The Human Truth Foundation

Aum Shinrikyō

https://www.humanreligions.info/aum.html

By Vexen Crabtree 2026

#antisemitism #atheism #Aum_Shinrikyo #australia #buddhism #christianity #freemasons #germany #hinduism #japan #mass_murder #monotheism #polytheism #religious_violence #russia #USA

Aum Shinrikyo
Links: Pages on Aum Shinrikyo, Other Religions
Aum Shinrikyō symbol
God(s)Atheist / Monotheist / Polytheist / Theist
TextsThe Bible and other
AfterlifeYes
Founding
HeritageChristianity and Far Eastern religion
Area of OriginJapan
When19871
FounderBy Shoko Asahara1

Aum Shinrikyō was a Japanese apocalyptic religious cult founded in 1987 by Shoko Asahara2, already a convicted fraudster1. It proclaimed armageddon, war and end-times strife using a mix of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity3. They embraced a wild array of paranoid conspiracy theories, all with Aum as the sole path to salvation and its cult leader Asahara as the only embodiment of truth. It believed that the USA and Japanese governments were controlled by secretive cabals such as Freemasons and Jews (Asahara admired Hitler). By 1997 they had 10 thousand members in Japan, and 40-50 thousand across Russia, the USA, Germany, Australia and elsewhere4. The group amassed wealth, weapons, chemical laboratories, and sought nuclear weapons. As the Japanese police were investigating the cult after a kidnapping, murders and two previous attempts at mass murder, in 1995 Aum released sarin nerve gas on several Tokyo subway lines, killing 13 people and wounding 3 9765,6, aiming to cause mayhem and trigger the apocalypse.

  1. Founding
  2. The Apocalypse: Nuclear Armageddon on Japan
  3. Conspiracy Theories
  4. From Paranoia About the Apocalypse, to Trying to Engender It
  5. Successors: Aleph and Others
  6. Links

1. Founding

#australia #germany #japan #karma #occult #religions #russia #spiritualism #sri_lanka #USA

Aum Shinrikyō (Aum 'Supreme Truth' sect was founded in 1987 by Shoko Asahara7.4. He first business was forcibly closed in 1980 for insurance fraud8, and his second business selling Chinese medicine ended in 1982, when he was arrested and sentence with 20 days' imprisonment for selling fake4 and unlicensed8 medical cures8. His third enterprise, aged 29, was to organise regular yoga classes, as the Aum Society.

He claimed through his ascetic training to have gained the ability to fly, and he sold books and programs on the premise that his teachings could grant supernatural powers.8

“The group changed its name again to Aum Shinrikyō in 1987, and continued to expand across the country, drawing from youths interested in yoga, spiritualism, and the occult. Most new members joined first as 'zaike' members, or part-timers, attending classes and talks, and would then be strongly encouraged to become 'shukkesha' (renunciants). In joining the movement full-time, 'shukkesha' were expected to donate all their assets and belongings to Aum and to cut off all ties with their family members (the exception being if the family also joined).”

"Aum Shinrikyo and religious terrorism in Japanese collective memory" by Rin Ushiyama (2022)8

Aum grew rapidly, its mixture of Buddhism and Hinduism in a context of apocalyptic redemption "exerted a powerful attraction for young, intelligent Japanese alienated by society's preoccupation with work [and] money"9. By the end of 1987, it had 1500 members in Japan, and within a decade, 10000; they also gained at least 30000 followers in Russia, and 10-20k more across the USA, Germany, Australia and Sri Lanka and elsewhere4.

Japan is susceptible to cults as result of a cultural fascination with mystical, obscure religious sects that combine the spiritual with the supernatural; manga and anime creations have long featured apocalyptic groups in the background, for example, Akira10, appearing in manga comics since 1984, described a cult arising around the title character. "Indeed [in the 1980s] approximately 183,000 different religious cults already existed in Japan"9.

Asahara received a message from God that he was to lead an Army, and began his more cultish and apocalyptic phase. They came to teach that murder was justified because it stopped people accumulating bad karma3. He had picked up Christian ideas, and preached that such actions were an act of mercy, "political failure and a feeling of national rejection led to increasing millenarianism"; and he started from the beginning, preaching about Armageddon3.

“Aum assiduously avoided contact with the outside world, fearing that contact with outsiders would result in exchanging ritually polluting influences - in their terms, `bad data´ - which would accrue negative karma and impede enlightenment. As such, followers were forbidden to consume outside media and entertainment. [...]

Asahara [had] sexual relations with numerous female devotees known as dakini, claiming that he was conducting Tantric initiation rituals. [...]

Mahamudra, meaning a 'test of faith', was an important mechanism [...]. Asahara - and later, other leadership figures - would give subordinates difficult or even unachievable tasks to test if they would carry out the orders dutifully and unquestioningly.”

"Aum Shinrikyo and religious terrorism in Japanese collective memory" by Rin Ushiyama (2022)8

2. The Apocalypse: Nuclear Armageddon on Japan

#conspiracy_theories #religions

Asahara was obsessed with Biblical predictions of doom and his own status as a Christian-style saviour, but also, as a Buddhist sage and also linked his movement with the Hindu goddess of destruction and regeneration, Shiva. The theology and on-paper beliefs were chaotic, wild and rarely remained fixed for long. It was a bit of everything, trying to attract as many people as people.

