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Religious Terrorism is a form of terrorism in which the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate a government or the civilian population in furtherance of religious, political and social objectives. Religious extremists are individuals primarily involved in religious terrorist acts. One of the significant changes in the field of terrorism over the past 20 years has been the increase in the number of groups claiming religious beliefs as a source of legitimacy for their actions. Observers first paid attention to Islamic radical movements; however, it has become clear that some new religious movements as well could pose threats to public security. The sarin gas attack in Tokyo by Aum Shinrikyo on 20 March 1995 represented a turning point. The case of Aum Shinrikyo made a deep impression not only due to its magnitude and to a frightening scenario, but also because it made the attempt at a wide-scale use of biological and chemical weapons by a terrorist group a reality. Should violent actions committed by religious groups outside the mainline by considered as a specific sub-category of terrorism with distinctive patterns? To anybody familiar with the extreme variety of contemporary alternative religious groups, this obviously needs closer examination before making any statement about an alleged "global threat of religious cults ".

Definition
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a new religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. The word was first used in the early 17th century denoting homepage paid to a divinity and borrowed via the French "culte" from Latin "cultus" "worship", from the adjective "cultus" "inhabited, cultivated, worshipped", derived from the verb "colere" "care, cultivate".

Aum Shinrikyo
The shocking attack allegedly made by Aum Shinrikyo assailants on three Tokyo subway lines in March 1995 that killed twelve commuters and injured nearly 6,000 raises many questions but few answers. A religious organization basing many of its teachings on compassionate doctrines of Buddhism and Hinduism became a terrorist, criminal group that sought to wage war on Japan, fleeced millions of dollars from its followers, and kidnapped and murdered several dozen innocent citizens. Paradoxically, Aum Shinrikyo atttracted thousands of young Japanese seeking direction in life, as well as a group of brilliant young scientists and engineers who abandoned traditional career tracks to serve a charismatic and shamanistic leader, Asahara Shoko, who offered them nothing in return.

History
Aum Shinrikyo, officially organized in 1987, claims a membership of 10,000 in Japan and as many in Russia, and the United States. The sect's main headquarters are in Fujinomiya in Shizuoka Prefecture, and it has a Tokyo branch in Minato Ward and facilities in the village of Kakikuishiki, Yamanashi Prefecture, at the foot of Mount Fuji. In 1992 it expanded overseas, establishing branches in New York, Moscow, Bonn, and in Sri Lanka. Aum Shinrikyo shares some traits of the New Religions ("shinshukyo") that have emerged in Japan since the late 19th century, but the scope of its alleged criminal activities, its violent tactics, and its protogovernment structure tend to make it unique. Students of Japanese religion identify two surges of New Religions those that grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s ("shinshukyo"), many of which have prewar roots, and the New New Religions ("shinshinshukyo") that have emerged since the 1970s. Members of teh first wave showed a high incidence of the urban laboring classes including owners of small shops and businesses, "unorganized labor, poor and unfortunate farmers and fisherman, impoverished middle-aged people with poor prospects, and women." But as Japan grew more prosperous in the 1970s, membership in the newer religions began to include a large number of better educated and wealthier people. This shift in direction reflects a change from the older demands on religion relief from suffering and poverty to the more spiritual and mystical desires of financially secure people who seek new answers to questions on the meaning of life or who are in need of self-awareness in a control-oriented society. Shinrikyo fits the "shinshinshukyo" category.

Aum Shinrikyo as a Cult and Criminal Religion
Aum Shinrikyo represents most of the basic characteristics of a cult. It is a small voluntary group of strict believers who choose to live apart from the world. It defied Japanese society and withdrew from it. Initially, its refusal to compromise with mainstream societal values was passive but after 1990 it became an active oppositionist sect that quite recently opened a full attack on society. Aum Shinrikyo displays a considerable degree of totalism in dominating the lives of its membership. It supplements ideological domination with "limitation on the forms of participation with outsiders, refusal to take part in common societal activities, peculiar habits of eating and abstinence, and even peculiarities of dress." There is also the notion that sect members consist of an "elect" religious elite. Aum Shinrikyo followers, most of whom are in their 20s and 30s, donate all of their assets to the cult and move into Aum communes as adherents who completely cut off their association with the outside world for a communal life of little sleep and meager meals. In return, the cult promises spiritual exercises and lessons in extrasensory perception through a version of Tibetan-style mysticism as a path to true happiness and salvation. Whinston Davis writes that Aum Shinrikyo is unique in Japan in that it is above all a "criminal religion" whose leaders have committed numerous crimes against its members and many other innocent citizens. The fact that Aum Shinrikyo's leaders allegedly have abducted and even killed several followers and supposed enemies of the sect, manufactured and sold illegal narcotics, and killed or hurt numerous innocent citizens adds credibility to Davis's view of Aum Shinrikyo as a "criminal religion."

