Word: aum
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SENTENCED TO DEATH. SHOKO ASAHARA, 48, former leader of the religious sect that released sarin gas into the Tokyo subway in 1995; in Tokyo. The founder of Aum Shinrikyo, a cult that combined Buddhist and Hindu philosophies, was convicted of masterminding the attack that killed 12 and injured...
...height of Shoko Asahara's power as leader of the apocalyptic Aum Shinrikyo cult, followers paid exorbitant sums for the honor of drinking the guru's blood. Since 1995, when Aum carried out a poison-gas attack that killed 12 people in the Tokyo subway, the rest of Japan has been baying for his blood as well. Last Friday, after a nearly eight-year trial, a Tokyo judge finally sentenced Japan's most reviled man to hang for masterminding the subway attack and 15 other killings by the cult. With 11 of Asahara's former followers already sentenced to death...
...Aum?which has been renamed Aleph and has distanced itself from its former guru?issued a press release apologizing to the victims and their families. Despite its founder's woes, the cult has been slow to die. In 2000 it even appeared to be resurgent under a charismatic new leader, Fumihiro Joyu. Recently, however, with death sentences raining down on its former leaders, its ranks in Japan have dwindled to 1,650 (it also has an estimated 300 members in Russia). "The cult has lost its vitality," says Masaki Kito, a lawyer who has represented Aum's victims...
...Still, the danger posed by Japan's many religious cults has not vanished. "The conditions that created Aum? the straitjacketed education system and the lack of creative outlets in society?are the same as before," says Yoshio Arita, an expert on cults. "There's nothing to prevent other groups like Aum from appearing...
...pressure by escaping, spending most of the next 10 years in self-imposed exile in Greece, Italy and the U.S., reading, writing and teaching. He returned to Japan in 1995 after the Kobe earthquake, which destroyed his parent's home, and the sarin-gas attacks by doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo. "I thought 1995 was a turning point for our society," Murakami recalls. "I didn't know if it was good or bad, only that everything had changed. At the same time, it was a turning point for me. I made up my mind that I had to commit...