Aum Shinrikyo Essay

The famous group known as Aum Shinrikyo was founded by Shoko Asahara, and he combined selected parts from Buddhism, Christianity, teachings of Nostradamus, meditation and yoga to create the religion of Aum Shinrikyo. The group was established in 1984 but did not officially become a religious organization prior to 1989. Aum Shinrikyo stems from Japan and from 1989 the group grew tremendously before then 1995 Tokyo attack. The group began as a nonviolent group but progressively it turned it’s attention elsewhere and stated that the apocalypse was unavoidable, but that anyone who became a member of Aum would be saved. Aum Shinrikyo ultimately gained international reputation when it carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995. By 1995 after the attack on the subways the Japanese government terminated Aum Shinrikyo as a religious organization. In 2007 the group eventually split into two different groups that are now called Aleph and Hikari no Wa. Aum Shinrikyo is considered to be a terrorist organization in several countries, including Canada, Kazakhstan and the United States.1 2

The doctrines of Aum Shinrikyo have changed all throughout its existence, and little is known of the doctrines used in the later years. In the beginning Asahara taught an inner-directed form of Indian-style kundalini yoga
She states that the collectivist thought and the structure of the hierarchy was the same. The followers of Aum Shinrikyo met the society as a group, they had their own society and they were the inhabitants of it, just like the people in a different society. People in a different society would follow the laws and regulations of that society, and the members of Aum Shinrikyo would follow the leadership of Asahara. Jenny Lee also states that people joined Aum Shinrikyo due to the lack of characteristics in the Japanese