Aum Shinrikyo And The Events - 1145 Words

AUM SHINRIKYO AND THE EVENTS LEADING TO THE 1995 TOKYO SUBWAY SARIN ATTACKS SSG JENNIFER A. BALLARD CBRN SLC CLASS 03-13 SGL: SFC MACRI Abstract This paper will explore research results done through the internet and through published books on the background of the cult group Aum Shinrikyo, now known as the group Aleph, and several other Sarin gas attacks, to include the terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway on 20 March 1995. There is a lot of speculation and questions surrounding this cult group, which will be discussed later, who started out as a peaceful yoga group by the founder and his wife, turn into a radical doomsday cult religion capable of not one but several chemical terrorists acts towards their own countrymen. According†¦show more content†¦The articles focus on the beginnings of the group as a peaceful yoga group and lead up to the most recent events with the chemical attacks of the Tokyo subway systems. Shoko Asahara, who was born Chizuo Matsumoto, during his stay in India in 1986, while he was on various religious retreats in the Himalayan Mountains, claimed to have found enlightenment and upon his re turn to Japan founded the group Aum Shinrikyo in 1987. The group started out with a small following from the yoga studio, Aum Shinsen-no kai, he and his wife, Kazuko, owned and operated. Eventually word starting spreading about his so-called â€Å"teachings of the supreme truth† (World Religions and Spirituality Project VCU, Jackie Fowler, 2001). Asahara claimed that he had the power to read minds and because of his enlightenment, claimed to have visions or prophesies, as he would call them, about future events. Asahara started preaching sermons about how his â€Å"visions† showed him that the world would end by the turn of the 21st century and that the only survivors would be Aum Shinrikyo members themselves. The group was so obsessed with Armageddon that it went so far as to try to make it happen themselves. In March 1993, Asahara gave orders to start production of Sarin gas