Aum Shinrikyo

Aum Shinrikyo (jap. オウム真理教), which split into Aleph and Hikari no Wa in 2007, is a Japanese doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. It gained international notoriety when it carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been responsible for another smaller sarin attack the previous year.

The group never confessed. Those who carried out attacks did so secretly, without being known to ordinary believers. Asahara broadcast his singing, insisting on his innocence through a radio broadcast on a signal they purchased in Russia and directed toward Japan.

Aum Shinrikyo has been formally designated a terrorist organization by several countries, including Canada,Kazakhstan, and the United States. Japan's Public Security Examination Commission considers Aleph and Hikari no Wa to be branches of a "dangerous religion" and announced in January 2015 that they would remain under surveillance for three more years.

Doctrine

Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph is a syncretic belief system that drew upon Asahara's idiosyncratic interpretations of elements of early Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism along with Hinduism, taking Shiva as main image of worship and incorporating millennialist ideas from the Christian Book of Revelation, Yoga and the writings of Nostradamus. Its founder, Chizuo Matsumoto, claimed that he sought to restore "original Buddhism". In 1992 Matsumoto, who changed his name to Shoko 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 deeds. While many discount Aum Shinrikyo's Buddhist characteristics and affiliation to Buddhism, scholars often refer to it as an offshoot of Japanese Buddhism, and this was how the movement generally defined and saw itself.