Long-term Goals
The ultimate goal of Aum Shinrikyo was to assist its leader Shoko Asahara in his campaign to carry out the establishment of an ideal religious society, inhabited only by the purest and godliest members of the human race. Notions of purity were distinguished by devotion to the organization and its religious ideals, and by an individual's capability to exhibit psychic powers. Asahara's obsession with apocalyptic visions were integral to the origins of Aum's goals, as well as the changing focus of these goals. He preached the inevitability of Armageddon, but many of his predictions were contradictory and subject to change; Although he chose several end-of-the-world dates between 1993 and 2003, he also said that the international spread of Aum could prevent such an event[1].
Asahara had visions of himself leading all of Japan and originally had political aspirations for himself and other Aum members, however their collective failure to infiltrate or influence the Japanese government further isolated the organization. Their increasing extremism is evident in the shift of their goals from intervention through political means, towards the amassing of conventional weapons in large quantities, as well as biological and chemical weapons, for the purpose of the cult’s personal defense and what might have appeared to be preparation for the apocalypse. Asahara’s paranoid perception of a conspiracy against Aum on behalf of the national governments of Japan and the U.S. further provided legitimization for massive weapons stockpiles, as well as evidence of the evil forces ruling the world. The group exhibited continued radicalization and shifted their goals by attempting to acquire nuclear capabilities and material from Russian officials and scientists, and attempting to manufacture their own, especially after its failure to be elected to the government. Asahara and his followers became increasingly antagonistic towards governmental bodies. They believed an individual who was impure (someone that did not follow Aum) could have their soul “liberated” through death, and justified such killings as part of a campaign to purify humanity.2
These goals of disrupting governmental proceedings, and notions of creating a more ideal human race, culminated during the 1995 sarin attacks on Tokyo subway systems. Many people perceived by the group as impure were be targeted, including those who worked at the government agencies located above stations on the lines of the subway trains. This attack serves to illustrate the combination of their goals: primarily to move forward Aum’s goal of achieving a utopian society by cleansing it of non-believers, and to establish an atmosphere of chaos - ultimately resulting in the loss of governance - that was conducive to achieving Aum’s goal of seizing power and replacing the Japanese government with its own leaders. Evidence of this motive is present in Aum’s specific targeting of subway lines that traveled to stations located beneath buildings which housed the offices of important branches of the Japanese government. This attack embodies Aum’s combined goals of the purification of humanity and destruction of the established government, however their ultimate aspirations of Armageddon were evident in their attempts to attain nuclear capabilities and ignite a war global war by provoking the U.S., in order to bring about the ultimate battle between good and evil.3 This primary priority of the group serves to illustrate the apocalyptic obsession of Asahara, and most spectacularly demonstrates the violence of Aum’s methods and the extreme nature of their ideology.
- Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism. Columbia University Press. 2005
- Ibid
- Sara Daly, Aum Shinrikyo, Al Queda, and the Kinshasa Reactor: Implications of Three Case Studies for Combating Nuclear Terrorism. RAND Corporation. 2005