Chapter 134. Apocalypse Enacted: Aum Shinrikyo’s War on Japan and the Transits of the Order of the Solar Temple

Most millenarian movements wait for the end of the world. Two movements of the 1990s acted on it instead. Shoko Asahara’s Aum Shinrikyo built a counter-state, stood for parliament, made nerve agents and on 20 March 1995 released sarin on the Tokyo subway. The Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) of Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret claimed Templar and Rosicrucian descent. Between 1994 and 1997 it ended in murders and suicides that its own texts called “transits.” This chapter compares the library’s accounts of both groups with a precedent: the Rajneeshee salmonella attack of 1984. The sources come from three directions. Cult studies supply Willis, Ross and Goldwag. The weapons and toxicology literature supplies Budowle, Gupta, the Weapons of Mass Destruction encyclopedia and Lax. Romanian police writing supplies Tandin. Their numbers differ, and the differences are recorded.

Asahara and the making of “Supreme Truth”

Willis begins with poverty: “Asahara was born into a very poor family. He was partially blind, and as a child he attended a boarding school that worked with students whose sight was impaired. While there, he gained a reputation as a bully who dominated other students and was involved in a series of scams.” Afterwards he ran “an acupuncture salon that specialized in dubious cures,” and “by 1986 he was traveling throughout the Himalayas, searching for enlightenment” [Willis, American Cults, #63203, Introduction]. Hubbard gives the civil identity: “born Chizuo Matsumoto in 1955,” he “founded the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo in 1987” [Hubbard, Poison, #64244, box “Shoko Asahara”]. A case study by Kaufmann and Keim in Budowle’s Microbial Forensics adds more detail. Asahara had infantile glaucoma. He “purportedly felt abandoned by his family,” which may explain the later Aum rule that members cut off their parents. His “stated ambitions included becoming the leader of a robot kingdom or the Prime Minister of Japan.” He was arrested for selling a tangerine-peel “miracle drug,” joined Agon Shu in 1981, and founded the yoga club Aum Shinsen in 1984. He renamed it Aum Shinrikyo after visiting India in 1986-87, and it was recognised as a religion in 1989 [Budowle (ed.), Microbial Forensics, #29475, ch. 1].

Willis treats the doctrine in layers. Asahara combined “mystical Buddhism and various forms of Hinduism” with “a dollop of regimented and vigorous yoga.” Willis argues, however, that “only after he discovered Christianity and its doctrines concerning Armageddon … his enterprise began to form into what can only be called a cult.” It then sold “electrode caps and astral teleporters” and “Magic DNA” [Willis, #63203, Introduction]. Ross adds Nostradamus. He reports that in 1992 Asahara declared himself “Christ” and “Lamb of God.” He also says Asahara warned of plots by “Jews, Freemasons, and rival Japanese religions” and named the United States as the “Beast” of Revelation [Ross, Cults Inside Out, #62875, ch. 1]. Goldwag calls Aum “a syncretic religion that mixed elements of Buddhism, Hinduism, and apocalyptic Christianity,” whose founder “claimed to be the reincarnation of the god Shiva” [Goldwag, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies, #73961, “Aum Shinrikyo”].

The shadow state: elections, ministries, weapons

Kaufmann and Keim describe “a complex organizational structure consisting of 22 ministries.” They conclude: “In effect, the Aum Shinrikyo assumed the form of a shadow government, which could supplant the existent Japanese government if Asahara’s ambitions were fulfilled.” In 1990, with “membership in the tens of thousands” and “300 million to a billion dollars,” Aum fielded “25 candidates for the national elections.” None succeeded, and Asahara “believed that the Japanese government had cheated him.” After this defeat he “initiated development of chemical and biological weapons” to hasten the prophesied catastrophes [Budowle (ed.), #29475, ch. 1]. Lax independently describes structures “that mirrored the Japanese government” and an aim of “control of Japan and a place in world politics against the USA” [Lax, Toxin, #34188, “Deviant biology”]. The WMD encyclopedia concludes that “Aum Shinrikyo blended a ‘new religion’ veneer with a political core that was characteristic of traditional terrorism.” In its account the attacks were run by a small cadre “under the direct control of the central leadership,” and the group also sought uranium and Russian laser technology [Croddy & Wirtz (eds.), Weapons of Mass Destruction, #363309, Part I].

