The world was shocked and frightened in early 1995 when a subway in Tokyo, Japan was inundated by a potent nerve gas. It was an act totally without precedent in history. 12 people were killed and about 5,500 were injured - some permanently - as a result of this act.
The Japanese government soon raided 25 branches of a previously obscure sect called Aum Shinrikyo, which translates as Aum Supreme Truth. The sect, which started as a yoga school, focuses on the apocalypse to come - perhaps (as was stated then) as soon as 1997. MasonicInfo Note: Another apocalypse theory down the drain! While members of the sect insisted that they merely practiced a form of Buddhism, it was in reality a cult revolving around a long-haired, charismatic mystic, Shoko Asahara, described as a magnetic misfit who preached that government efforts to obliterate his movement will coincide with the beginning of the end of the world.
Not too many years earlier, reported TIME Magazine, Asahara was simply a failed purveyor of health tonics. They said, " Bushy- bearded and usually pictured wearing satiny pajamas, Asahara, 40, admires Hitler, boasts that he can levitate and offers to bestow superhuman powers on his disciples. Yet a look at his life reveals a rather pathetic figure at war with the world because he could not find an easy place in it."
TIME further reported, "As his fortunes prospered, Asahara seems to have grown more reclusive and obsessed with danger. The religion, nominally Buddhist but really a hodgepodge of ascetic disciplines and New Age occultism, focused on supposed threats from the U.S., which he portrayed as a creature of Freemasons and Jews bent on destroying Japan. The conspiracy's weapons: sex and junk food. The guru's sermons predicted the end of the world sometime between 1997 and 2000, and began citing the specific peril of poison-gas attacks."
You can read more about the details of Mr. Asahara's life in the TIME article at this web site.
In June, 1998, Ikuo Hayashi, 51, ex-Aum Shinrikyo cultist was convicted of the sarin gas attack on Tokyo subways in 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment; by the Tokyo District Court. Although the former heart surgeon could have faced the death penalty, his repeated apologies to victims' families and cooperation with investigators earned him the court's leniency for the terrorist assault that killed 12 people.
TIME Magazine reports that despite calls to disband, the doomsday sect is growing again, and the Japanese press estimates it has some 2,000 adherents who follow charismatic leader Shoko Asahara.
On July 6, 1998, Japanese prosecutors formally demanded the first death sentence for a member of the cult at the trial of Kazuaki Okazaki, 37, charged with the 1989 murders of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife and one-year-old baby son. The prosecution said Sakamoto was murdered for investigating the activities of the Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) sect ahead of the the subway attack.
It was the first death sentence sought for members of the group and Okazaki was among six people, including sect leader Shoko Asahara, 43, charged with murdering the Sakamotos.
The murdered lawyer was working for parents trying to rescue their children from the cult at the time he and his family were killed. Prosecution witnesses at the Tokyo District Court trial said Aum Shinrikyo cult members crept into Sakomoto's home as his family slept, injected them with lethal doses of potassium chloride and strangled them.
In June, 2002, one of Asahara's top henchmen, Tomomitsu Niimi, became the eighth Aum member to be sentenced to death in connection with the chemical attack. An interesting Time-Asia Edition article which talks about current cults in Japan and mentions the "Supreme Truth" can be found here. In October, 2002, yet another member of the cult was sentenced to death. Seiichi Endo, 42, was convicted of playing a leading role in the group's study and production of various gasses and poisons.
On September 15, 2006, Reuters News Agency reported that Japan's Supreme Court had rejected an appeal that the case against Shoko Asahara be suspended based on his mental incompetence. Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was sentenced to death by a Tokyo court in February 2004 for murder and attempted murder. Japan does not announce dates of executions, which are by hanging, in advance of them being carried out. Asahara was also found guilty of other charges including a series of crimes that killed 15 people.
Aum Shinri Kyo, which admitted involvement in the subway gassing, later changed its name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its leaders insist the cult is now benign, but Japanese authorities still keep its membership of more than 1,000 under surveillance.
It is terrifying what irrational and unfounded fear of Freemasonry will do to a person. This is but one example....
