The most frightening aspect of systems of belief is how quickly they can be weaponized and converted into systems of control. Cults throughout history have illustrated this with fatal consequences. Ordinary people willingly give over their minds, money, and undying allegiance to a charismatic figure who claims to have the answer to all their problems. Leaders like Shoko Asahara, who convinced his followers to bomb the Tokyo subway with poison gas in 1995. So begins the tale of enlightened teaching turned terrorism in Ben Braun and Chiaki Yanagimoto’s AUM: The Cult at the End of the World.
But no cult begins where it ends, and most center on making money. Like Scientology before it, for AUM and the blind guru who started it, being profitable is always high on the list of priorities. Alan Watts once said, “If you don’t believe that you are it, any old guru can sell you on a method of how to find it.” Shoko Asahara was such a visionary. He had the story and discipline to sell to the masses who flocked to him, looking for answers.
What he encouraged in the beginning was love and devotion from his faithful. Next, he sought to broaden his horizons, but mass market his fledgling cult with eyes on possible political power. When that failed, he reached out to other countries with his concepts, finding not the love he needed at home. The Russians seem to buy his act, hook, line, and sinker. They gave him followers, money, but the deadliest gift was weapons, along with the ability and the know-how to manufacture them.
“…the birth, build-up, and terrifying climax of the power and resolve of the AUM cult.”
For Asahara had a bone to pick with the Japanese hierarchy, blaming them for his physical maladies because of Minamata disease. The side effect of Chisso Corporation dumping methylmercury in their industrial run-off into the local Prefecture’s water supply, the disease can cause loss of hearing, speech, and vision at the low end, with insanity, paralysis, and death at the opposite end of the scale. It is speculated that Asahara sought to gain vengeance for himself and all those who suffered. So, after returning from Russia with enough guns and biological agents to drive his point home to Japan’s ruling class, he and his top lieutenants devised the horrific plot for which they would later be imprisoned and sentenced to death by execution.
Braun and Yanagimoto’s film shows the birth, build-up, and terrifying climax of the power and resolve of the AUM cult. Testimonies from victims, journalists, and social commentators who lived through Asahara’s era of influence depict how society’s ignorance toward groups that project peace, harmony, and well-being is the ultimate weapon of organizations. By appearing meek, they gain in strength, until people who start questioning the validity of what is on offer turn up missing or dead.
AUM: The Cult at the End of the World is yet another example of how easy cults form and flourish. Those who are left in the wake can only be left baffled by how things escalated. How innocent people can be coerced into emptying their pockets, surrendering their minds and bodies, and ultimately acting as agents of death and destruction. If anything, this documentary stands as a warning to us all. The warning tells us to pay attention to these groups, no matter how small or innocent they seem, for it is all merely window-dressing, from something that only takes and never gives—the winning of hearts, minds, and money at the expense of people’s lives.
"…yet another example of how easy cults form and flourish."
