July 2, 2025 • 71 mins
Modern-day Japan is often lauded as one of the safest countries on the planet -- but that doesn't make this nation immune to the danger of cults. In the first chapter of this special two-part series, Ben and Matt explore the bizarre, conspiratorial rise of the organization known as Aum Shinrikyo.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is on an adventure.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
And will be returning suit They called me Ben. We're
joined with our guest super producer, the one and only
g Nomes Griffin.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Most importantly are you. You are here?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to
know and what may potentially be a two parter. This
is going to be a deep dive, folks, and thank
you for tuning in. We previously explored cults you've never
heard of, and in conversation you may remember, we noted
(01:03):
that many of those groups we mentioned could themselves be
the subject of their own episode, entire or indeed a series.
So we're continuing our exploration with one of the most
infamous and dangerous cults in recent Japanese history. This is
the story of what is now known as a left
(01:24):
better known in the West as am Shinrinkio. It's a
story that we cannot tell without first telling the story
of its founder, who went by the name Shoko Asahara.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh yes, Oh yes, And the story has been talked
about a whole bunch since the mid nineteen nineties, when
some of the major incidents that we're going to be
talking about occurred. Much of the reporting that at least
I've seen ben came out of the BBC and British
broadcasting companies, and much of that was translated from Japanese. We, however,
(02:00):
are not Japanese speakers, so many of the names places
and things like that, we're going to do our best
to pronounce correctly and spell.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
If pronunciation doesn't quite get us there with our fumbling
American tongues, which does sound like the name of an album.
I don't know what kind of genre it would be met,
but I think we're onto something.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Here's the deal, folks.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
A lot of the context, as you just indicated Matt
gets missed in the West, so at the beginning of
this series, it is absolutely crucial to provide a little
more context about Japan in general as a society, without exoticizing,
without othering, without you know, couldn't have fumbling around on
(02:47):
Google or whatever. Please be aware of the following episodes
may not be appropriate for all listeners. We're going to
pause for a word from our sponsors. Here are the facts,
all right. We've heard this often in something that I
(03:07):
think really bugs all of us, the exoticization of Asian
countries in the past and in the present day. Japan
is often called a land of contradiction. And that's true.
But you know, the US is often called a land
of contradiction.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, because of God and guns? That why?
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Yeah, God of guns.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, a radically divergent interpretation of Christian ideology at times. Right,
this happens to a lot of countries. And look, of course,
every country is a special baby, every country is unique.
In the Japanese case, we could define the contradictions as
things like how it's home to some of the most
(03:56):
advanced electronics and robotics on the entire planet, but still
holds this rigid, surreal dedication to older technology or older processes,
especially in bureaucracy, like the facts machine or the stake
you got to sign stuff with a little stamp.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Oh wow, Okay, so I didn't know that. Fax machines
are still a big.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Deal, dude. They're huge.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
If we start if the podcasting doesn't work out.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
You know, you and I.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Had nomes if you're in we're going to start a
fax machine company in Japan.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
No heck, yeah, this this whole email thing is really
taken off though, and they just feel like Japan's for
maybe checking out.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Oh man, oh man, I've got some war stories to
share with you off air. There's also, you know, the
fact that Japan is a world leader in a lot
of aspects of environmental sustainability. Remember when we both found out,
gosh it was many years ago, we both found out
(04:58):
about the the ability to turn trash into plasma.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, oh, I cannot remember the name plasa something plasmosis,
And it was incredible. You could just shoot plasma at
any trash, literally any trash, and create building materials and
specific gases that would be helpful in other manufacturing, and
you literally turn trash into usable stuff. And for some
(05:26):
reason society said and not interested.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, you guys didn't send the pitch to us via fax.
