Okay, let's just try to unpack this. I want you
to imagine you're walking into a yoga studio.
The vibe, maybe some incense is burning, there's
some gentle Siddhar music in the background.
Sure, a very familiar scene. Yeah, exactly. You're
there to stretch, maybe meditate. You're trying
to get a little bit of relief from the crushing
stress of corporate life in Tokyo. You want peace.
You want health. You're trying to clear your
mind. It's a sanctuary. It's what thousands,
maybe millions of people are looking for every
single day all over the world. Right. But then
you fast forward and it's barely a decade later.
And the people who are running that yoga studio.
They are not doing Downward Dog anymore. Not
even close. They are manufacturing military -grade
chemical weapons. They've built a massive industrial
facility for it. They're out buying Russian military
helicopters. And they are orchestrating one of
the most terrifying domestic terror attacks the
modern world has ever seen. It sounds like the
plot of a really dark and honestly a very implausible
thriller novel. You'd say it was bad writing
if you saw it in a movie. It is the absolute
definition of truth is stranger than fiction.
Today, we are doing a deep dive into I'm Shinrikyo.
Now, most of you listening, you probably know
the headline, the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack.
That's the moment the world just froze and looked
at Japan in absolute horror. Right. That's the
big one. But the backstory, oh, the backstory
involves sci -fi obsessions. It involves failed
political campaigns, anime, and just this slow
creeping descent into apocalyptic violence that
is, I mean, It's honestly hard to wrap your head
around. It really is. And I think that's our
mission for this deep dive, right? To move past
those headlines. We really want to understand
the why and the how. Yes. How does a group that
literally starts as a yoga school in Shibuya
in 1984, how does it evolve into a literal state
within a state that is capable of biological
and chemical warfare? Exactly. I really want
to unpack the timeline, some of the strange details.
I mean, wait until we get to the Isaac Asimov
connections, because that just blew my mind and
the psychology of all of it. How do you get from
namaste to nerve gas? be here to help connect
those dots on the doctrine. Because I think to
really understand the violence, you have to understand
the belief system, the specific theological why
that made mass murder seem, at least in their
eyes, like a spiritual act. A noble act. A noble
act. And we're also going to look at how this
group managed to survive even after the arrests,
the trials, the executions, how they're still
around today under new names. Because they did
not just vanish. OK, just a quick note on our
sources. We are working primarily from a really
comprehensive dossier on this, specifically the
detailed reporting found in the Wikipedia archives
on Ayam Shinrikyo. It covers the history, the
doctoring, criminal activities, current status.
We've really gone through it with a fine tooth
comb. And a necessary disclaimer before we really
jump in. We are going to be discussing some very
intense, very specific religious and political
views that were held by this group. Right. We're
reporting on these as factual. events and beliefs
to understand the history, we are in no way,
shape or form endorsing them. This is a look
at how a syncretic belief system was twisted
into a justification for absolute terror. Absolutely.
So let's go back. Back to the beginning. Yeah.
1984. The era of what? Big hair synthesizers.
But in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, a man named
Shoko Asahara opens a yoga school. and he wasn't
born shoko sahara his birth name was chizuo matsumoto
he adopts this new name later on and he starts
this little group it's called umu shinsen no
kai Which translates to what? Roughly a Darum
Heavenly Sage Association. And at this stage,
you know, February 1984, it really is just a
yoga and meditation school. It takes a few years,
but it eventually evolves and gains official
religious organization status from the government
in 1989. OK, but here's where it gets really
interesting for me. And it kind of defies the
stereotype of what you think of as a cult member.
You know, when we think of people getting sucked
into these groups, we usually picture. Vulnerable
people, maybe lost souls, people on the fringes
of society who feel like they have nowhere else
to go. But Acuum, Acuum was recruiting the best
and the brightest. That is such a crucial distinction.
Arium Shinrikyo was explicitly dubbed by the
media and by itself. A religion for the elite.
For the elite. Yeah. They attracted a really
shocking number of graduates from Japan's absolute
top universities. We're talking about scientists,
doctors, lawyers, people with PhDs in physics,
astrophysics. The people who are supposed to
be the most rational. The people who had climbed
the academic and social ladder to the very, very
top. These were not directionless kids. So what
was the pitch? I mean, how do you get a graduate
from the University of Tokyo, someone who has
a guaranteed bright future at like Mitsubishi
to drop everything and join a yoga cult? Well,
the pitch was something they called the Arkham
Salvation Plan. The Salvation Plan. Right. And
it was incredibly comprehensive and on the surface
almost pragmatic. They promised to cure your
physical illnesses through their special health
improvement techniques. They promised to improve
your intelligence. So they're selling self -improvement.
