JAPAN: Asahara’s Army of Aum Sect Followers Keep the Faith

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Oct 15 1995 (IPS) - Every day they can be seen at Tokyo train stations — young people, adorned in pink and blue elephant-shaped headwear — handing out pamphlets proclaiming the virtues of the faith of their arrested cult leader Shoko Asahara.

The pamphlets also provide directions to a chain of Satian shops — stores that sell a wide array of goods about the Aum Sect leader now awaiting trial on charges related to the murder of more than ten people in a deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system on March 20.

“We will never give-up our faith in our master. He has shown us the truth,” says one loyal follower who runs one of the shops. She refused to give her name.

Forty-year-old Asahara, a partially-blind, long-haired yoga expert, claims to be the reincarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu elephant-God — thus explains the headwear of the faith Aum sect agents. Asahara himself paraded the headwear during his unsuccessful campaign in the 1990 local elections.

What is not as simple to explain is how the Aum sect has not only maintained a faithful flock, but according to believers, has managed to increase its membership in the face of Asahara’s arrest and a continuing government campaign to undermine the cult to the point that the country’s religious laws may be changed.

Analysts put it down to two main factors — the lasting effect of years of mind manipulation by the cult leader, and the society’s disillusionment as a result of individual under- achievement in a country internationally respected for its outstanding economic successes.

“His system is a clever form of effective mind control,” explained Susumu Shimazono, expert on religious affairs at Tokyo University.

Ashara has taught his followers that to attain salvation they must be completely devoted to the faith — that can be done by among other things, donating material wealth to the sect and working for its expansion.

Religious scholars say the cult’s vast following can be broken down into two main groups — the strongly devoted ones who ‘donate’ all their possessions to Asahara and lead a communal life in the sect’s complex, and those who follow Asahara’s teachings but lead normal lives as members of mainstream society.