But despite all these innovations, Japan still has some serious
environmental issues right the industries there can be nuts with packaging,
So that's another contradiction, a contradiction that we have to mention,
(05:49):
we're ethically required to mention this is that while continually
rated one of the overall safest countries on the current planet,
this is a nation that's still struck with serious issues
within the justice system and particularly with sexual violence that
cannot be left un set.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Well, it's true. I noticed in documentaries about the subject
we're going to be covering today, they continually talk about
this concept of social cohesion that at least existed in
Japan in the nineteen nineties. I would say it continues
on today. And that just means to say that many
many folks in society there in Japan function similarly to
(06:33):
one another and have an outlook about the law, about rules,
about what people do and how they operate on a
daily basis. Yeah, and that's why the group we're going
to be talking about today was so interesting, because it's
a complete break from the norms of society, a purposeful
break from those norms.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, well said, it's an interrogation of and rejection of,
a reaction to the established collective homogeneity right of a
society wherein and you always hear this reference. All my
Japanese friends say this to me pretty often. The nail
(07:16):
that stands out shall be hammered down. That's a very
real thing. And there's another there's another contradiction here when
we talk about religion and spirituality, which is something human
beings still haven't quite gotten their heads around. Japan is
often going to be portrayed as a secular, atheistic land,
(07:40):
but calling it that depends on how you define religion,
and the religion definition is a little different in the West, right,
you know, you will know followers of any number of
religions here in the United States.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
In Japan, there's more.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Of a without sounding dismissive, there's almost more of a
Chipotle approach. Right, So I think, well, you know, like
a buffet, like you mix and match the stuff you
like from belief systems. Okay, get a little avocado of Islam,
get a little you know, get get a side of
lettuce from Shinto, put it together in your own spiritual burrito.
(08:22):
Whereas if how weird would it be? I'm sure we'll
get some emails about this, I hope we do. How
weird would it be for you to run into someone
in the Bible Belt and they tell you that they're
sort of a Buddhist Baptist.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
I think that's a very interesting person.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Oh yeah, me too. I'm into it. Let's let's let's
do more mix and mix and matches on spirituality. It
reminds me of the Unitarian Universalist Church that my grandparents
were a part of, where you would go in one week,
like go into church. But oh wait, we're learning about
Hinduism today. Okay, cool? Oh wait, we're reading for the
Torah today. Oh wait next week? Wait? What? What what
(09:04):
is going on?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I love the Unitarians, man, that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Well, the concept of a personal philosophy on spirituality is
pretty compelling to me as a human, So I like it.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, I think most people would. I think everybody kind
of has to address that on a personal level. I
think that's a universal experience, a universal personal experience, universal
personal another album name.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
But what I really want is just one guy with
a beard. It's going to tell me everything that I
need to know and what to do and how to
live and where to live and who to talk to.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Oh, I have some literature for you after this. It's
not it's not me though, it's another guy. So like,
all right, Japan does have talked about um Shinriko. In
the past, we've talked at length about different cults and
cultic activities and the tactics, like how a cult is
(10:09):
essentially best defined as a utility belt of tactics similar
to fascism. Japan has a lot of organizations that locals
and outsiders would describe as cults. And again we're not
dunking on this country because the United States has a
lot of organizations that are in no way religious that
(10:30):
could be defined as cults. In Japan, it often draws
from the indigenous religious makeup like Shinto, right, which was
still remains. Like when I go to Japan, I end
up visiting holy sites of the Shinto religion and also
holy sites of the Buddhist religion. Buddhism arrived in Japan
(10:53):
around the sixth century CE, and the interaction, again the
sort of vin diagramming on a personal and social level,
of these two religions greatly influenced Japanese society. So you'll
find people who say they're not particularly religious, but they
do go to insert holy site here on insert significant
(11:17):
day here.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Well, yeah, even if you have never fully paid attention
to the specifics about Japanese culture, you would likely have
at least encountered some of the imagery, the architecture, the
vision of Shinto and the veneration of ancestors and some
of the places like that you're talking about the holy sites.
(11:40):
They just they end up proliferating throughout especially pop culture,
as almost a touchstone of something either very I don't know,
I was going to say very cool, but I think
maybe that's my interpretation of it from when I was
a kid like, man, that's cool, whatever that is, that's cool,
which you know, comes to like the obsession of comic
(12:01):
books and some of the other things where you actually
see that imagery. Yes, I do think it's interesting how
that is that is a representation of religion, and you
maybe don't understand that when you're viewing it as an
outsider just looking in.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right, especially from the American perspective or from the US perspective,
I should say, the prioritization of a separation between church
and state not quite the same thing in this culture.