The biological programme failed. In the Kameido incident of July 1993, Aum sprayed an anthrax aerosol from its headquarters roof, intending “to trigger an inhalational anthrax epidemic and a subsequent world war.” Samples tested in 2000 matched the harmless Sterne vaccine strain [Budowle (ed.), #29475, ch. 1]. Lax adds that Aum sprayed botulinum toxin from trucks from 1990 onwards and sent a 1992 “African Salvation Tour” to Zaire, possibly to obtain Ebola. He cites Ian Reader’s view that the authorities hesitated for fear “of being accused of persecuting religious groups” [Lax, #34188].

From Sakamoto to Kasumigaseki

Ross writes that “in 1989 Shoko Asahara, Aum’s leader, had ordered the abduction and murder of an anti-Aum lawyer, his wife, and his infant son.” He adds that in June 1994 sarin in Matsumoto killed seven residents [Ross, #62875, ch. 1]. The reference shelf names the lawyer, Tsutsumi Sakamoto, and says he had threatened a lawsuit that could bankrupt the group [Wikipedia: Aum Shinrikyo]. Kaufmann and Keim describe Matsumoto as an attempt on judges in a land dispute that doubled as a field test, with “311 known casualties … including seven deaths” [Budowle (ed.), #29475, ch. 1].

The toxicology handbook gives this outline of the Tokyo attack: “The attack took place during the morning rush hour, about 8:00 am, on March 20, 1995 … to distract police from carrying out a raid on the cult’s headquarters. The terrorist target was government buildings in Kasumigaseki” [Gupta (ed.), Handbook of Toxicology of Chemical Warfare Agents, #27803, ch. 3]. Willis has five attackers boarding five trains that converged on Kasumigaseki [Willis, #63203, Introduction]. Hubbard gives the motive: “Asahara hoped to kill thousands of people and then implicate the United States military” [Hubbard, #64244]. The toll varies by source:

The encyclopedia notes that “some point to” Tokyo “as an example of the limits of WMD.” It also records that “immediately following the sarin nerve agent attack … cyanide binary devices were discovered in subway restrooms” [Croddy & Wirtz (eds.), #363309]. On treatment, the handbook reports that St Luke’s Hospital treated 640 victims with “about 700 ampules of PAM and 2,800 ampules of atropine” [Gupta (ed.), #27803, ch. 4]. Hubbard says the May 1995 raids found a Russian military helicopter, millions in cash and enough sarin precursor “to kill over four million people” [Hubbard, #64244].

Willis counts 189 members indicted and Asahara and 12 others sentenced to hang [Willis, #63203]. Ross criticises the scholars J. Gordon Melton and James Lewis, who flew to Japan at Aum’s expense and suggested the group was a victim of “religious persecution” [Ross, #62875, ch. 1]. The reference shelf records that the movement was renamed Aleph and split in 2007 with the creation of Hikari no Wa. Asahara and six followers were hanged on 6 July 2018 and six more on 26 July [Wikipedia: Aum Shinrikyo; Wikipedia: Hikari no Wa].

The Order of the Solar Temple

Tandin says the sect “was founded by Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret in 1984 in the Canadian locality of St. Anne de Beaupré, near Québec.” According to him, it was re-founded in Switzerland with Di Mambro, “a recidivist criminal.” He alleges that the leaders ran “arms trafficking, clandestine border-crossing for emigrants, drugs, prostitution” [Tandin, Secte criminale, #23557, “Secta ‘Templul Soarelui'”]. These are Tandin’s allegations, and his chapter contradicts itself on whether the leaders died or fled. Negru places the founding in Geneva. He says the group “took the form of a secret society based on the ideas of the British occult[ists]” and calls it, like Jonestown, “a suicidal massacre instrumented by a delirious mind” [Negru, A History of the Apocalypse, #62383, Part II].

