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_9xrb | 3 years ago

For those skimming, Aum Shinrikyo is the cult responsible for the Tokyo subway sarin attack. What's often overlooked is that the cult synthesized the sarin gas themselves in a self-made sophisticated chemical weapons lab:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack#Chem...

When their headquarters were raided, police found enough weaponry to fight a small war:

>Over the next week, the full scale of Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki on the foot of Mount Fuji, police found explosives, chemical weapons, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. While the finding of biological warfare agents such as anthrax and Ebola cultures was reported, those claims now appear to have been widely exaggerated.[52] There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to kill four million people.[53]

They bought a sheep farm in Australia to mine uranium in order to enrich it and build nuclear weapons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjawarn_Station#Aum_Shinriky...

Had they not been caught, I have little doubt they'd have eventually succeeded.

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JHer|3 years ago

Murakami wrote a non-fiction book about the Sarin attacks and the Aum cult, Underworld. I’m not sure if it’s accurate (he’s a fiction writer, afterall) but it’s very fascinating and sent many chills down my spine.

pessimizer|3 years ago

Best way to understand Aum Shinrikyo is to watch the two ungooglable documentaries about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_(1998_Japanese_film) and A2.

No different than other cults. A bunch of once aimless people who found purpose by subsuming their existences to the will of a venerated man (who teaches yoga in his apartment.)

Mountain_Skies|3 years ago

One downside of having an industrialized high technology society with a good education system is that radicals will tend to have the skills and knowledge required to create harm on a large scale.