Aum and Aleph

Aum was Aleph. Aum was a religious organization in Japan in the mid 1990s that carried out acts of terrorism to protect their religious sect from persecution.

Asahara Shoko, an insane sociopath, established this organization in the 1980s as a yoga dojo.  He claimed he had freed his soul from his body, etc.etc., and used that "holiness" to increase membership in his crazy dojo.  He even sent out advertisements with pictures of himself levitating.

I have no idea how this was convincing.

Before becoming a terrorist group leader, Asahara had met and talked to the Dalai Lama, who encouraged Asahara to spread his dojo throughout Japan in the name of Buddhism.  I don't know how a no-name dojo owner could have had the chance to talk to such a great man.  As he proves a few years later, Asahara had a especially powerful ability to control people in his own way.  So I'm convinced he talked some people into letting him meet the Dalai Lama.

Anyway, Aum goes off the path and start killing people.  First was a guy who wanted to leave the group.  Then another who knew about the first murder.  And then the entire family of a lawyer who was going to legally persecute Aum for its dangerious beliefs was mudered.

The biggest incident occured in 1995 when a poisonous chemical called sarin was released in five different subway trains.  The point was to direct police investigations on the previous muders away from Aum.  But it backfired and Aum was the first (but correctly) to be accused for the Sarin Incident.

The whole time I was watching the TV special on Aum, I was wondering, "How the hell did they make sarin?"  It was a chemical warhead made by Nazi Germay, and later made in secrecy by the American army.  It was banned way back in the 1970s, so how could anything secret and banned get out into some tiny, insignificant yoga dojo in Japan?  I just didn't get it.

I guess "fascinated" is a bad word to use when you're talking about a terrorist psychopath, but I'm "fascinated" by the way Asahara controlled people's minds.  He tricked a promising doctor into developing and spreading sarin.  And thousands of everyday people into joining his dojo.  And possibly even the Dalai Lama, who he got to meet in the 1980s.  I know some people who can control others' minds (literally, not in some insignificant way), but not to this extent.  How did his mind work?  Could he control others because of  his arrogance?  Or his words?  Or is mind-control something that just occurs between people who have great differences in personality??????

It's really scary to know that Aum still exists as Aleph to this day.  I admit to being more socially liberal than the average person, but I think there should be some point when the government steps in and says, "Cut this crap out."