1. The Ethical Collapse of Aum Shinrikyo
Alex Burns
SPS Symposium, 24th October 2018
PhD Candidate, School of Politics & Social Inquiry, Monash University

2. Strategic Culture Defined: Jack Snyder
Formulated in 1977 by Jack Snyder for a RAND monograph on Ford and Carter administration détente and the Soviet Union
“Individuals are socialized into a distinctly Soviet mode of thinking a set of general beliefs, attitudes and behavioral patterns that places them on the level of “culture” rather than mere “policy” . . .” [emphasis added] (Snyder 1977: v)
“Culture is perpetuated not only by individuals but also by organizations.” (Snyder 1977: 9).
“Strategic subculture: a subsection of the broader strategic community Reasonably distinct beliefs and attitudes.” (Snyder 1977: 10).

3. Aum Shinrikyo Founded in 1984 as a small yoga group
Founder: Shoko Asahara (Chizuo Matsumoto)
Developed a synthesis of religious beliefs
Hindu deity worship (Shiva)
Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana (esoteric practices)
Evangelical Christianity (End Times apocalypse)
Occult milieu (Nostradamus)
Innovation (Perfect Salvation Initiation
20th March 1995: sarin gas attack on Tokyo subway
13 people killed
6000 people injured
Long-term psycho-social effects in Japanese society
Transformed from religious cult to religiously motivated terrorist organisation

4. Aum’s Pathway to Violence
Aum’s goal of recruiting 30,000 renunciates (very ambitious, led to Korea and Russia members)
Early, optimistic period became more pessimistic (Ian Reader, 2000): parallels to Bhagwan Rajneesh (Netflix documentary Wild, Wild Country)
Failed ‘populism’ of Asahara as candidate in political campaign for the Japanese Diet
Asahara’s interest in conspiracy theories (priming)
Chemical and Biological Weapons experimentation
Pathway to violence: Matsumoto (June 1994) and Tokyo (March 1995) when other options were exhausted

5. Macrofoundations: Japan’s ‘Lost Decades’
Economic bubble in 1980s
Aum’s early goal: recruit 30,000 renunciates
Shambhala Plan: global, utopian spiritual community
Aum viewed as a safe haven
Deflationary stagnation
Debt austerity
Psycho-social stressors: background of renunciates (noted in Haruki Marukami’s Underground interviews)
Aum became a psychic prison

6. Mesofoundations: Indoctrinability
Susceptibility or vulnerability to coercion, manipulation, or persusasion
Indoctrination into a particular political, religious, or philosophical belief system
Deals with the belief adoption process of a worldview or values
Explains Robert Jay Lifton’s observation (2000) of ‘cloning the guru’ practice in Aum
Anthony Stevens & John Price’s evolutionary psychiatry analysis of cultic groups (2000)
Marco Del Giudice’s research in evolutionary psychiatry (2018) may update Lifton’s insights
Neo-Darwinian competition for members between different Japanese new religions: dominance-submission, rank-ordered groups

7. Microfoundations: Rent-Seeking and Wealth Extraction
Renunciate were a low-cost labour pool
Worked in construction, anime production, publishing (infrastructure, media capabilities)
Forerunner of anthropologist David Graeber’s recent study Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018)
Teacher-Student relationship in Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana (Chogyam Trungpa)
Different experiences in Haruki Murakami’s Underground (2001) about “the place that was promised”
Aum as rent-seeking and wealth extraction entity for the primary benefit of senior leadership (elite model)
Aum in the context of Japanese communitarian capitalism and Western neoliberal capitalism

8. Integration: Ethical Collapse
Elite Deviance model for senior leadership (preferential access to resources, own use, subjugation of renunciate followers)
Asahara was not part of a recognised lineage transmission of Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana teachings (Kalacakra Tantra)
‘Faked’ media and public relations (1985 Twilight Zone levitation photo of Asahara)
Asset donation or seizure from renunciate followers (angered parent groups)
Use of Japanese tax laws for new religions (cf. Church of Scientology in the United States and their battle with the Internal Revenue Service)
Parallels: Enron (Jeff Skilling), Theranos (Elizabeth Holmes), Bernie Madoff’s $US65 billion fraud, Galleon hedge fund (Raj Rajaratnam), white collar crime

9. Case Study Lessons
Aum Shinrikyo transformed from a guru-led religious cult to a religiously motivated terrorist organisation
Political economy (macrofoundations) are important to understand the structural forces and the socio-economic context
Indoctrinability can help to understand other political, religious, and philosophical groups
Broader generalisability beyond terrorism studies
Japanese Government execution of Asahara and other Aum members (6th and 26th July 2018)

10. Discussion