I'd like to share an anecdote with one of my
(12:37):
old professors that I, as you know, I visited every
few years or so. One time this guy said, look,
here's the deal. You'll be eating at like a corporate
food court, right, and you know, you've got the big
brand names, the fast food, the noodle shop, all all
that stuff. And you look around and in an especially
(13:00):
prominent or prestigious place, boom, there's a shrine.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
There's a holy site.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You next to the toborro, right next to the sbarro,
you know, two meters from the McDonald's. And you might
say this commodification is depressing what happened to humans, But
then again, in the exact same situation, you'll be eating
at the same food court and boom, you see that
(13:28):
shrine and you realize the existence of spirituality amid this
hubbub is inspiring. The past stays with us, even in
a country that evolves at such a breakneck pace. And
that's why what we would call diplomatically new age spiritual movements.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Up until the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Were very highly tolerated in Japan, and a lot relied
upon interpretations of Shinto and Buddhist and Hindu belief systems,
incorporating Christianity, aspects of Islam and Judaism as well. All
the hits, all the big ones just sort of melded
(14:16):
together in people's personal explorations and the teachings of those
people to their followers. So look, we've.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Seen it time and time again.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You can easily correlate a rise in new spiritual movements
or even cultic organizations to times of social unrest. Cults
exploded in the United States during the Great Depression, right,
cults exploded in the social unrest of the advot of
the Internet. And no country is an exception to this rule.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, and stuff went really bad as the turn of
the New Century was on its way. In the New millennium,
that's when that's some stuff seems to really have gone
wrong with New Age spiritual movements.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Yes, yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
We know that in the past due to a number
of variables, particularly the end of widespread emperor worship. You know,
that's like the final the final boss of ancestor worship
in parts of Japan leading through World War Two. After
World War Two, there's a lot of Western influence. The
(15:31):
practice of Shinto is not banned, but it is abolished
as the state sponsored religion.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
You don't have to do it anymore.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
And because of that and the massive horrors of World
War two and the unrest, we see a boom of
spiritual movements without this sort of to your point about homogeneity,
Without this state sponsored Shinto prioritization, millions of people in
the country experience a spiritual vacuum, and so naturally they
(16:03):
seek to fill that vacuum with something else. The West
is pushing heavy on the Japanese government for all kinds
of things. One of those things is lifting censorship rules
on these new spiritual movements and then also allowing for
these religious movements to have those tasty tax exemptions, which
I'm gonna say, Matt, I still think it's kind of
(16:26):
beat me or Nomes.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
I still think it's kind of bull what.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
That's what it's all about, baby, The pursuit of tax
free stuff. That's the that's the dream. That's the post
World War two dream for every nation. Seriously, Well, we've
talked about this a little bit before the post World
War two world for each individual country and what that
(16:51):
meant rebuilding whatever it is, the identity of individual countries
that because there was a lot of rebuilding that had
to be done, especially in Japan after you know, if
you imagine the reputation hit that a country takes after
it's involved in something like that, you know, even the
United States went through its own cultural shift there in
(17:13):
the nineteen forties and fifties, and this concept of what
the dream of being a citizen of a particular country is, like,
what does it mean to be a citizen of this country?
What should I be? How should I live?
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Right?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
What should my work look like and my family look like?
And what goals should I be striving towards? All that
stuff starts changing post World War Two? Yeah, yeah, yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Who are we? Who am I in this miliu? You know?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And for a lot of people, the answer is cults. Again,
not to other any country. This is as common as
what's the most common magic, the gathering card, probably like
a lands card.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
That's probably a goblet or something. I don't know, an island.
Who an island?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Hey go, we'll go with islands. It's as common as
an island.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Well, but I guess what I want? What I was
What I was getting at there, Ben, is that so
many people view themselves as kind of attempting to fit
the picture of the thing that society is kind of
reflecting back at them, right, And that that I think
about baby boomers and my grandparents and my you know,
(18:26):
then up to my parents, and I think about how
people were trying to fit the mold of the thing,
do the right things right for themselves and for their family.
And I would say, these these alternate religious movements are
it's just a way to not get stuck in that
same thing that especially young people are observing their parents,
like maybe getting caught in the trap of some of
(18:48):
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Right, right, reacting to the expectations. Right, who what there's
a wave?
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Right? Yes?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Am I just a meaningless part of the wave?
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Am I a drop of water my own? Right?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And that's why you know, this is very familiar to
folks in the United States who are notoriously individualistic.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Right, you could pick a what's that old joke? It's
a mean joke.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
But you can go up to so many people in
the United States and tell them the definition of narcissism
and their first question and the dangers of narcissism, and
their first question will be, yeah, but how do we
make that about me?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Though? Right?