Prothero and Callahan describe “a New Age version of a revival of the Knights Templar, with a belief that Jesus would return as a solar god-king.” In their account Di Mambro came from the Rosicrucian AMORC, and visions of Jacques de Molay were staged with projectors. Channelled “Polestar” messages told members to “root out their ‘terrestrial attraction’,” and the group’s testament invoked a “Blue Star (related to Sirius’ energy).” The authors read this as Marcionite dualism. They link it to Heaven’s Gate’s comet Hale-Bopp and to Dwight York’s claim to have arrived on Comet Bennett [Prothero & Callahan, UFOs, Chemtrails, and Aliens, #73710, ch. 9].

According to the reference shelf, the Dutoit family, including their infant, was killed at Morin-Heights, Québec, on 30 September 1994. On 2-3 October, 23 people died by gunshot at Cheiry and 25 by poison at Granges-sur-Salvan, including Di Mambro and Jouret, 53 dead in all. The sites were then fired by “an automated ignition system triggered by telephone” [Wikipedia: 1994 Solar Temple massacres]. Prothero and Callahan add 16 bodies “arranged in a star formation” in the Vercors (December 1995) and five deaths by fire at Saint-Casimir, Québec (March 1997) [Prothero & Callahan, #73710, ch. 9]. Tandin describes chalets with “a special electronic system” igniting fire “from six different points.” For the Vercors deaths, he writes that members “drank a cocktail with poison” and then soaked their clothes in petrol and set them alight. He lists among the dead two Paris policemen, one with his wife and two sons, and “Patrick Vuarnet (27), son of the 1960 Olympic ski champion Jean Vuarnet,” who died with his mother Edith [Tandin, #23557].

Comparison with the Rajneeshees

Lax recounts how Ma Anand Sheela and the nurse Ma Anand Puja first poisoned two hostile Wasco County commissioners. Then, “to swing the vote,” they spread Salmonella typhimurium on “10 salad bars in the Dalles. A total of 751 people became ill.” In Lax’s judgement Aum “made the Rajneeshees look almost amateurish” [Lax, #34188]. Ross calls Oregon “the first bioterrorism attack in modern American history” [Ross, #62875, ch. 1]. Willis treats it under “Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh: Coming to America” [Willis, #63203].

Key points

• Willis describes Asahara as poor, partially blind, a school bully and scammer who ran a dubious acupuncture salon; Hubbard gives his birth name and the 1987 founding; Kaufmann and Keim add his glaucoma, his fraud arrest and his stated wish to rule “a robot kingdom.” Willis dates the cult turn to his adoption of Christian Armageddon doctrine [Willis, #63203; Hubbard, #64244; Budowle (ed.), #29475].
• Kaufmann and Keim describe Aum as a “shadow government” of 22 ministries that turned to chemical and biological weapons after its 1990 electoral defeat [Budowle (ed.), #29475; Lax, #34188].
• Ross says Asahara ordered the Sakamoto family murders (1989), and Aum’s sarin attack on Matsumoto (1994) came before Tokyo [Ross, #62875; Budowle (ed.), #29475].
• Tokyo, 20 March 1995: five trains, aimed at Kasumigaseki, to divert a raid. Sources give 11 to 13 deaths, and Hubbard says Asahara intended to blame the US military [Gupta (ed.), #27803; Willis, #63203; Hubbard, #64244; Croddy & Wirtz (eds.), #363309].
• The WMD literature uses Aum to show the “limits of WMD”: its biological attempts failed, the Kameido anthrax being a harmless vaccine strain [Croddy & Wirtz (eds.), #363309; Budowle (ed.), #29475].
• The Solar Temple’s neo-Templar, Sirius-oriented “transits” killed 74 people in four episodes; the criminal-enterprise charges are Tandin’s [Prothero & Callahan, #73710; Wikipedia: 1994 Solar Temple massacres; Tandin, #23557].
• The Rajneeshee salmonella attack (751 ill) was the precedent for religious bioterror with electoral aims [Lax, #34188; Ross, #62875].