They're selling a fast track to becoming a better
version of yourself. Realize your life's goals
through positive thinking, they'd say. And they
framed it as this ancient wisdom accurately translated
from original Pali suttas, the earliest Buddhist
texts. So it had this veneer of intellectual
and spiritual authenticity. Absolutely. And they
paired that self -improvement. They encouraged
recruits to stop wasting time on leisure, on
fun, and to concentrate only on what was important.
Which was what they were selling. Of course.
And you have to think about the context. For
a high -achieving intellectual person in 1980s
Japan, someone who maybe felt totally empty despite
all their success, maybe someone completely burnt
out by that famously rigorous corporate culture,
this was an incredibly powerful hook. It offered
meaning and mastery. It said, you are smart,
but you're not using your intelligence for what
really matters. We can show you the way. And
they didn't just rely on ancient text to sell
this, right? This is the part that I find so
fascinating. They used pop culture. They were
using manga and anime. They were. They understood
their target audience perfectly. Akimem's public
relations wing was really sophisticated. They
published comics and they produced their own
animated cartoons. And what were these cartoons
about? Well, they weren't just telling cute stories.
They were masterfully tying their religious ideas
to themes that were already hugely popular in
anime at the time. You know, grand space missions,
super powerful weapons, shadowy world conspiracies,
the lonely hero's quest for ultimate truth. Wow.
So it's like the gamified religion. It's like,
join us and you're not just meditating. You're
the protagonist in this epic sci -fi story. That's
not far off at all. In fact, they made the subtext
text. They explicitly referenced Isaac Asimov's
family. Foundation trilogy. The classic sci -fi
novels about the fall of the Galactic Empire.
The very same. For anyone who hasn't read them,
in Asimov's Foundation you have this small elite
group of scientists and they can see the collapse
of civilization coming. They can predict it with
a fictional science called psychohistory. Right.
So they go underground to the edge of the galaxy
to preserve all of human knowledge and prepare
to rebuild the world after this long age of barbarism
ends. And Asimov saw themselves as... As the
foundation. Precisely. They told their recruits,
we are that elite group of spiritually evolved
scientists. We can see the end of the world coming,
and it is our sacred duty to prepare to preserve
the truth and to rebuild civilization. That's
a terrifyingly grandiose purpose to give someone.
But can you see the appeal? For a brilliant physicist
who feels like they're just a cog in a corporate
machine, this tells them, no, you're not just
the salaryman. You are a guardian of humanity's
future. Wow. Yeah, you can absolutely see the
appeal. It's the ultimate ego boost. The psychiatrist
Robert J. Lifton, who studied the group extensively,
he noted this. He said Asim used this bizarre
mix of Christian ideas, Buddhist ideas, and sci
-fi tropes to impress these really shrewd, educated
Japanese people who would have just been bored
to tears by a traditional old -fashioned sermon.
They wanted something that felt modern. Urgent.
Dynamic. Exactly. So they've got the recruits.
They've got this elite label. But underneath
all the yoga and the Asimov references, something
much, much darker is brewing in the doctrine.
Let's talk about what they actually believed,
because it's a very weird mix. It's not just
Buddhism, is it? Not by a long shot. It's what
we call a syncretic belief system. Which is just
a fancy way of saying they mashed up a lot of
different, often contradictory things to create
something totally new. OK, so what's in the mix?
Well, you have their own idiosyncratic interpretations.
of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. They were especially
drawn to the Vajrayana tradition, which really
emphasizes this intense, unbreakable bond between
a guru and a disciple. So it puts Asahara at
the absolute center, at the top of everything.
Then they incorporated Hinduism. Specifically,
they worship the god Shiva. And Shiva is... The
destroyer, right? In the Hindu trinity. The god
of destruction and transformation. I mean, that
is a very significant choice of deity. It's not
a coincidence. No, I guess not. And then on top
of all that, they threw in a heavy dose of Christianity.
A lot of it. From what I've read. Oh, yes. Asahara
became obsessed with Christian millennialism,
end times prophecy, the book of Revelation, all
of that. And in 1992, he publishes this foundational
book for the group where he actually declares
himself to be Christ. He called himself Christ.
