Shoko Asahara

Shoko Asahara
Born	Chizuo Matsumoto (1955-03-02) March 2, 1955 Yatsushiro, Kumamoto, Japan
Occupation	Founder, Aum Shinrikyo
Spouse(s)	Tomoko
Children	12-15

Shoko Asahara (麻原 彰晃, Asahara Shōkō), born Chizuo Matsumoto (松本 智津夫, Matsumoto Chizuo) on March 2, 1955, is a founder of the Japanese new religious group Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and several other crimes, for which he was sentenced to death in 2004. In June 2012, his execution was postponed due to further arrests of Aum Shinrikyo members.

Early years

Shoko Asahara was born into a large, poor family of tatami mat makers in Japan's Kumamoto Prefecture. Afflicted at birth with infantile glaucoma, he went blind at a young age in his left eye and is also partially blind in his right eye. As a child, Asahara was enrolled in a school for the blind. Asahara graduated in 1977 and turned to the study of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, which are traditional careers for the blind in Japan. He later married in 1978. In 1981, Asahara was convicted of practicing pharmacy without a license and selling unregulated drugs, for which he was fined 200,000 yen.

Asahara's religious quest reportedly started at this time. Recently married, he was working to support his large and growing family. He dedicated his free time to the study of various religious concepts, starting with Chinese astrology and Taoism. Later, Asahara practiced western esotericism, yoga, meditation, esoteric Buddhism and esoteric Christianity.

Aum Shinrikyo

In 1987, Shoko Asahara officially changed his name and applied for government registration of the group Aum Shinrikyo. The authorities were initially reluctant to accord it the status of a religious organization but eventually granted legal recognition, after an appeal in 1989. After this, a monastic order was established and many of the lay followers decided to join. Shoko Asahara got his name value by appearing on TV and the covers of magazines. He gradually attained a growing following of believers and came to be invited to the public lecture of universities. Shoko Asahara has also written many religious books. The best known are Beyond Life and Death, Mahayana Sutra and Initiation. There also exists an anime that portrays Asahara and his cult in a protagonistic light.

The doctrine of Aum Shinrikyo is based on the Vajrayana scriptures, the Bible and other texts. In 1992 Asahara published a foundational book, and declared himself "Christ", Japan's only fully enlightened master and identified with the "Lamb of God". His purported mission was to take upon himself the sins of the world, and he claimed he could transfer to his followers spiritual power and ultimately take away their sins and bad works. He also saw dark conspiracies everywhere promulgated by Jews, Freemasons, the Dutch, the British Royal Family, and rival Japanese religions. He outlined a doomsday prophecy, which included a Third World War, and described a final conflict culminating in a nuclear "Armageddon", borrowing the term from the Book of Revelation 16:16.

Shoko Asahara often preached the need of his own Armageddon for "human relief". He at last declared "Put tantra Vajrayana into practice as the consistency to Mahamudra" and he led a series of religious terrorism using his secret organization which ordinary believers did not know. Shoko Asahara did not quite understand the meaning of Vajrayana and Mahamudra, since he targeted the unspecified large number of people as the mark. Some people, including lawyers and journalists, saw through the religious fanaticism of Aum Shinrikyo. They continued appealing for the dangerousness of Aum Shinrikyo, while jeopardizing their own lives, but hardly attracted attention.

Fortunately, there were no believers or supporters of Shoko Asahara in the Japanese government or in the business sector, but there were believers among the Japanese police force that had been secretly updating Aum Shinrikyo with details concerning the investigation. Not only there were the media which took part in the increase of Aum's believers, but also was the media which had cooperated with the terrorism of Aum Shinrikyo for a fault again. In addition, several well-known religious scholars and philosophers had praised Aum Shinrikyo as the authentic practical religion. (There were even the scholars who insisted that Tokyo subway sarin attack was not their crime.) As a result, many crimes perpetrated by the cult were not properly investigated.

Tokyo subway gas attack, and arrest

Main article: Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

On March 20, 1995, members of Aum attacked the Tokyo Subway System with the nerve gas sarin. Thirteen people died and thousands more suffered ill-effects. After finding sufficient evidence, authorities accused Aum Shinrikyo of complicity in the attack, as well as in a number of smaller-scale incidents. Dozens of disciples were arrested, Aum's facilities were raided, and the court issued an order for Shoko Asahara's arrest.

On May 16, 1995, the police corps investigated the headquarters facilities of Aum Shinrikyo all at once. Asahara was discovered in a very small, completely isolated room of a building belonging to the facilities. In recognition of the possibility of resistance by Aum military power, the First Airborne Brigade of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force were available and stationed nearby to support the police if the need arose.

