Episode 46 | TERROR IN TOKYO | Japan's Outrageous Doomsday Cult

Our story today centers around Japan’s bizarre and murderous doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo,  aka the Aum Cult. Members  went on to commit one of Japan’s largest mass killings in modern history when they released nerve gas on a Tokyo subway system in 1995. Later it was determined they had also released sarin gas in another Japanese city that also killed scores. We, crime aficionados, know that generally cults can be pretty out there but throw in a charismatic blind leader, weapons of mass destruction, a designer drug, and a whole bunch more shenanigans and you’ve got yourself the right mix for the ultimate surper cult! Buckle up folks because this storyis a wild one. ★Enjoy!

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Transcript

Japan's Aum Doomsday Cult 

Our story today centers around Japan’s bizarre and murderous doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, who went on to commit one of Japan’s largest mass killings in modern history. We, crime aficionados, know that generally cults can be pretty out there but throw in a charismatic blind leader, weapons of mass destruction, a designer drug, and a whole bunch more shenanigans and you’ve got yourself the right mix for the ultimate surper cult! Buckle up folks because this story is about to get pretty wild. 

So where did this cult start and why? The Aum cult, also known as the Aum Supreme Truth, was derived from the Japanese words Oumu Shinrikyō, directly translated as “Supreme truth”. As far as cult names go this one is simple. And as a prerequisite for most cults, founder Shoko Asahara was charismatic with psychopathic leanings. Officially the cult was founded in 1984, when guru Shoko Asahara started the cult in a one-room yoga school, you know what they say… all you need is a dream…and a desire for world domination! 

Asahara began his yoga studio under the same acronym, but instead, the studio was known as the Aum Immortal Mountain Wizard Association, these meditation and yoga classes started small but grew fast, more and more people wanted to join this new elite enlightenment. There’s a theory that one of the reasons this cult grew so astronomically from the start was the fact that the leader was a charismatic blind man who gave off the aura of wisdom and godliness, cast your mind on other so-called religious leaders like The Bhagwan or Jim Jones, people are attracted to this idea of the mystic being. When in fact there was nothing particularly special about Asahara, he was not a deity, in fact Asahara grew up in poverty, as the son of a dirt-poor weaver of tatami mats. 

Asahara attended a boarding school for the blind, he had infantile glaucoma from birth, which made him lose all sight in his left eye and go partially blind in his right eye at a young age. Instead of infinite wisdom and a godly manner, he ended up becoming a bully, dominating and scamming his classmates, through beatings and blackmail. Not so sure this is the image a yoga instructor would want to portray, ‘I said downward facing dog not cobra pose you idiot!’ but hey we digress… He graduated in 1977 and turned his attention to the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine, where he opened an illegal pharmacy for which he racked up costly fines. I guess you could say Asahara had a rocky start to his Journey of enlightenment. Shoko Asahara was a con man, plain and simple. 

It didn’t take him long to realize the influence he had over people and opened an acupuncture business that specialized in quack cures, toss in the spiritual yoga and meditation, and there was no stopping him! But this wasn’t enough. He wanted more; he craved more. 

In 1986 Asahara decided he needed to fully transform himself into the ultimate guru, and where else to do this but the mystical foggy mountains of the Himalayas. He stayed for a while with the monks in the mountains before descending as a new man. In 1989 the Japanese government granted Aum it’s legal recognition as a religious cooperation.  In 1992 Asahara published his book, Declaring Myself the Christ, within which he declared himself Christ, Japan's only fully enlightened master, and identified with the Lamb Of God. A pretty bold statement! He then went on to publish another seven books, his most popular ones, including Beyond Life and Deathand Supreme Initiation. Which were all massive hits…amongst his followers, they didn’t quite catch on at Barnes & Noble.   

Upon descending the mountains, Asahara transformed himself into a guru with a blend of different religions he personally handpicked. It’s kind of like he went shopping for a religion, but there was a sale, and he came back with more. Within the Aum cult, Asahara blended mystical Buddhism with deities from the Hindu religion, added the physical and spiritual rigor of yoga, and, from Christianity, drew on the concept of Armageddon, specifically the book of Revelations, a must have in any doomsday cult or organization. Basically, a smorgasbord of religions if you will.

With all this backing his cult, the numbers began to grow even more but Asahara had needs. He needed intelligence, weapons and technology, and manpower. This time Asahara targeted the elite and intelligent. Their first target was top Japanese Universities, especially students who were non-conformist and alienated amongst their peers. These were usually young scientists from chemistry, physics, and engineering departments. These scientists would come in handy, for reasons you’ll soon understand. 

