, it’s somewhat unclear, variable, and the only constant is undying support and belief in the leader.
[00:10:17] Aum Shinrikyo was based on a mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and later on doomsday prophecies similar to those of Nostradamus. Essentially a belief that the end of the world was imminent and the only people who would be saved were followers of Aum Shinrikyo.
[00:10:38] Shoko Asahara, the man at the centre of it all, claimed to be the first enlightened one since Buddha, and a modern day Jesus Christ.
[00:10:48] It was only through Aum Shinrikyo, and through Asahara, that you could achieve enlightenment and redemption.
[00:10:57] And what did this actually mean in practice?
[00:11:01] There were many elements that are common to almost every cult.
[00:11:05] You needed to cut off contact with everyone from the outside world, friends, family, they were all dead to you. The cult was your family now.
[00:11:16] Similarly, you needed to hand over all of your worldly possessions to the cult: property, physical objects, and of course all of your money. None of this mattered, and you needed to give it to the cult to fulfil its mission.
[00:11:33] Like in other cults, there were unusual initiation rituals, things that you needed to do to become a member of the cult. One member would report that they had to pay thousands of dollars in order to drink the blood of Shoko Asahara, and others would report having to drink tea with his hair inside.
[00:11:56] Like other cults, there were certain expectations placed on its female members. Although any form of sexual activity was banned for members of Aum Shinrikyo, female members would report going through rituals that involved so-called “energy transfers” with Shoko himself.
[00:12:18] And, as a reminder, although all sexual activity was banned by the rules of Aum Shinrikyo, its leader, Shoko Asahara had at least six children himself, so he wasn’t quite practising what he preached.
[00:12:33] Now, if you are listening to this and thinking “well this all sounds ridiculous, why were so many people falling for it?", that's perfectly fair.
[00:12:43] Drinking someone’s blood or hair-flavoured water, never speaking to your friends or family, draining your bank balance and abstaining from all sexual activity, this doesn’t sound like so much fun, so how were they able to convince 50,000 people to do it?
[00:13:01] Well, clearly, it’s complicated, but perhaps reminding ourselves of what was happening in Japan at the time might give us some clues.
[00:13:11] After the destruction of the Second World War, Japan experienced an economic boom.
[00:13:17] It became the world’s second largest economy in 1968, and the 1970s and 1980s were particular years of growth and prosperity.
[00:13:29] Business boomed, office workers spent more and more time at their desks, and, much like in the United States, there were plenty of young people who asked themselves what it was all for.
[00:13:41] What was the point of the TVs, the new cars and material goods? Was this really the meaning of life?
[00:13:50] In particular among young people, disillusionment was rife. Shoko Asahara knew it because he was one of these young people. He had tried to make his way in modern Japan, with limited success. He had sought answers in religion. Had he found them?
[00:14:10] He certainly said that he had, and, if people were prepared to follow his teachings, and devote their life to Aum Shinrikyo, they too could discover the path to redemption.
[00:14:23] But there was more. The end of the world was nigh, so Asahara preached.
[00:14:30] Channelling his inner Nostradamus, Asahara spoke of an imminent third world war between Japan and the United States. The only people to survive this war, so he said, would be followers of Aum.
[00:14:46] For someone who is disillusioned with the modern world, you can understand how this message of divine salvation could be a powerful one.
[00:14:56] This was the carrot, the attraction, but there was also plenty of stick, plenty of punishments if you fell out of line.
[00:15:06] Like other cult leaders, he backed all of this up with threats, bullying, intimidation and even murder. Once you joined Aum Shinrikyo, you couldn’t leave. Anyone who tried to leave would be beaten and forced to change their mind.
[00:15:25] The group even murdered a lawyer who was investigating the cult, and this was in 1989, the same year that it was granted the coveted and protected religious status by the Japanese government.
[00:15:40] And in 1990, Asahara tried to take the cult to the next level. It was growing in size and popularity, but he wanted political power too.
[00:15:53] He instructed twenty Aum members to stand in the Japanese parliamentary elections. Unfortunately, they all lost; not a single one was elected.
[00:16:05] And this was something of a turning point. The group started to stockpile weapons, in preparation for this so-called World War Three.
[00:16:15] This included traditional weapons, guns and so on, but also chemical and biological weapons. They acquired chemicals to make Anthrax, the deadly bacteria. Members of Aum even travelled to Zaire during an Ebola outbreak in the early 1990s. They claimed to be on a humanitarian mission but it's believed that the real objective was to collect samples of Ebola to then release it as part of a biological attack in Japan.
[00:16:47] Now, why would the group want to attack its own country?
[00:16:51] Well, the objective was supposedly to trigger this third world war and apocalypse that Asahara spoke of. Perhaps it needed some encouragement, a match to be lit under the bonfire, so Asahara instructed his followers to launch attacks on their own people to get things moving.
[00:17:11] The group started with some small scale attacks in Japan, releasing anthrax from the roof of their headquarters in 1993. Fortunately no innocent civilians died, but several members of the cult were injured.
[00:17:27] Shoko Asahara’s delusions of grandeur had been growing, and he declared himself to be the messiah in 1992. And his predictions about the apocalypse, brought about by this American attack on Japan, were getting revised, he was bringing them closer and closer.
[00:17:46] The date he set was 1997, only a few years away.
[00:17:52] Understandably, the Japanese authorities were getting nervous. Not because they really believed the US was about to attack, this was a ridiculous idea, but rather what the tens of thousands of Aum followers would do in the lead up to this date, or what they would try to do to provoke this apocalypse Asahara preached of.
[00:18:15] On the 20th of March, 1995, the lengths that the group was prepared to go to would, unfortunately, become clear for everyone to see.
[00:18:26] During the morning rush, five members of the cult entered the Tokyo subway system, while another five stayed behind as getaway drivers. They entered the subway carriages, placed their bags down in front of them, and punctured them with umbrellas, releasing the deadly nerve agent sarin into the air.
[00:18:50] Sarin is a horrible chemical weapon that attacks the nervous system. It can be fatal if breathed in large amounts, and even a small amount results in serious injury.
[00:19:03] Within seconds, people on the subway started coughing and spluttering as the deadly agent got to work. The effect was intensified as the doors remained closed, creating a lethal gas chamber inside the carriage.
[00:19:20] We won’t go into all of the details of the attack, as clearly it is still a painful memory for millions of people. The end result was 14 direct deaths and over a thousand people injured, many of whom were unable to live a normal life afterwards. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Japanese history.
[00:19:42] If there were those who had thought that Aum Shinrikyo was simply a collection of unusual, quirky religious fanatics, well it was now clear the threat that the group posed.
[00:19:55] Surprisingly enough though, it took quite some time for the guilty parties to be tracked down and arrested. The headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo wasn’t raided by police until May 16th, almost a full two months after the attacks. In a small, hidden room, they found the cult leader, Shoko Asahara. He was arrested and brought into custody, with the prosecution lawyers arguing that he wanted to, and I’m quoting directly, "overthrow the government and install himself in the position of Emperor of Japan".
[00:20:32] This was in 1995, and it wasn’t until 2004 that he was sentenced to death, and–as you heard at the start of the episode, 2018, 23 years after the attacks, that he was finally executed.
[00:20:49] Lawyers for his defence argued that he wasn’t criminally responsible as he was insane and he was mentally unfit to stand trial. Indeed, during his trial he didn’t say anything in his own defence, only talking to himself like a madman.
[00:21:08] Still, the judge didn’t buy it. He had been manipulating people his entire life, from his childhood at the school for the blind through to forcing cult members to pay thousands of dollars to drink his blood.
[00:21:22] He was guilty, but it took a long time for him to be executed. This was partly due to the fact that his trial was linked to the trial of other members of Aum Shinrikyo, many of whom weren’t arrested until years after. It was also a very complex case; the cult was shrouded in mystery, and assigning blame directly to Asahara took quite some time.
[00:21:49] During the time that he was in police custody, there were heightened fears that members of Aum would continue their attacks, both because this was what Asahara had instructed them to do, and because they wanted to free him.
[00:22:02] Indeed, there were several attempted attacks, all of which were thwarted.
[00:22:08] And it might surprise you to learn after all of this that Aum Shinrikyo is still around today, although it has gone through a substantial rebranding process.
[00:22:20] It is now called “Aleph”, and although it has a new name and exists without its charismatic and dangerous founder, much of the original teaching remains the same.
[00:22:32] And it is far from a handful of cult members left over from the 1980s; it’s estimated that it has anywhere from 1,500 to 30,000 members.
[00:22:44] Understandably, the Japanese security forces are, to this day, keeping a very close eye on it.
[00:22:51] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Aum Shinrikyo and its dangerous leader, Shoko Asahara.
[00:23:01] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:23:05] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode, particularly if you are one of our Japanese listeners.
[00:23:11] Do you remember the 1995 attacks? Do you know of anyone who was a follower of Aum Shinrikyo?
[00:23:19] Where do you think the line should be drawn between religious freedoms and individual protections?
[00:23:24] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:23:28] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community dot Leonardo English dot com, and get chatting away to other Curious Minds.
[00:23:36] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:23:42] I'm Alistair Budge, you stay safe and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