Speaker 3 (19:33):
And that's a danger that's like a systemic flaw in
this society, but it has advantages. Anyway, fast forward, It's
the nineteen seventies nineteen.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Eighties World War two.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
The legacies and the horrors remain, obviously, but Japan is
on a massive upswing and society is moving on mass
towards the grand game of capitalism, materialistic pursuit. You better
get in the right unit, You better get the right job,
because that will set you for life. Also, here's when
(20:05):
you're supposed to marry. Here is when you are supposed
to have kids, and woe betide any nail that stands out.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, and you better work your ass off, like the
for the entirety of the time that you're in school
to the entirety of the time that you get into
this corporate rat race. You work until you can work
no more. And if what we talked about in a
previous episode, if your boss is going out for drinks,
you're going out for drinks and you're staying up until
he's done or whatever, that that whole thing that we
(20:37):
talked about.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
You better be back at work at seven yeah, because
you're at seven am, because you're.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
Supposed to be there.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
And you know, in these since I have to go
to this country on a semi regular basis, I can
confirm some of that's loosening up, but it's still very
much exactly as you're describing. And if you A lot
of people have almost kind of PTSD from this, because
if you make a mistake, it can be very difficult
(21:07):
to repair that mistake, to repair your reputation. As Robert W.
Chambers would say, this is why there are so many
people who feel left behind in the seventies and the eighties,
the disillusioned. You know, you're seeking, as all humans do,
a deeper meaning to the world in which you live.
(21:28):
The big questions like the ones we asked Dan Bush earlier.
I mean, you can get you can graduate from the
top university. You can manage to move to Tokyo and
make a living. You marry right, you get a good job,
satisfy your ancestors, have an air. But then you look
around one day and you say, you know, why am
I old?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Now? Why did I do all this stuff? What does
it mean?
Speaker 3 (21:52):
That's why people look for alternate explanations. That's why people
in this nation, in particular in Japan, start at this
point in time joining various new religious movements at an
unprecedented pace. Recent estimates tell us there are no less
than one hundred and eighty three thousand officially registered religions
(22:18):
in Japan.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Whoa, oh, those delicious tax branks, o Ben. I'm just
looking back to remember some of the major Japanese corporations
that are having a heyday at this time. Corporations that
have been around for a long time. If you think
about I think it was Toyota. So Toyota Whi's been
(22:40):
around since like the thirties, right post war times, they
start exporting cars to the US. This is like boom
time for Toyota. It's becoming one of the big names
in car manufacturing and purchasing well, especially in the United
States and in western markets. Then you've also got things
coming around in the eighties there like Nintendo coming around, Sony,
(23:04):
you know, really giving birth to all kinds of new technology.
Like you talked about at the beginning of the show. There,
Hitachi was a major player. It's just interesting just imagining
I mean, there's so many more, by the way, but
you just imagine some of these huge corporate entities that
are also helping to get the corporate profits are crazy high, right,
(23:27):
And then you're imagining all these other organizations that are
doing the tax thing that you're describing here, right, And
I just see I just see this picture of people
trying to escape those big corporate settings to get to
a place that's a little more internal, maybe a little
more again use words spiritual for that kind of stuff,
(23:48):
but just less stuffy. I would almost say.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, the Zaibatsu, they're called the big companies that are
beyond the legislation of monopoly, right, vertically integrated, financially integrated,
a touch in every industry. If I can build you
a car, let me build you a dishwasher, and hey,
do you want some shoelacers that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, well that's very real.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And you and think about the even just the dress
associated with a corporate environment like that, you know, the suits,
the dresses, the thing, the way you appear as you
walk around, and then you look in the mirror. People
trying to get the heck away from that. And if
you know, if you've got an idea, you've got some
ideas rolling around, Hmmm, what if we packaged this as
(24:35):
a religion, you could you you could get people probably
to jump ship out of that corporate structure pretty easily.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, and well said on the dystopian side of that coin,
that yen would be.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Uh before we go to a break. I don't know
why it's.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Just occurred to me, but what's stopping these very big
companies from making their own religions. That'd be like, would
you join the church the zayabots Zaibatsu church? Ah, if
they were like Mitsubishi is also a religion.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Look, I'm gonna draw parallel here, and that's not real,
but I feel it sometimes. All right, if you think
about the devotees of Sony or Microsoft, depending on the
gaming system that you grew up with or that you
currently play, and it's almost brand loyalty. But it goes
deeper than that, I think. Yeah, the Nintendo, the Nintendo people.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
I mean, I don't.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Know, it's prevalent in electronics and in automotives.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Is it not like the.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Ama Toyota boy?