Not a Christ -like figure. No. No. Christ. And
also the Lamb of God. He claimed his divine mission
was to take upon himself the sins of the entire
world. Wow. He told his followers that he could
transfer his spiritual power to them. and in
doing so, literally absorb all of their bad karma.
It was a messianic complex in full terrifying
force. So we've got Shiva, we've got Christ,
and I see here they were also really big on Nostradamus,
the 16th century French astrologer. Yes, his
writings about the end of the world were hugely
influential in Japan in the 70s and 80s. There
was a bit of a craze. And Asahara just folded
all of this together, Shiva, Christ, Nostradamus,
Buddhism, to construct this incredibly vivid
and terrifying apocalyptic vision. So what was
the vision? What did they think was going to
happen? They believed in a massive global conspiracy.
And unfortunately, it involves some of the usual
ugly tropes. They believe this conspiracy involved
Jewish financiers, Freemasons, the British royal
family, rival Japanese religions, all working
in the shadows. And what was the end game of
this conspiracy? The end game was a nuclear Armageddon.
A World War III. And who did they think was going
to start it? The United States. Asahara specifically
referred to the U .S. as the Beast from the Book
of Revelation. He prophesied that the U .S. would
attack Japan, which would trigger this final
global war. Did they have a date for this? The
timeline shifted. At first it was the year 2000,
then 2006. But as things got more intense, he
accelerated it to 1997. And they had specific
ideas about how this war would be fought. I see
here they believed it would involve... Particle
beam weapons? Nuclear weapons and particle beam
weapons, yes. Again, you can see that sci -fi
influence bleeding through. They believed humanity
would be almost completely wiped out. And only
the enlightened few. Only the elite few in Atumum
would survive to rebuild civilization from the
ashes. It's the foundation trilogy made real.
Okay, this is where we have to talk about the
justification for violence. Because, you know,
lots of cults have doomsday prophecies, lots
of them. They go out into the desert, they stockpile
beans, and they just wait. Right. They're passive.
But Atum started killing people. They became
incredibly violent. How did they justify that
within this belief system? This is the absolute
key. It is the most chilling part of their doctrine.
And it all centers on a single concept that Asahara
created called Poa. Poa. P -O -A. That's right.
It's his own twisted interpretation of a genuine
Tibetan Buddhist concept called Fewa. And what
is Fewa in actual Tibetan Buddhism? In the traditional
context, it relates to the transfer. of a person's
consciousness at the very moment of their death.
It's a set of practices designed to help you
achieve a good rebirth or even enlightenment
at that critical moment of dying. It's about
a peaceful transition. Okay. So how did Asahara
twist that? He twisted it into something completely
unrecognizable and frankly, monstrous. He argued
that if a person is accumulating bad karma, which
could mean anything from actively opposing Azum
to just, you know, living a normal mundane life
that distracts from the truth, then that person
is destined for a hellish rebirth. They're going
to suffer for eons. OK, I think I think I see
where this is going and it's not good. It's not.
Ossahar's logic was this. If you kill that person,
you stop them from accumulating more bad karma.
You are freezing their karmic debt where it is.
So killing them is a good thing. He taught that
it was an act of salvation. You are saving their
soul from a much, much worse fate in the next
life. You are, in his words, doing them a spiritual
favor. Wow. So murder becomes a spiritual service.
Exactly. It's a complete moral inversion. Killing
wasn't a crime. It was an act of mercy. It was
a spiritual service you were performing for the
victim. This doctrine of POA is what allowed
these highly educated people, these doctors and
scientists, to commit the most horrific atrocities
without breaking their own internal moral code.
Because in their minds, they weren't murdering
people. They believed they were helping them.
They were saving them by killing them. That is
a terrifyingly effective psychological trap.
And it wasn't just theory, was it? They started
acting on this doctrine way before the 1995 subway
attack. Oh, yeah. This brings us to the escalation
phase, the creation of this state within a state.
Right. The yoga school facade was starting to
crack. By the late 1980s, definitely, there were
accusations bubbling up, deception of recruits,
holding members against their will, forcing them
to sign over all their possessions and donate
huge sums of money. Standard cult behavior, I
guess. To a point. But then, in 1989, the violence
turned lethal in public. This was the first murder.
Yes. In February of 1989, a member tried to leave.
He wanted out. And he was murdered by the group
to silence him. Wow. But the incident that really
should have been the giant flashing red light
for all of Japanese society, the moment that
signaled how truly dangerous they were, was the
murder of the Sakamoto family in November of
that same year. This story is just infuriating.
So, Tsutsumi Sakamoto. He was a lawyer. He was
a prominent anti -cult lawyer. He was representing
dozens of families whose children had basically
been stolen by the group. And he was preparing
a massive lawsuit that could have potentially
bankrupted Shinrikyo. He was a direct threat.
A huge threat. But here's the part of the story
that involves the media, and it's often overlooked,
and it's just shameful. Sakamoto had recorded
a long, detailed interview with the Japanese
television network, TBS. And TBS, they showed
the tape to the cult. Before it aired. They did.
Secretly. Without notifying Sakamoto or his lawyers,
TBS executives showed the taped interview to
ADM officials. Why would they do that? The cult
pressured them. They complained. And so TBS caved.
They complied with I .M.'s demands and they canceled
the broadcast. They buried the interview. That's
unconscionable. They essentially tipped off the
murderers. They showed them Sakamoto's entire
legal strategy. That's exactly what they did.
I .M. now knew who Sakamoto was, what he knew,
and what he was planning. And just days later,
in early November 1989, a team of Ayo members
broke into Sakamoto's apartment in Yokohama.
And his whole family was home. His whole family.
Tsutsumi, his wife, the toko, and their infant
son, Tatsuhiko, who was just a year old. Oh,
God. They murdered all three of them. They injected
them with potassium chloride. They put their
bodies in metal drums and buried them in three
separate, remote, rural locations across Japan.
The family just vanished. And the police had
no idea. The police couldn't solve the case at
the time. This is despite the fact that Sakamoto's
colleagues were publicly shouting their suspicions
about I .M. from the rooftops. And get this.
The police found an I .M. lapel pin at the crime
scene in the apartment. And they still didn't
connect it. They didn't move on the group. The
bodies weren't found until 1995 after the subway
attack when the captured cult members finally
confessed and led police to the burial sites.
It's a tragic, massive failure of multiple institutions.
So they get away with wiping out an entire family
who was threatening them. That must have just...
emboldened them beyond belief. It did. It taught
them that they were untouchable. And this is
when you see them pivot to the next level, trying
to develop and build weapons of mass destruction.
And this is where all those scientists they recruited
really come in handy. Right. In 1993, they decided
to attempt large -scale biological warfare. They
tried to create an anthrax epidemic right in
the middle of Tokyo. They actually tried this.
This isn't just a plan they had on a whiteboard.
They went through with it. They did. Over a period
of days, they sprayed huge amounts of a liquid
containing bacillus anthracis spores from a cooling
tower on the roof of their Tokyo headquarters
building in the Kamaido district. OK, so why
didn't thousands of people die in Tokyo in 1993?
Because of a colossal scientific error. For all
their supposed brilliance, their scientists made
a critical mistake. What was it? They used a
vaccine strain of the bacteria, the kind you'd
use to inoculate livestock. It was non -pathogenic
to humans. It couldn't cause the disease. It
didn't kill anyone. It just smelled really bad,
right? It smelled awful. The neighbors complained
to the city for weeks about a terrible foul odor,
like rotting garbage or dead animals. Al -Syum
just claimed they were cooking a special mixture
of soybeans and herbs for their rituals. And
the city bought that. Health inspectors came,
they couldn't find a definitive source, and they
eventually just left. The attempt completely
failed. So they failed at biology, and that's
when they decided to pivot to chemistry. Correct.
Chemistry, in many ways, is more straightforward
than biology. There are fewer variables. So they
started manufacturing nerve agents, sarin and
VX gas. And they needed a place to test them.
A safe place. Exactly. So where do you go if
you're a Japanese doomsday cult and you want
to test military -grade chemical weapons without
anyone noticing? I'm afraid to ask. You can go
to the Australian outback. They bought a massive,
incredibly remote pastoral property called Banja
Warren Station in Western Australia. It was literally
in the middle of nowhere. And they set up a lab
there. They did. They brought the precursor chemicals
from Tuhan. synthesized sarin on site, and then
they tested it. On what? On sheep. They released
the sarin and killed 29 sheep. It was a proof
of concept. They filmed it all to show Asahara
that it worked. That's so clinical. And bizarre.
But once they knew it worked, they brought that
technology and that confidence back to Japan.
And they started using their newest chemical,
VX gas, which is even more toxic than sarin,
for targeted assassinations. Who were they targeting
with VX? Their enemies, spies, defectors, anyone
who crossed them. Between December 1994 and January
1995, they carried out several attacks. They
attacked a man named Tadahiro Hamaguchi, who
Asahara suspected was a spy. How did they do
it? One of the cult members just walked up behind
him on a street in Osaka and sprinkled liquid
VX on the back of his neck. He fell into a coma
and died 10 days later. They also used it to
attack the head of an equine victim's society,
a man named Hiroyuki Nagaoka. He survived but
was in a coma for weeks. Doctors at the time,
they didn't know what they were dealing with.
No idea. They diagnosed it as organophosphate
pesticide poisoning. VX is so vanishingly rare
in a civilian context, doctors just aren't looking
for military -grade nerve agents. They didn't
confirm it was VX until after the cult members
confessed in 1995. It's just incredible how much
they were getting away with right in plain sight.
They even had that helicopter, didn't they? A
Russian Mil Mi -17 military helicopter, a big
one. They bought it on the black market in the
chaotic aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse.
How do you just... Buy a military helicopter
and bring it to Japan. With enough cash in the
early 90s, you could buy almost anything from
the former Soviet bloc. They disassembled it,
shipped it to Japan in pieces, and reassembled
it at their headquarters. And what was the plan
for it? The plan was terrifying. They wanted
to equip it with large sprayers to disperse sarin
over Tokyo from the air, an aerial chemical bombardment
of the city. Unbelievable. And they were also
trying to make guns. A thousand of them. They
were attempting to manufacture 1 ,000 assault
rifles, their own copies of the Kalashnikov AK
-74. They even managed to smuggle one real one
into Japan to reverse engineer it. They were
literally building an army. To fight their apocalyptic
war. They had the chemicals. They had the helicopter.
They were building the guns. They were becoming
a rogue state. And that brings us to the dress
rehearsal, the big one, before the big one, the
Masumoto incident, June 1994. This is a... absolutely
crucial precursor to the Tokyo attack. This is
where they field tested their sarin delivery
system on a civilian population. In the city
of Matsumoto, in Nagato Prefecture, why there?
They were targeting judges. There was a real
estate lawsuit against the cult that was being
heard in Matsumoto, and they had received a tip
that the judges were going to rule against them.
So their solution... Again, was just to murder
the officials. Exactly. The plan was to use a
converted refrigerator truck. They built a system
inside where they could heat up the sarin and
use a fan to blow the vapor out into the night
air, hoping it would drift into the judge's dormitory.
Did it work? Not as planned. The wind shifted.
They largely missed the judge's building, but
the colorless, odorless cloud of sarin gas drifted
silently into a nearby residential neighborhood.
Oh, no. It killed eight innocent people in their
homes and harmed over five. But here's the real
tragedy of justice in this specific case. The
police, they didn't focus on the cult. They focused
on an innocent local resident, a man named Yoshiyuki
Kuno. This is a massive, massive miscarriage
of justice. Kuno was actually one of the first
people to call for help. He found his wife unconscious.
But because he had some chemicals stored in his
house, he was an amateur photographer and mixed
his own developing agents. The police just fixated
on him. They blamed the victim. Completely. They
leaked his name. That is just heartbreaking.
And this incredible tunnel vision by the police
allowed the cult to remain free and continue
their deadly plans for another nine months. Which
brings us to March 1990. The clock is now ticking.
The police are finally, finally getting ready
to move on to Sarium. They've found soil samples
from Apsomoto that have byproducts of sarin production,
and they've linked them to the cult's compound.
Right. It's March 1995. The police had finally
put the pieces together. They planned a massive
simultaneous raid on all of the cult's facilities
across Japan. The date was set for March 22nd.
But at Sarium had insiders. They knew the raid
was coming. They did. They had members inside
the Japanese Self -Defense Forces, and there
are allegations they had sources inside the police
as well. Asahara got tipped off. He knew they
were coming for him. So the leader knows the
police are about to kick his door, and what does
he do? He orders a diversion, a massive, shocking
diversion. The logic was, if we cause an unprecedented
catastrophe in the heart of Tokyo, the police
will be so overwhelmed, so busy dealing with
that, they won't have the resources to raid us.
It's desperate, twisted logic. It's the logic
of a cornered animal with weapons of mass destruction.
And so, on the morning of March 20th, 1995, during
the peak of morning rush hour. Right when the
system is at its most crowded. The most crowded.
Asino members boarded five different trains on
three of Tokyo's busiest subway lines. The Chiyoda,
Maruchi, and Hibiya lines. And these lines were
not chosen randomly. They all converge at Kasumigaseki
Station. Which is the station for the Japanese
government. Exactly. The National Police Headquarters,
the Diet Building, which is their parliament,
all the major government ministries. It was a
direct targeted strike at the heart of the Japanese
state. And the method they used. It wasn't some
high -tech missile. It was disturbingly simple.
Primitive but brutally effective. Each of the
five perpetrators carried plastic bags, like
something you'd get from a convenience store,
filled with liquid sarin. The bags were wrapped
in newspaper to conceal them. And then what?
As their train approached the targeted station,
they would simply drop the packets on the floor
of the train car and puncture them with the sharpened
tip of an umbrella. And then just get off the
train. And then get off the train at the next
stop and walk away while the liquid leaked out
onto the floor. And it started to vaporize. Instantly.
Sarin is extremely volatile. It turned into a
deadly gas that filled the confined space of
the subway cars and the station platform. The
impact must have been immediate and just horrific.
It was. In the end, 13 people were killed. 54
were seriously injured, many with permanent brain
damage. But the number of people affected is
just staggering. Some estimates say up to 6 ,000
people sought medical attention for symptoms
of sarin exposure. You just imagine commuters
coming out of the stations coughing. Their pupils
constricted to tiny pinpoints, which is a hallmark
of nerve agent poisoning. People were collapsing
on the platforms, convulsing. It was a war zone
in downtown Tokyo on a Monday morning. And the
crazy thing is the diversion. Yeah. It failed.
Completely backfired. If anything, it galvanized
the police response. The police immediately realized
this was a coordinated, sophisticated attack.
And two days later, on March 22nd, they went
ahead with their plan and launched massive raids
on the cult's main headquarters in Kamikushiki,
near the base of Manfuji. And when they got there,
what they found was like something out of a James
Bond movie. A villain's lair. It truly was. They
found the chemical weapons labs, a huge multi
-story building they called Station 7, which
was a state -of -the -art chemical plant disguised
as a religious shrine. They found explosives.
They found the Russian military helicopter. They
found a safe containing millions of U .S. dollars
in cash and solid gold bars. And they found cells.
For prisoners. Yes, small, crude cells where
they were holding members and defectors against
their will. They also found production facilities
for LSD and methamphetamine. Meth and LSD. Why?
It seems they used the drugs for two main purposes.
Revenue, by selling meth to the Yakuza, the Japanese
mafia, and for initiation rituals. They would
give followers massive doses of LSD to induce
spiritual experiences and break down their psychological
resistance. It was a factory for crime, drugs,
and terror. But the panic in Tokyo, it didn't
stop with the subway attack. The weeks following
that must have been absolutely terrifying for
people living there. It was a city under siege.
Just 10 days after the subway attack, the chief
of the National Police Agency, Takaji Kunimatsu,
was shot four times by an assassin outside his
home. They shot the police chief. I mean, talk
about brazen. It was a message. It showed they
still had reach and they weren't afraid. He survived,
miraculously, but it sent a shockwave through
the country. And then, in April, there was that...
Bizarre murder on live TV. Hideo Murai. He was
Asoad's science and technology minister. Basically,
the astrophysicist who was in charge of the entire
weapons program. Right. He was surrounded by
a massive crowd of reporters outside their Tokyo
headquarters. And a man just pushed through the
crowd and stabbed him to death right there on
live television. Who was the attacker? He was
a member of the Yakuza gang. But there has always
been endless speculation about whether he was
a lone wolf or if he was hired to silence Murai
before he could tell the police all of the cult's
secrets. Just chaos. And then the cyanide incident.
This one, to me, is maybe the scariest of all.
The one that keeps counterterrorism experts awake
at night. On May 5th, a cleaning lady found a
burning bag in a men's toilet in Shinjuku Station.
The busiest train station in the entire world.
In the world. Yeah. Inside the bag was a device
designed to mix sodium cyanide and sulfuric acid.
Which creates deadly hydrogen cyanide gas. Exactly.
The fire was meant to burn through a container,
allowing the chemicals to mix. But it was extinguished
before it could fully activate. And if it had
worked. The estimations were that if that gas
had been sucked into the station's massive ventilation
system, it could have killed as many as 10 ,000
people. 10 ,000. We came that close. That is...
That is horrifying. It just shows the sheer scale
of their ambition. They weren't trying to make
a statement anymore. They were actively trying
to cause mass casualties on a scale that's hard
to comprehend. So finally, the manhunt for the
leader closes in. On May 16th, they catch Asahara.
Where was he? This is another one of those cinematic
moments. Police had been raiding the cult's buildings
for weeks. On May 16th, they went back to a building
at the Kamikushiki compound called the Sixth
Station. They searched it top to bottom, couldn't
find him. But he was there. He was. One of the
investigators noticed something odd about the
dimensions of a small room. They tapped on a
wall and realized it was hollow. They broke it
down and they found a tiny, secret, sealed compartment
between the first and second floors. He was inside
the wall. He was hiding inside the wall. Curled
up in a sleeping bag with a stash of cash, they
pulled him out, disheveled in silent, and placed
him under arrest. And even on that exact day,
the cult tried one last act of violence. They
did. A parcel bomb was mailed to the office of
the governor of Tokyo. It didn't kill him, but
it blew off all the fingers of his secretary's
left hand when she opened it. A final, spiteful
act. Let's talk about the justice process now.
Because for the victims and their families, this
wasn't quick. Not at all. Asahara was charged
with 23 counts of murder and a host of other
crimes, but the trial was an absolute marathon.
It dragged on for years. What was his defense
strategy? His strategy was mostly silence. He
would mumble incoherently. Sometimes he'd speak
in broken, nonsensical English. He largely refused
to communicate with his own lawyers or his family.
So he didn't get on the stand and preach his
doctrine. He didn't try to explain the why to
the world. No, he just completely checked out.
The defense team tried to argue that he was mentally
unfit for trial that he was too ill but the courts
repeatedly ruled that he was competent and was
likely malingering. He was faking it. That was
the court's conclusion. He was finally sentenced
to death in 2004, but then the appeals process
took another 14 years. So the actual executions
didn't happen until very recently. Not until
2018. It took more than two decades for the legal
process to finally conclude for everyone. On
July 6, 2018, Shoko Asahara and six of his senior
followers, many of the scientists and doctors,
were hanged. And there were more. A few weeks
later, on July 26, the remaining six death...
That brings a sort of legal closure, I suppose.
But there was a really weird issue with what
to do with his remains, right? There was. The
Japanese authorities were terrified that his
ashes would become a holy relic, an object of
worship for his remaining followers that could
inspire a new generation. So they didn't want
to give them to the cult. Exactly. There was
a long legal battle over who would get them.
His wife and some of his children, who were still
involved with the successor groups, wanted them.
But eventually, the ashes were awarded to his
youngest daughter, who had publicly broken with
the cult and renounced her father. Successor
groups. Yeah. That's the segue we need to make.
Because I Am Shinrikyo did not just disappear
when Asahara was arrested. They rebranded. They
did. In late 1995, they were stripped of their
official religious status by the government,
and they were forced into bankruptcy in 1996.
But you can't really outlaw a belief system in
a democracy. So in 2000, the group regrouped
and renamed itself. They became Aleph. Aleph,
like the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Exactly. And they went on a PR campaign. They
tried to clean up their image. They issued a
public apology to the victims of the Sarin attack.
They set up a compensation fund. They officially
removed the controversial Vajrayana texts that
justified the violence, the whole POA doctrine.
But the authorities weren't really buying this
change of heart. Not at all. The Public Security
Intelligence Agency in Japan has kept them under
strict, constant surveillance ever since. They
are still watching them very, very closely today.
And then there was a split within that group.
Yes. In 2007, a man named Fumihiro Joyu broke
away from LF. Now, Joyu was the charismatic,
English -speaking public spokesman for the group
back in the 90s. He was the young, handsome face
you saw on TV defending the cult. I remember
seeing clips of him. He broke away to form his
own group called Hikari No Wa. Which we... The
Circle of Light. And what's their vibe? Are they
different? They claim to be. They say they're
purely spiritual now, trying to unite science
and religion. They claim they don't worship Asahara
anymore and have completely moved past the old
Ilarum. But the Japanese courts have been very
skeptical. So they're under surveillance, too.