Next, they needed weapons, and technology. For this they teemed up with veterans from the Russian KGB, The Yakuza and even the Japanese Military. They even managed to recruit medical doctors that carried out human experiments. Asahara was smart, everyone he recruited was there for a purpose, they were all cogs in the wheel that would turn the tide of the political landscape of Japan, and he hoped, the rest of the world. Aum preached that humanity would end, except for the elite few who joined Aum, it was only through Shoko that salvation was achieved, much like the teachings of Jesus Christ. Aum's mission was not only to spread the word of salvation, but also to survive these end Times. He predicted that Armageddon would come in 1997. 

In many of his lectures, Shoko Asahara referred to the United States as "The Beast" from the Book of Revelation, predicting it would eventually attack Japan, the Third World War. So why was Asahara so keen for the Armageddon to happen?  Well Aum claimed that by bringing about the end of the world, they would restore Shōbō, a practice of Buddhism, specifically 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. Basically, a mass culling. He preached "If Aum tries really hard, we can reduce the victims of Armageddon to a quarter of the world's population. This type of thinking is particularly dangerous when a cult has the means and will to carry these actions out.  

The further we dig into these whackjobs the more bizarre it gets. One of the main plans for the anticipated Armageddon was based off a popular fantasy series written by American writer Isaac Asimov, called The Foundation series. One of the characters, Hari Seldon a science fiction figure 10,000 years in the future, said in the book "The Empire will vanish and all its good with it. Its accumulated knowledge will decay and the order it has imposed will vanish." This speech eerily mirrors what Shoko Asahara had been teaching in his lectures, this book is what gave Aum their high-tech blueprint for the millennium and beyond. The book follows the story of Hari Seldon who warns the empire about an impending disaster on the planet of Trantor. The empire fails to heed his warnings, prompting Seldon to take matters into his own hands. Asimov's core trilogy, written in the 1940s, depicts his hero's efforts to save humanity by forming a secret society that can rebuild civilization in a single millennium, instead of the 30,000 years they face. Much like how Aum planned on surviving the apocalypse and living a pure life after.  

In the book Foundation, Hari Seldon gathers the best minds of his time - scientists, historians, technologists - and, like monks in the Middle Ages, sets about preserving the knowledge of the universe. Hmmmm. Just like Aum and their brilliant followers. In the book Seldon’s secret group becomes a religion, and it was only through them that they would survive. Notice how they’re pretty much the same, pretty creepy right?! While the book was written as a fantasy idea, one to entertain, Shoko Asahara took it in a far more literal sense. 

Asahara knew what the social climate amongst young adults in Japan was at the time. He was a clever man who knew how to entice young people, through technology and the latest trends. Aum's public relations activities included publishing comics and animated cartoons that attempted to tie its religious ideas to popular anime and manga themes, including space missions, powerful weapons, world conspiracies, and the quest for ultimate truth. 

Japan by and large is a very conservative country, which at times can be stifling to the youth who felt differently. Asahara saw this and used this as his ultimate tool for manipulation and recruitment. They were nearly all young, wide-eyed kids in their early and mid-20s. Some dropped out of Japan's finest schools to join the cult, leaving behind families, friends, and bright futures. Others left the nation's top companies in steel, computers, insurance, and other fields.

How did he do it? 

By using magazines, videos, and books, Asahara took his message to the youth of his country, appealing to the lost and alienated. Aum members wrote stories and placed ads claiming they had gained powers of telepathy and levitation, offering to teach others these secret skills. They often posted in popular publications: genres of science-fact, and science-fiction magazines with names like Mu and Twilight Zone. He filled their heads with this idea of a futuristic and fantasy world, one filled with tinfoil hats, electrode caps, astral teleporters, and magic DNA. They fell for it, having grown up watching and reading anime like Space Battleship Yamato an d Naushika in the Valley of the Wind. As they grew older, many graduated to the gekiga - ultraviolent, book-length comics drawn with realistic pictures and filled with graphic depictions of rape, murder, and a decadent, retrograde future. Asahara knew their desires, their wants for the future and played into them with charisma and evil genius. 

The Japanese are hard workers, from a young age, students are expected to put in long hours and produce great results. Asahara knew they would listen to the call of an imaginary world, which is what Aum offered. Many of these members came from the major cities and were tired of the noise of everyday life and responsibilities of the real, and often cruel, world.  To combat this the Japanese, prefer to cultivate an inner space - the inside of their homes, the inside of their minds. Aum offered the ultimate inner space, one that would take its followers on a direct line to outer space, a fantasy. In fact, journalist Shoko Egawa, who followed the cult for many years, said "Aum members lived in a purely imaginary world," observed Egawa, Aum offered to bring virtual reality to life. Picture the popular video game Cyberpunk 2077 coming to life, that’s what they advertised, the glamour and power. By 1989, remarkably, Asahara had gathered around him some of the finest young minds in all Japan - chemists, biologists, doctors and computer programmers. Amongst the many, there were four people who played highly important part in the Aum Cult. 