As a result of the investigation, many small glass bottles in which short frizzy hair was enclosed were discovered in Asahara's private room, the bottle labels bearing the holy names, written in Asahara's hand, of his female followers. The purpose of this mysterious material evidence would become clear later on.

Both marriage and sexual relations between pupils were forbidden by Asahara, but Aum understood all doctrines of "tantra of the Secret Community" as the ontological model of real phenomenon world (not figurative topology in the macrocosm), and they thought that only the founder was permitted to have sexual relationship with many women for the integrity of initiation.

When the woman was a virgin, she was considered to be "dakini". Asahara did not have a private residence, therefore he had inappropriate relationships with them in the "official residence of headquarters facilities". Several dakini always existed like western nymphs. There was a dakini who took part in the sarin gas attack to a lawyer by instructions of Asahara.

Accusations, and trial

Shoko Asahara faced 27 murder counts in 13 separate indictments. The prosecution argued that Asahara "gave orders to attack the Tokyo Subway" in order to "overthrow the government and install himself in the position of Emperor of Japan". Several years later, the prosecution forwarded an additional theory that the attacks were ordered to "divert police attention" (from Aum). The prosecution also accused Asahara of masterminding the Matsumoto incident and the Sakamoto family murder. According to Asahara's defense team, a group of senior followers initiated the atrocities, keeping them a secret from Asahara. Following the events, disciples started to disseminate the teachings by way of direct coaching, something they would never do when Asahara was available for communication. A small group of those who failed to do so still formally exists.

During the trials, some of the disciples testified against Asahara, and he was found guilty on 13 of 17 charges, including the Sakamoto family murder, while four charges were dropped. On February 27, 2004, he was sentenced to death by hanging.

The trial was called the "trial of the century" by the Japanese media. Yoshihiro Yasuda, the most experienced attorney on Shoko Asahara's defence team, was arrested and charged with obstruction of the compulsory execution concerning a corporation in which he was an adviser. He therefore was unable to participate in his legal defence, though he was acquitted before the end of the trial. Human Rights Watch criticized Yasuda's isolation. Asahara was defended by court-appointed lawyers and asked not to be defended. During the trials, Asahara resigned from his position of Aum Shinrikyo representative to try to prevent the forced dissolution of the group by the state.

The legal team appealed the ruling on the grounds that Asahara was mentally unfit, and psychiatric examinations were undertaken. During the examination, conducted by a psychiatrist, Asahara never spoke. However, he communicated with the staff at his detention facility, which convinced the examiner that Asahara was maintaining his silence out of free will. Because his lawyers never submitted the statement of reason for appeal, the Tokyo High Court decided not to grant them leave to appeal on March 27, 2006. This decision was upheld by the Supreme Court of Japan on September 15, 2006. Two re-trial appeals were declined by the appellate court.

In June 2012, Asahara's execution was postponed due to further arrests of Aum Shinrikyo members.

Family

Shoko Asahara is married and has 12 children, the oldest of whom was born in 1978. However, the fourth daughter of Asahara insists that it is 15 children. In 2015, two of his daughters apologized to victims of the Sarin Gas attacks.

See also

• Aum Shinrikyo
• Capital punishment in Japan
• Doomsday cult
• List of people who have claimed to be Jesus

Further reading

• —highlights the main stages of Yogic and Buddhist practice, comparing Yoga-sutra system by Patanjali and the Eightfold Noble Path from Buddhist tradition.
• —focuses on the process of Kundalini-Yoga, one of the stages in Aum's practice.
• Berson, Tom. "Are We Ready for Chemical Warfare?" News World Communications 22 September. 1997
• Bonino, Stefano. Il Caso Aum Shinrikyo: Società, Religione e Terrorismo nel Giappone Contemporaneo, 2010, Edizioni Solfanelli, ISBN 978-88-89756-88-1. Preface by Erica Baffelli.
• Brackett, D W. Holy Terror: Armageddon in Tokyo. 1st ed. New York: Weatherhill, 1996.
• Head, Anthony. "Aum's Incredible Journey Towards Armageddon." Japan Quartery Oct.-Nov. 1996: 92-95.
• Kiyoyasu, Kitabatake. "Aum Shinrikyo: Society begets an aberration." Japan Quarterly Oct. 1995: 376-383.
• Lifton, Robert J. Destroying the World to Save It. 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.
• Murakami, Haruki. Underground : The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. New York: Vintage Books, 2001.

External links

• Aleph: the organization's official website, with an English section
• A Japan Times article about two documentary films on Aleph.
• [1] BBC link & photos
• IMDB: Documentary films A (1998) and A2 (2001) by Tatsuya Mori