On March 20th 1995, Japanese civilians poured out of a Tokyo subway station, coughing, vomiting, and gasping for breath. Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult had leaked Sarin gas into five trains. Under the leadership of Shoko Asahara, this religio-political movement actually began by promising its members an opportunity to find spiritual illumination based on assorted teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, and some aspects of Christianity. In due time, Aum progressed to become a terrorist organization that threatened the very existence of not only civilians, but also its own members, claiming to protect them from the end of the world. The growth of this deadly cult can be attributed to Japan's liberal democratic structure, a captivating leader in Asahara, and the country's rigid social setup that represses the individual who deviates from societal norms. Asahara abused these factors by merging terrorism and psychology to gain popularity as a spiritual leader, when in fact, he was just a shrewd businessman. Because the Japanese government was in a freedom versus order dilemma, it was unable to act against Aum Shinrikyo in a timely fashion, thus making the attack on March 20th inevitable.
Born in 1955, Shoko Asahara, then known as Chizuo Matsumoto, founded Aum Shinrikyo, a movement that focused on the creation of an ideal society through spirituality. The goal to create an ideal society emerged from the concern that the world was going to end due to a chemical or nuclear war. While originally desiring to prevent the end of the world, Aum's arguments were bastardized into branding it as inevitable. Its recruitment strategy sold membership as the key to survival of this cataclysm and propagated the construction of a social structure following it. (Robbins, 1997) Soon, Aum disapproved of the governmental structure in the country and its materialistic policies, hinting at the cult's right-wing tendencies.