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
And I've I actually did have an interesting conversation with
a girl I was dating whose father described them as
very very much a Nissan family.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah, he was super cool with me until we walked
out of his house and he saw my Ford.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That is really interesting and that is a wow. That's
a thing. I know several friends, like families of friends
that are Honda folks and they will just always drive
a Honda. It doesn't matter what it is. It's a
Honda if it's in my garage.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, yeah, I think we're touching on something that could
be a really cool sci fi story in the future,
while it's still science fiction.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
We also want to tell you.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Before we go to a quick break that of those
almost two hundred thousand officially registered religions in Japan only like,
they're not.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
All created equally.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
In terms of size, only about two thousand are pretty
big in their own right. But if you math out
the math right and play with the demographics a little,
what this teaches us is that something like ten to
twenty percent of Japanese nationals are in some way connected
(27:06):
to what we would loosely describe as new religions. We'll
pause here for a word from our sponsors, and we've returned,
so again, before we dunk too hard on organizations that
can be called cults, we're being very careful with our
(27:28):
language here. It's important to know that the vast majority
of these organizations are just what they say on the
ten they're harmless, they're hopefully helpful to people on a
spiritual level. They're ways of encountering, processing, understanding reality. They're
countless gurus, you know, everywhere you can't throw a stone
without hitting a guru's compound. These days are an ikey guy,
(27:52):
if you like. In Japan, they come and go right
and maybe maybe their ideas esoteric or eccentric to some people,
but for their followers this is very important. So Japan,
like any modern society, should they tolerate these groups. You know,
go do your thing right. If you think the giraffe
(28:12):
is the final form of evolution, tally ho for you
just don't hurt anybody.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Well yeah, well, because you find groups coming out of
Japan like Happy Science. Remember when we talked about them.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Yes, I love the name.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
It's such a beautiful it's a beautiful concept of an organization.
You got some venus stuff, throw that in there, you know,
it's just it's really fun. It was fun. I remember
when we covered that. It was really it was literally
a happy time to talk about that organization.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
All three of us are gritting.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, well, many describe it as a cult. Rio was
his name, Rio who Okawa I think was the leader's name.
And you know, if you look at the guy and
he's always smiling and it's called Happy My gosh, I'm in.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Yeah, yeah, riojo Okawa.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, Institute for Research and Human Happiness, Sign me up.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Come on.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
I mean it sounds scientific, says like there's work to
be done. There are probably pizza parties. I like, this
is a cool job. So we are taking time and
making space to establish that the vast majority of these things,
and these leaders and these self taught spiritual experts are
not bad people.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
They are people with conviction, but spiritual conviction, not legal conviction.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
And that'll be more later.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Right from this milieu arrives on stage of fascinating a dangerous,
frankly terrible guy who sees himself as a prophet and
eventually goes by the name Shoko Asahara. But that's not
his original name.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
No, I think you would pronounce his name Chizuo. Maybe
I'm wrong? Is it? Is that a cha sound with
a ch? Chizuo Matsumoto. He was born on March second,
nineteen fifty five, and one of the main things you'll
hear about him when he's reported on in a documentary
(30:18):
or stated about him is that he was partially blind
or mostly blind. Yeah, he had to go to a
special boarding school because of that condition, and he was
there until the age of six, and then he ended
up graduating well, I guess it's graduating from high school
or the upper level schools in nineteen seventy three. And
(30:38):
at that time he came out of a place called
the Kumamoto Prefecture. And I don't know where that is
in Japan, to be honest, ben.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
No, no worries.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
That's one of the places I have not been to.
It's in a central area of Japan, or it's a
prefecture in Kyusho.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
And Kyusho, I should say.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
If you picture Japan as kind of an elbow of
an archipelago, right, and Hokkaido, the most northern part is
up where your hand is. If you raise your arm
and you know the elbow is kind of central Japan,
then Kushu Island is sort.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Of like armpittish Okay, wow, not an insult.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
That's just to establish the geospatial.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Relationship, got it, Okay?