The first was Seiichi Endo, 28, who left prestigious Kyoto University, where he did experiments in genetic engineering at the medical school's Viral Research Center, he became a key engineer within the cult. The second was Masami Tsuchiya, 24, a first-rate graduate student at the University of Tsukuba, who abandoned his cutting-edge work in organic chemistry to join the cult. Third was Fumihiro Joyu, 26, who arrived with an advanced degree in telecommunications from Waseda University, another leading school, where he studied artificial intelligence. He was drawn in by the spirituality of yoga and meditation. The final person on this list was Hideo Murai, the astrophysicist. Brilliant, intense, and soft-spoken, Murai would become the chief scientist of Aum and engineer of the apocalypse. Murai read one of Asahara’s books and became fascinated with how levitation and telepathy might be possible and lost interest in his career, after his trip of enlightenment to Nepal he declared his devotion to Aum. 

Aum needed these brilliant doctors for one very disturbing reason. Aum's scientists were fascinated by electronics and the human brain. Their ultimate goal was finding new ways to achieve total mind control. Because that is essentially what a cult is, a way of commanding and controlling your followers, to the point where they more resemble zombies than humans. They did this though dogma, drugs, and brainwashing, but apparently these were not enough to keep Asahara's legions in line. They wanted to get inside the people’s brains. Cultists wired electrodes to their heads while chanting ancient mantras and logging on to computer nets. This is beginning to feel more like a science fiction horror movie. 

Brain wave patterns had always interested Aum's scientists, this was how they believed they would be able to control the mind. But alas this didn’t work. So, they kept on trying and trying again, but the scope of their experiments expanded radically and became darker. Desperate to find a way, the scientists in the labs began taking homemade drugs designed just for them, drugs like Methamphetamine, LSD, and a truth serum (something Asahara supposedly cooked up himself). Anything to achieve true enlightenment.  

There were a few people who survived the experiments, one was a Japanese army veteran, a 25-year-old personal bodyguard for Asahara. Dr Hayashi, a medical doctor who was a member of the cult and who often carried out barbaric human experiments much like ones in the horror movie Saw, had summoned the cult member and handed him a beaker used for urine samples. Inside was a yellow liquid - wonder what it was!? The veteran recalled soon getting dizzy and passed out. When he came to, he was on a bed and didn't know what was going on. It felt as though many days had passed, but had no memory. When I touched his head, he noticed painful swollen spots, with a dull, aching pain."

What he didn’t know was that the spots on his head were surgical incisions, four of these points were made into his skull, 1 centimeter long and 2 centimeters wide. A terrifying thought - someone drilling into your head after drugging you unconscious. When the man was rescued and taken to a nearby hospital, CT scans showed nothing irregular or concerning, leading them to conclude that electrodes had been placed inside his head. This is starting to sound like the plot to William Gibson's science fiction classic, Neuromancer. In Gibson's book, a "console cowboy" called Case prowls the holographic backstreets of a fantasy Tokyo and wires his mind directly into computer nets. The fact that this cult was so close to making this true is pretty bone-chilling.  

One set of tests performed by Dr. Hayashi used electric shocks to wipe the memories of suspicious followers. Kind of like the one they used in Men in Black, but more deadly. According to Hayashi's detailed medical records, 7 shocks of 100 volts each, delivered to the scalp, were enough to blank the short-term memory of one of Asahara's drivers. He had been branded a spy and was the first guinea pig . The method was a success - after 7 shocks the poor guy couldn't even remember he had ever driven the guru's car. Another worker who had tried to escape, we don’t blame him, got 11 shocks. Needless to say, he didn’t try escape again. Another guy who was accused of sexual relations with other members, something frowned upon in the cult, received 19 shocks! Damn! It has been said that during a three-month period in 1994, Dr Hayashi administrated more than 600 electronic zaps to at least 130 followers. Damn! 

The shocks were so damaging that some members forgot which cult they were in and even forgot their own names. This carried on for years under the Japanese government’s nose and they were none the wiser. By now, almost a decade later Aum had grown across six countries, with at least 40,000 followers.  Aum had a worldwide network that brought it state-of-the-art lasers, lab equipment, and weaponry. The teachings of Shoko Asahara had reached from dense cities of postindustrial Japan to mountain retreats where samurai once fought, and then overseas - to Manhattan and Silicon Valley in the United States, Bonn and the Australian outback, and finally to Russia. This is where Aum found its supply of military hardware, weapons and training, as well as the knowledge on building a nuclear bomb. 