“From the start, Asahara preached about the inevitability of an impending apocalypse [with himself as] 'Today's Christ', 'the saviour of This Century' and 'the one and only person who had acquired supreme truth'. Particular emphasis was given to the Hindu god of destruction and subsequent regeneration, Shiva [and they had a 5 metre image of her in] the entrance to the Satian-7 laboratory where the group manufactured the sarin nerve gas used in the [subsequent Tokyo] subway attack. [...]

[He] frequently cited the apocalyptic predictions of the sixteenth-century French astrologer Nostradamus. [... but] he was never sure exactly when [the world would end], variously fixing 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2003 as likely times. Whatever the date, Asahara was certain that Armageddon would be caused by a Third World War. Citing his other-worldly abilities of both 'astral vision and intuitive vision' [he proclaimed that] this catastrophe could be averted [if they could] establish an Aum branch in every country of the world. [...] 'As we move toward the year 2000,' an Aum pamphlet warned, 'there will be a series of events of inexpressible ferocity and terror. The lands of Japan will be transformed into a nuclear wasteland. Between 1996 and January 1998, America and its allies will attack Japan, and only 10 percent of the population of the major cities will survive.'”

"Inside Terrorism" by Bruce Hoffman (1998)4

3. Conspiracy Theories

#antisemitism #conspiracy_theories #japan #USA

Asahara regularly blamed the USA for Japan's economic and social problems; so far, a fair enough theory. But his mind was warped; he thought the USA government, and Japan's, and others, were being controlled a secret global elite of freemasons, or, Jews8. On that, he admired Hitler and repeated various prejudiced anti-semitic accusations. He thought the Japanese government was on the verge of collapse, and, was also about to unleash a project against the people of Japan. Likely to be part of the eternal mission to gain coverage, they preached that the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, which killed 6000 in Japan, was a manmade attack using "earthquake weapons"11.

Asahara was paranoid, thinking that he was under constant attack by people trying to kill him with nerve gas, very likely spread by US jet fighters. His own medical niggles would invariably be blamed on external influences.

An utterly unfruitful attempt to convince people to vote for 24 political candidates that Aum put forward in 1990 was accompanied by a bizarre and thoroughly confusing publicity campaign involving "songs and dances wearing elephant-shaped hats depicting the Hindu God Lord Ganesha and papier-mâché models of Asahara's head"8. The campaigns failed spectacularly and Asahara responded not with reflection, but paranoia and a complete reluctance to accept that his attempts were poor; he preached the election was sabotaged by nefarious political forces8, and this fed into the cult's next 'stage' of preparing for general war against... everyone, and this included a step-up in physical punishments for members who transgressed, including solitary confinement, audio torture and physical torture, some under the guise of 'extra training'.8.

4. From Paranoia About the Apocalypse, to Trying to Engender It

#teotwawki

"There was a period of about six years in which Aum became increasingly violent, not only towards outsiders but to its own members, especially against followers whose devotion to the guru was seen to be wavering"8; this followed on from a few few-years of growth and planning.

Preparing for armageddon, Aum extracted wealth and expertise from its followers, gaining over $1 billion, acquired a large quantity of weapons and recruiting scientists from Japan and Russia (including two nuclear scientists). "Prime contractors in this respect were the Russian KGB's elite Alpha Group [and] personnel from Russia's other military special operations force, known as Spetsnaz, reportedly provided further training in martial arts, escape and evasion techniques and the use of various small arms, including firing rocket launchers and assault rifles. [They were] in the market for such advanced weaponry as T-72 tanks, MiG-29 jet fighters, an SL-13 Proton rocket launcher and even a nuclear bomb. [They succeeded] in obtaining a surplus twin-turbine Mi-117 helicopter, complete with chemical spray dispersal devices [and] had also perfected the manufacture of TNT. [...] When police raided the sect's laboratories [...] they found enough sarin to kill an estimated 4.2 million persons" and the group had limitless plans to develop other lethal technology. They "'had purchased a 500,000-acre sheep station (known as Banjawarn Station) in a remote part of Western Australia" with plans to mine uranium; nearby in 1993, they (presumably accidentally) caused] a massive explosion in Australia that lit up the sky for a huge distance.

The group twice attempted mass-murder; on one occasion killing 7 and injuring over 250 with gas. Somehow, the group was not caught.12,8

“At approximately 8.00 a.m., in the midst of the Monday morning rush hour, selected Aum cadres placed eleven packages containing sarin nerve gas on five subway trains [in Tokyo]. The trains were scheduled to converge within four minutes of one another at Kasumigaseki central station: the terminus at the heart of the Japanese government, used daily by the thousands of office workers employed in the country's most important ministries. [...] Almost immediately, passengers were affected by the noxious fumes: some were quickly overcome, others were afflicted with nosebleeds, oral haemorrhaging, uncontrollable coughing fits or convulsions. In all, fifteen stations and three separate subway lines were effected [but effects were reduced by] favourable weather conditions [and] hastened - and therefore perhaps botched - preparations. [It] killed a dozen persons and wounded 3,976 others.”

"Inside Terrorism" by Bruce Hoffman (1998)6

5. Successors: Aleph and Others

Worryingly, cults like this do not just disappear after failed predictions of doom, proven cases of fraud nor the discovery of obvious fictions in their literature. "Reports have surfaced [in 1998] that Aum is experiencing something of a revival in Japan. A hard core of at least 1,000 members - including some new recruits - are said to be rebuilding the sect's profitable computer business and are engaging in various other commercial ventures, while continuing to worship their imprisoned leader"13.

Authorities identify at least three successor religious groups; security authorities in Japan continue to monitor them and classify them as dangerous due to continuing covert activities14: