Aum Shinrikyo, renamed “Aleph” in 2000, is best known for orchestrating the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, which resulted in 13 deaths and thousands of injuries. The sect’s theology is an amalgam of Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu elements with millenarian overtones and the expectation of an impending apocalypse.
Chizuo Matsumoto was born in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, in 1955, with severe infant glaucoma which compromised his vision in both eyes. He attended a school for the blind and was a fairly popular student but also had a reputation as a bully. During his adolescence, Matsumoto harbored aspirations of becoming prime minister of Japan and establishing himself as the dictator of a kingdom dominated by robots.
After finishing school and failing to gain acceptance to the University of Tokyo, where he had hoped to study law, he opened an acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine practice in Tokyo, and got married in 1978. In 1981, he was convicted on charges of practicing medicine without a license. With his business venture shuttered, Matsumoto began a study of esoteric spirituality and yoga, and traveled to India, where he allegedly met the Dalai Lama. He claimed to have achieved a state of enlightenment during this journey.
Back in Japan in 1984, he founded a yoga and mediation center called Oumu Shinsen no Kai (“Aum Heavenly Sage Association”), which gained legal recognition as a religious organization under the name Aum Shinrikyo (“Supreme Truth”) in 1989. During this period, Matsumoto adopted the name Shoko Asahara, and grew long hair and a long beard to present an image of himself as a spiritual teacher.
Aum Shinrikyo attracted graduates from elite universities and professionals, drawing members from the upper echelons of Japanese society with promises of health solutions and life improvement techniques. Aum also recruited police officers and members of the military. The group offered an alluring lifestyle characterized by communal living, unique spiritual practices, and a sense of purpose. Aum’s public relations efforts included publishing comics and animated cartoons that integrated its religious doctrines with popular anime and manga themes. Aum also published several magazines that covered science fiction, conspiracy theories, and global events in addition to religious teachings.
While Aum Shinrikyo initially presented itself as a fairly benign new religious movement, though one with a focus on preparing for the imminent end of the world, Asahara soon began to teach his growing following that he was a Christ-like figure sent to save humanity from the comping apocalypse. He promised enlightenment and salvation through dedication to Aum’s ritual practices, which often involved asceticism and the use of hallucinogenic drugs.
Asahara’s delusions of grandeur, which dated back to his childhood, became more pronounced during this time. In 1989, Aum launched a political party called Truth that contested 25 parliamentary seats in February 1990. All of the candidates were soundly defeated, and Asahara himself received just 1,785 votes for the seat he sought, even though it was in a jurisdiction with more than that number of Aum members who were eligible to vote.
This failure led Asahara to make the group more insular. He predicted that a global nuclear war launched by the United States would soon devastate the planet, leaving only Aum devotees alive to restore order. To prepare for the coming conflict, the group began to acquire weapons and to produce chemical agents including sarin. When an attorney named Tsutsumi Sakamoto began legal action against Aum on behalf of families who believed the group was a cult, the lawyer, his wife, and their infant son disappeared. Some Aum members who sought to leave the group were retained against their will.
In July 1993, Aum members sprayed large quantities of liquid containing Bacillus anthracis spores from a tower on the roof of the group’s Tokyo headquarters in the hope of causing an anthrax epidemic. When this failed, the cult began secretly manufacturing the nerve agents sarin and later VX. Aum tested its sarin on sheep at a remote property in Western Australia, killing 29 sheep.
On June 27, 1994, Aum Shinrikyo launched a sarin gas attack in a residential area of Matsumoto to target several judges presiding over an active lawsuit against the group. The group’s initial plan had been to release sarin into the Matsumoto courthouse, but the facility was closed by the time the attackers arrived. They instead targeted a three-story apartment building where the city’s judges resided. Aum members used a converted refrigerator truck to release a cloud of sarin near the judges’ residence. This first attack resulted in eight deaths and more than 500 injuries. Law enforcement did not initially connect the event to Aum, but investigations into the group from both law enforcement and the media intensified.
In late December 1994 and early January 1995, Aum members assassinated two critics of the group by attacking them in the street and injecting them with VX nerve agent. In February, the group abducted and killed the brother of an escaped member who had become a public critic. Before his he had received threatening phone calls from the group and had left a note stating, “If I disappear, I was abducted by Aum Shinrikyo.”
Asahara learned of police plans to raid Aum facilities and ordered the Tokyo gas attacks in response. On March 20, 1995, five Aum members released sarin gas into multiple trains in the Tokyo subway system during rush hour, resulting in 13 deaths, thousands of injuries, and panic throughout the city. In the aftermath of the subway attack, Japanese authorities executed raids on Aum facilities, discovering the group’s weapons arsenal, chemical and biological weaponry laboratories, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter.
Asahara faced 27 counts of murder across 13 separate indictments. The prosecution contended that Asahara ordered the Tokyo attack to “overthrow the government and install himself in the position of Emperor of Japan.” Prosecutors also said that the attack had been planned to divert police attention from the group. Asahara claimed throughout his trials that he was innocent and that members of the sect had acted without his knowledge or direction.
During the lengthy investigations following the attacks, the remains of the Sakamoto family were discovered. They had been injected with potassium chloride and smothered, and once dead, their teeth were removed and their bodies placed in rural drums that were hidden in three separate rural areas far from each other.
Aum Shinrikyo rebranded as Aleph in 2000, publicly disavowing its violent past and Asahara. Aleph also created a compensation fund for victims of the gas attacks. The group has continued to face extreme public skepticism and disdain, and is officially classified as a dangerous organization by the Japanese government.
Asahara was ultimately found guilty on 13 of 17 remaining charges, including the murder of the Sakamotos. On February 27, 2004, Shoko Asahara and several other top Aum officials were sentenced to death. His attorneys appealed, citing his alleged mental unfitness, and psychiatric examinations were conducted. Asahara remained silent in court during most of the proceedings. Appeals stretched out for another 14 years.
On July 6, 2018, Asahara and six others were executed by hanging. In his last words, Asahara asked that his remains be given to his fourth daughter, who was not sympathetic to Aum and who stated her intention to dispose of Asahara’s ashes at sea. Other family members fought this claim, with some believing that they wanted to create a shrine to Asahara. In 2021, the Supreme Court of Japan ordered that Asahara’s remains be released to one of Ashara’s other daughters, a decision that was carried out in 2024.
Aleph continues to operate in Japan and is attempting to recruit new members. It is estimated to now have fewer than 1,000 members.
Key Sources:
Asahara, S. (1988). Supreme Initiation: An Empirical Spiritual Science for the Supreme Truth. Aum USA Company Limited.
Brackett, D. W. (1996). Holy Terror: Armageddon in Tokyo. Weatherhill, Incorporated.
Kaplan, D. E., & Marshall, A. (1996). The cult at the end of the world: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult, from the Subways of Tokyo to the Nuclear Arsenals of Russia. Crown.
Lifton, R. J. (2000). Destroying the world to save it: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. Macmillan.
Metraux, D. A. (1999). Aum Shinrikyo and Japanese youth.
Murakami, H. (2001). Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. Vintage.
Reader, I. (1996). A Poisonous cocktail?: Aum Shinrikyō’s Path to Violence. NIAS Press.
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 