The Tokyo subway attack in March 1995 was just one of a series of criminal activities including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and the illegal manufacture of arms and drugs carried out by the Japanese new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo, under the guidance of its leader Asahara Shoko. Reader looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks, why did a religious movement ostensibly focussed on yoga, meditation, asceticism and the pursuit of enlightenment become involved in violent activities?
Reader discusses Aum's spiritual roots, placing it in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns. Asahara's teaching are examined from his earliest public pronouncements through to his sermons at the time of the attack, and statements he has made in court. In analysing how Aum not only manufactured nerve gases but constructed its own internal doctrinal justifications for using them Reader focuses on the formation of what made all this possible: Aum's internal thought-world, and on how this was developed.
Reader argues that despite the horrors of this particular case, Aum should not be seen as unique, nor as solely a political or criminal terror group. Rather it can best be analysed within the context of religious violence, as an extreme example of a religious movement that has created friction with the wider world that escalated into violence.
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'One of the strengths of this study is the careful analysis of primary sources Reader has provided us with an illuminating account of how and why one Japanese religion turned violent. This is not just a book for students of Japanese religion, however. The comparisons and parallels notet between Aum and other new religious movements that have been closely associated with violent eruptions will make this study of interest to many scholars and concerned individuals outside of the field of Japanese studies.' - Mark R. Mullins, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies --This text refers to the paperback edition.
Review
'One of the strengths of this study is the careful analysis of primary sources Reader has provided us with an illuminating account of how and why one Japanese religion turned violent. This is not just a book for students of Japanese religion, however. The comparisons and parallels notet between Aum and other new religious movements that have been closely associated with violent eruptions will make this study of interest to many scholars and concerned individuals outside of the field of Japanese studies.' - Mark R. Mullins, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Product details
ASIN : B00FVTSH2S
Publisher : Routledge; 1st edition (11 October 2013)
Language : English
File size : 10024 KB
Print length : 320 pages
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S. Tanaka
5.0 out of 5 stars vivid, thorough, chilling
Reviewed in the United States on 22 January 2013
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This is such a well written book. I'd read Murakami's "Underground," which was a series of interviews with victims and perpetrators of the Aum attacks. But that book, while doing its job in humanizing those involved, does very little to explain how events like this come about. I've always resisted the idea of "those crazy brainwashed ____" as a way of describing these kinds of groups. Ian Reader meticulous documents the process by which an innocuous-seeming religious group gradually turns obsessive, hateful, paranoid, and deadly. It's also about as much of a page-turner as this kind of a study can be.
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