The Philosophy of Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo is similar to other shinshukyo in that it draws heavily on other religions, especially Hindu yoga and Tibetan Buddhism, for its teachings. Like other New Religions, "Om's gospel is eclectic and syncretistic." Aum Shinrikyo is quite selective in its borrowing of doctrines, but Hindu and Buddhist doctrines like "noninjury" and "compassion" are conspicuously absent. "Elements of Christian eschatology and messianism were present, as they are in other New Religions. The appearance of Om's 'messiah,'for example, was said to be Christ's Second Coming" Aum Shinrikyo bases its world view partly on a Japanese Buddhist view of cosmic history, according to which there have been three 1,000 year period of teh "perfect law" ("shoho"), golden age when man, following the words of the Buddha, lived in peace and harmony. The second was the period of "imitative law" ("zoho"), when there was still general compliance with the Buddha's teachings but a drifting away from strong faith. The last period, "degeneration of Buddha's law" ("mappo"), is a time when everyone has forgotten the Buddha's teachings, and the result is total misery.

The Basis of Asahara's Appeal
Aum Shinrikyo's leader, Asahara Shoko, has a unique ability to attract the attention of many of the thousands of Japanese he has encountered since the early 1980s, and this has enabled him to rise from the depths of obscurity to preside over a religious empire worth over a billion dollars. Born Matsumoto Chizuo in 1955 in Kumamoto Prefecture, Asahara had glaucoma at birth and was graduated from Kumamoto Prefectural School for the Blind. He moved to Tokyo in the late 1970s but he failed in an attempt to enter Tokyo University. He opened a small acupuncture business in Chiba Prefecture and in 1982 was arrested on charges of selling bogus medicine. Asahara took up yoga when he was 22, and formed Aum Shinsen no Ki, the predecessor to Aum Shinrikyo, in 1984 with 15 members. At that time he also adopted the name Asahara Shoko from Chinese characters that have stroke counts leading up to a lucky number. In 1986, in the Himalayas, Asahara completed what he called the final stage of "acquiring the supreme truth,"or emancipation, and changed the name of his group to Aum Shinrikyo the following year. Aum was designated as a religious corporation in 1989 by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The fact that many young, intelligent, and well-educated Japanese would be attracted to a person like Asahara is understandable from a reading of Aum's literature. One glossy booklet depicting Asahara's spiritual career chronicles his meetings with many of the leading figures of Tibetan Buddhism including Khamtul Rinpoche, Kalu Rimpoche and the Dalai Lama. Asahara's meeting with the Dalai Lama is described in detail, and claims that the latter not only instructed Asahara in some of the deeper aspects of Tibetan Buddhism but also admonished him to spread the true Buddhism to Japan.

The Fatal Attraction of Aum Shinrikyo
Yamaori Tetsuo, a scholar who has long been interested in Aum Shinrikyo, has divided Aum members into three tiers. "At the top are the leaders-Asahara's closest advisors and friends; next come the upper-level authorities who are extremely knowledgeable about science and highly skilled in the use of advanced technology and information equipment; below them are the true believers who have taken the tonsure and abandoned normal life to seek salvation in their master." Sociologists have also tried to speculate as to why a number of young intellectuals joined Aum in the early 1990s and then joined in a violent crime wave a few years later. One big attraction was the fact that while working in the "real"world, they were no more than small cogs in big wheels but in the secluded world of Aum one could become, for example, chief of the cult's science and technology agency and do whatever one wanted at an impressive facility with a great deal of money. Aum offered scientists and engineers, who had little chance to exhibit their creativity working for larger companies, the unheard of chance to experiment and do research in an open environment with highly modern equipment and no restrictions on how they worked.

The Appeal to Younger Japanese
Aum Shinrikyo rejected and tried to rise above Japan's social milieu. It became a haven for a few members of a younger generation of Japanese either unable or unwilling to adjust to their highly conformist social environment. It offered members a way out of the anomie of modern Japan. Many of the New Religions or New New Religions of Japan have thrived because of the perceived need of some Japanese for a degree of spirituality in their lives. Aum's members in Japan apparently share the misgivings that many young Japanese have with the current state of their society. They were born in the 1960s and 1970s and have only known a prospering Japan that was rapidly becoming one of the world's economic giants. Some of them were graduated from elite universities and could look forward to impressive careers in industry or government service. According to a young, well-educated man in his early thirties: "Aum has given me the true blueprint. The maps provided by other religions were vague and didn't take me to any goal." The religions fervor of most members-despite implication in crimes has not been dampened, nor have many followers been convinced to give up Aum teachings.