Yes. For a brief period, a lower court canceled
their surveillance. But in 2019, the Tokyo High
Court reinstated it, basically ruling that they
found no major fundamental changes between Hikari
no wa and LF. And this isn't just a Japanese
problem. They had a huge following in Russia,
of all places. Massive. At their peak, they might
have had more followers in Russia than they did
in Japan. In the chaos and spiritual vacuum of
the post -Soviet 90s, Olym came in, they bought
Radio Time in Moscow, they held huge rallies,
they had a massive orchestra there. And they
had still an issue. As late as 2016, Russia was
officially banning Olym as a terrorist organization
and raiding Olym's cells in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The same year, Montenegro expelled a group of
nearly 60 foreigners who were associated with
the group and holding a conference there. It
has a global footprint. And it is not ancient
history. This is the part that really struck
me in the research. We're talking about something
that happened on New Year's Day 2019. A deeply
disturbing incident. A man named Kazuhiro Kusakabe
rented a small car, drove it to Tokyo, and plowed
it into crowds on Takashita Street in the Harajuku
district. Takashita Street, that's the famous
fashion street. Always packed with teenagers
and tourists, especially on New Year's. Exactly.
He deliberately drove down the pedestrian -only
street and plowed into people. Nine people were
injured. One, seriously. And what was his motive?
When the police caught him, he claimed it was
an act of retaliation for the execution of the
Opoem cult members. Wow. So the ideology, the
martyrdom, is still potent enough to motivate
violence today. It appears so. And recruitment
continues. There are constant reports that Aleph
still uses Essa Hara's photos in secret initiation
rituals. They recruit online, through social
media, or via yoga circles and meditation groups.
And they don't tell you who they are at first.
They often hide the name of the group until the
person is already deeply involved and psychologically
hooked. You think you're joining a mindfulness
group, and six months later you realize you're
in the successor to it. doomsday cult. And there
are reports of a new generation of admirers.
Yes, young people in Japan who are deeply dissatisfied
with modern society, who feel alienated, and
who look at Elom's rebellion against the system
and find something appealing in it. They romanticize
the counterculture aspect while conveniently
ignoring the mass murder. That is heavy. So let's
try to synthesize all of this. What is the big
overarching takeaway here from the story of Aum
Shinrikyo? I think for me, the most terrifying
lesson is that intelligence does not immunize
you against indoctrination. It just doesn't.
These were brilliant people. These were scientists,
doctors, the top of their fields. But they were
looking for meaning, for purpose. And they found
a narrative that made them feel special. It made
them feel elite. And that narrative was so powerful
that it completely twisted their morality. It
turned saving the world into we have to destroy
the world to save it. Precisely. That doctrine
of POA shows how easily spiritual goals can be
inverted to justify any atrocity. And then there's
the what if factor, which is the part that keeps
security experts up at night. Right. What if
the anthrax attack had worked? What if they had
used a pathogenic strain? What if the cyanide
device in Shinjuku Station had fully deployed?
We are talking about potential casualties not
in the dozens, but in the tens of thousands.
It was that close. It's a stark reminder of how
fragile public safety really is when you have
a small group of... determined, well -funded
people with technical expertise. And the most
important thing to remember is that the group
didn't vanish when they hang the leaders. The
ideology survives the man. With Aleph and Hikari
Nowa still active and still recruiting, this
story is not over. Okay, so here's a final provocative
thought for all of you to maybe mull over. We
live in an age of absolute information overload.
We're all being pulled in a million different
directions. We're all looking for shortcuts to...
The truth. And a lot of us want to feel like
we're part of the elite few who really get it,
who understand what's really going on. You know,
the ones who aren't sheep. A very common feeling
today. So in that environment, are we any more
immune to this kind of manipulation today than
those scientists were back in the 1980s? Or does
the Internet just make it easier than ever to
find your own personal Shoko Asahara who tells
you you're special and everyone else is wrong?
That is the question we absolutely have to ask
ourselves. If you want to dive deeper into the
specific details of all this, the chemical tests,
the court cases, the timeline, we really encourage
you to check out the source material we mentioned.
It is a deep, dark rabbit hole worth going down.
But maybe keep the lights on while you do. I'd
agree with that. Stay curious and stay safe.
We'll catch you in the next deep dive.