Sunday, September 20, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
JAPAN-RELIGION: Asahara’s Army of Aum Followers Keep the Faith
Suvendrini Kakuchi
- 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 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.
Communal living, practised by around 2,000 members, meant meagre meals, four hours of sleep a day, and religious rituals that included 14 hours of chanting.
Men and women who had cut off all ties with their families and abandoned their careers in pursuit of spiritual fulfilment stayed on separate floors of the cult compound in a village near Mt Fuji. Children lived in dormitories apart from their parents.
Members who did not stay within the cult’s compound followed a regimented life as well, listening to Asahara’s tapes for 1,000 hours a month, spending long periods meditating in small, dark rooms of the sect’s buildings, and recruiting new members.
Arrested members have confessed, according to the authorities, to a number of criminal activities such as injecting fellow believers with mind-altering drugs and the production of illegal hallucitants such as LSD, under the orders of Asahara.
The woman in the Satian shop says she became a follower of the Aum (Supreme Truth) sect six years ago — two years after it was founded. She and three other women after a day’s work in the store, used the evenings to meditate and “purify” their minds.
Before Asahara’s arrest, Aum claimed to have 10,000 followers. Today, says the young woman, “We have many new members, proof that despite the smear campaigns, Aum will be a long lived religion in Japan.”
The shops sell books, comics, tape recordings of Ashara’s teachings, videos and Indian satin tunics that followers wear. Each tunic is on sale for 15,000 yen (150 dollars).
She claims the shops do brisk business because people who want information about Aum cannot otherwise obtain reading material that was commonly available before the fatal subway incident.
“I do not believe Asahara is guilty of the crimes he has been arrested for,” volunteered one earnest looking young man who was seated in the lotus yoga position and listening carefully to a tape. “I came here to learn more about his teachings…about life and death, issues that Japanese society does not address.”
Such interest, and shown by the young, says Shimazono, underlines the uphill task the authorities face in trying to uproot Aum from Japanese society.
In a desperate attempt to suppress AUM, the government is now preparing to amend the nation’s 1951 Religious Corporation Law, that prohibits the state from controlling religious activities.
But the Japanese public, despite its disgust at the subway incident and the information that has been leaked to the Press surrounding investigations into the cult’s activities, are also wary of the government.
Amending the religious laws smacks of pre-war Japan when ambitious military generals made the Emperor a God for whom Japanese people were supposed to give their lives, explains political commentator Hajime Nakamura.
Nakamura suggests the government should tread carefully, possibly making only a slight amendment to the legislation which would allow for religious teachings in schools — a practice that is banned under the current law. In that way, it might combat the rise of cult fanaticism without alarming the public.
Japan, after its defeat in World War ll, turned its back on some of its traditions concentrating instead on building a strong nation — economically. “As a result we have a new generation that is lost, that has no values, no confidence,” he explained.
But proponents of major religious law reform, argue that strong measures must be taken — and now.
Religious groups are already working hand-in-glove with political organisations, says lawyer Hishi Yamaguchi, giving as an example, last week’s resignation of Japan’s Justice Minister Tomoharu Tazawa, amid allegations of backdoor dealing with a Buddhist organisation opposed to proposed changes in the law.
Under the current law, organisations in the name of religion, dupe a large number of Japanese who are seeking spiritual fulfilment, he charges, adding: “I strongly recommend stricter regulations even if the change comes under the state.”
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JAPAN-RELIGION: Asahara’s Army of Aum Followers Keep the Faith
Suvendrini Kakuchi
- 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.
(more…)
Print
|
JAPAN-RELIGION: Asahara’s Army of Aum Followers Keep the Faith
Suvendrini Kakuchi
- 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.
(more…)
Print
|