By now the cult was big enough for Asahara to carry out his big plans, they had managed to infiltrate every corner of Japan, from members of the government, military, the Tokyo Police, top scientists and the wealthy elite class. About 40 active-duty members of the Self Defense Force had enlisted in Asahara's army - plus another 60 or so vets. Aum was even being fed classified data from one of there followers working for the National Defense office. There was not one social society that Aum didn’t have its roots buried in. But infiltration wasn’t enough, there was one thing missing, covert intelligence. The cult turned increasingly to wiretapping, the tools to conduct electronic eavesdropping were now available to common folk - and Aum took full advantage of this. The first tap was carried out in 1991 by NTT, the national phone company. Aum's technique was simple enough. They had reportedly obtained NTT uniforms and ID badges and put together a tapping manual for its security and recruiting team, from here they were able to identify enemies of Aum. This is some scary shit!

Now wiretapping and infiltration wasn’t enough, ‘cause they also needed enough weapons for the Armageddon. They had multiple projects on the go, including programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. Aum's scientists had built a vast automated plant to mass-produce sarin, the Nazi nerve gas that would prove their weapon of choice. Others worked on synthesizing mustard gas, VX, and other chemical killers. In cult biolabs equipped with the latest gear, technicians cultured agents that cause anthrax, Q-fever, and botulism. At the same time, assembly lines were set up to produce 1,000 Russian machine guns and tons of TNT. All this would enable Aum to survive the apocalypse and inherit the Earth. Cue evil maniacal laugh.

Chief scientist Murai also boasted the impressive weapons that were developed for Aum, weapons like the plasma cannon, which concentrates microwaves into a single beam of 4,000 degrees centigrade. The weapon burns away living tissue while leaving structures intact. Such a weapon had been researched by the Pentagon, Murai even stated that it had been deployed in the Gulf War. This was of course a lie, but they believed him. The other weapon he insisted that was in production was the "fixed-star reflection cannon," which Aum swore Russia was then developing. This was a stationary satellite that focuses solar energy onto an Earthbound target. The intense heat melts everything in its path - except Aum believers. "Enlightened believers can separate their bodily senses from their consciousness," an Aum text explained. "So, they can withstand the high heat that would burn ordinary people. That's why they were being trained by submerging for 15 minutes in hot water of 50 degrees centigrade (122 degrees Fahrenheit)." We’re certain this guy was a Star Wars fan,  inspired by the Death Star. At this point anything is likely!

But how were they planning on surviving the Armageddon? 

Murai explained in detail to members how they would go about this. "Enlightened believers produce an electromagnetic field," Murai explained. "When the plasma from outside affects your body, you can take it as your own energy, and you will be more powerful." And guys, this is coming from a highly educated scientist! What the hell is going on here!?

In 1994 things took a more serious turn within the cult, Asahara ordered a sweeping reorganization, setting up the cult as a shadow government. They were no longer considered a cult of yoga lovers, instead they were a government, they changed their name to The Supreme State, leaving no doubt about who would inherit the world and what their intentions were. And at the forefront of it all sat Shoko Asahara, now deemed by law the Holy Monk Emperor. A constitution was even drafted, spelling out the structure of the new nation and the duties of its subjects. Citizens, for example, "shall be obligated to military service in order to protect the sacred law.” Aum was ready to take over and cripple the government. 

Over the years they had launched a couple of experimental attacks like in July 1993, when cult members sprayed large amounts of a liquid containing Bacillus anthracis spores (anthrax) from a cooling tower on the roof of Aum Shinrikyo's Tokyo headquarters. However, their plan to cause an anthrax epidemic failed. The attack resulted in a large number of complaints about bad odors by neighboring buildings but no infections or deaths. Then things began to get real. On the night of 27 June 1994, the cult carried out a chemical weapons attack against civilians when they released sarin in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto, Nagano. Members of the cult released a cloud of sarin which floated near the homes of judges who were overseeing a lawsuit concerning a real-estate dispute which was predicted to go against the cult. This Matsumoto incident killed eight and injured more than 500. Police at the time didn’t know who was behind the attack.  

Aum wouldn’t stop here. They needed to carry out a much more spectacular strike, but when?

Their answer came in the form of an earthquake. Armageddon had come early. On January 17, 1995, a devastating earthquake struck Kobe in central Japan, toppling freeways, crumbling apartment blocks, and igniting a firestorm of destruction. More than 5,500 people perished in what became Japan's worst disaster since World War II. For Asahara, the Kobe earthquake was stunning proof of the coming apocalypse.

Coinciding with this proof of Armageddon there was also water-cooler talk of police conducting raids on cultist headquarters and at the top of the list was Aum. They had no choice, they needed to act and act now.  It was here that Aum's high-tech terrorists would strike their preemptive blow - to paralyze the Japanese state and begin the cult's historic mission of world domination.

It began on the morning of 20 March 1995. In a very well-coordinated attack, Five Aum members blended with the rush-hour crowds in Tokyo's subways and boarded five trains at different ends of the vast network. They knew precisely the times and locations for each train and each station. They also knew that by 8:15 a.m., all five trains would converge upon Kasumigaseki, ground zero of politics and power in Japan, home to the bureaucracies that rule more than 125 million Japanese. Their plan was simple. They would place a newspaper-wrapped package containing bags of sarin gas at their feet and when the time was right, puncture the bags with their umbrella tips. 

By 7:45 a.m., each member of the hit squad sat in his designated train. A few stops from Kasumigaseki, the cultists laid their murderous bags on the car floors and punctured them with the umbrella tips. Then, as the car doors opened, they darted into crowds and out of the station, where getaway cars waited. Puppets to the master Asahara.

Within minutes chaos descended as the invisible choking nerve agent made its way through the trains and the station. 

Passengers began groaning with nausea. Some commuters collapsed on the ground, their bodies shuddering with spasms. Incredibly and sadly, the trains didn’t stop, keeping schedule, bang on time, as they do. They would continue shuttling the commuters until the growing panic inside the cars reached critical mass. Passengers tumbled from the train, gagging and vomiting, gasping for breath. Five collapsed on the platform, foaming at the mouth. Others lay inside the cars, their bodies jerking violently. As commuters staggered toward the exits with limited vision and crashing headaches, an ominous announcement rang throughout the station: "Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate.”

The victims were eerily quiet - the nerve gas had crippled their lungs and stolen their voices, many had appalling injuries. One woman was admitted to a hospital in agony after the nerve agent had fused her contact lenses to her eyeballs. There was no choice but to have both eyes surgically removed.

Above ground, it was absolute pandemonium. The sidewalks and roads were blanketed with casualties. Police and ambulances could not keep up as attack after attack happened as the trains arrived at their destination. Wave after wave of blinded, disoriented victims flooded nearby hospitals, baffling doctors with their symptoms. By the time all trains had stopped the death toll had climbed to 12 and more than 5,500 were afflicted. 

But Aum’s master plan had failed, they hadn’t toppled the government and police had finally raided their headquarters. By now the ugly truth about Aum Shinrikyo was coming out. One by one the cult was falling apart. Adding to the bizarre, one week after the sarin attacks, no. 2 in the cult, Chief scientist Murai, while being interviewed outside Aum headquarters in front of dozens of news cameras, was stabbed in the stomach by a Korean member of the yakuza, dying hours later. The hunt was on for No.1 Shoko Asahara, he was nowhere to be found. When they finally found him on May 16th, he was meditating, seated in the lotus position hiding in a three-foot-high space the size of a large coffin within a wall of a cult building. Japanese police, clad in riot gear and watched by millions on television, had just used a huge circular saw to cut a hole in the steel walls outside his tiny hiding space. Yet 40 yr old spiritual leader Shoko Asahara, displayed an almost supernatural calm as they read the arrest warrant. "I understand," was all the bearded, white-robed guru said as he was led away. 

On that same day, the cult mailed a parcel bomb to the office of Yukio Aoshima, the governor of Tokyo. When his secretary opened the package it blew off her fingers. 

On 6 July 2018, 23 years after being arrested, tried and sentenced to death, Shoko Asahara and six other Aum Shinrikyo members were executed by hanging, and just like that, the cult was ended. 

Although Aum group members sometimes fasted to the point of starvation or paid as much as $200 to drink Asahara's bathwater, the sect couldn’t be dismissed merely as a collection of fruitcakes and lost souls. I mean look at the numbers and level of society they attracted.

Was or is this a preview of the 21st century? God I hope not…

What happens when you combine a mad, brilliant and charasmatic leader with a psychopathic band of brilliant scientists, bent on indiscriminate murder and the world's end? We just found out! Aum’s story really truly feels like it’s delivered from the world of science fiction novels and Netflix thrillers. Yet it happened in real life. More frightening still, it will sadly, probably happen again.