Speaker 4 (31:23):
It my my.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
The reason I'm wondering about that is just I wonder
what kind of the societal pressures. I wonder what it
was like to live in that area, right, to grow
up as a kid, right, because I just don't know,
you know, I don't know. We don't know all of
his personal life stuff. Nobody's got a you know, a
full bio of this guy from a child going on? Right,
(31:47):
what are the major events in his life in these
some of these things that occurred. We know he was
facewood challenges right as he's growing up and probably learned
a lot of lessons as he's going through these schools.
And then finally he graduates and he applies for medical
school at Kumamoto University. Yeah, and like this is this
(32:10):
is formative time, right for somebody who is moving on
from a child to becoming an adult and they're going
to further their studies. What happens to him?
Speaker 4 (32:19):
Then?
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, we have to we have to underline that point
you made, Matt, because most of the information you will
find about chizu Wo Matsumoto's childhood comes from him and
comes from all followers. So it's very much an unreliable
narrator situation. But there's no escape in it, like you said,
(32:42):
especially in this society at the time. He is overcoming
tremendous challenges. He does not he does not pass the
entrance exams in Kumamoto University. He later moves to a
prep school in the big city where almost everybody wants
to live, Tokyo, and he applies to Tokyo University again,
(33:04):
looking to go pre med prestigious, very prestigious school, highly ambitious.
It's a huge win if you get in there.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
He did not.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
He doesn't get into either school, but he's not going
to let this keep him down. He maintains a deep
interest in medicine, especially what we'll call traditional medicine, acupuncture,
Chinese herbal remedies, pharmacology. He is an autodidact. He is
self taught, and he eventually opens up his own traditional
(33:38):
Chinese medicine spot of pharmacy in Funabashi, Chiba, which is
sort of like northeast of Tokyo.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
So we've got a picture here already of a young
ambitious man who is probably pretty intelligent but just can't
pass these entrance exams, already feeling a lot of resentment
against the establishment, you know, side that he wanted to
gain access to, but they wouldn't let him in.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yeah yeah, And like you articulated earlier, he is increasingly
feeling like one of those people left behind by this
breakneck system. But at this point in his life we
could consider him a fairly successful guy. He's overcome those
tremendous challenges. He's got his own business. He seems set
for a happy, long career. He's not locked into the
(34:27):
slavery of being a salaryman. He's essentially a faith healer.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
But also he's.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Got some romance going on. He marries a fellow student
from that prep school he visits in Tokyo, and things
start to go sideways. In nineteen eighty two, he is
arrested by the authorities. They say, you're selling fake remedies, Bud.
Ultimately he's convicted for the term they use is selling
(34:54):
medicine without a license, the less diplomatic term is straight
up fraud and gets in massive trouble. He gets fined,
the fine really wallops, and his business goes bankrupt.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
YEP, this is a great time to talk about this
practice of faith healing, laying on hands, all of these
things we've talked about in the past. We have full episodes.
You go check them out right now.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Oh yeah, really dig those man.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Actually, oh yeah, there was a weird moment in those
where you know, I know, we're under something when we
we counterintuitively start to support something that both of us
thought was just hogwash or Yeah, there was some point
in the Faith Healing episode it was about placebo effects, yes,
where I remember thinking, I don't know, man, if it works,
(35:41):
it works.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah. Your mind can do incredible things with your body
when it comes to like rejuvenating yourself based sometimes on
your belief that you are being rejuvenated, which is intense.
And you know, we also talked about the connection between
certain parts of your brain and the chemicals and hormones
(36:04):
and stuff that they release, and how that can actually
affect your body in positive ways. So some of this
stuff isn't completely bunk. And when we talk about the
individual human beings that are attempting to sell those services
and those goods, you know, it's really tough to get
into the mind of an individual and say, oh, does
this person just like know that they're selling water that's
(36:26):
not actually wholly.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Its activated water? Yeah, But.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Or do they fully truly believe that this water has
healing properties? And if they do, then it it's a
whole different thing to I think, to me, at least,
when I imagine the reasons people are doing things right.
But there is the con man aspect that flows through
all of it, and that is the fact that you
(36:55):
know you're doing something that's getting over on somebody else
simply for monetary gain.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Right, what are your intentions monetary gain or influence over people?
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (37:06):
That's when it gets real gnarly. And I think that
is so well put man, And it's important to remember
that people can be perhaps scientifically mistaken, without being jerks
or without being pills, you know what I mean. They
really are trying to help. And so it's I think
it's something that irritates you and me and hopefully all
(37:28):
of us listening at home when folks who consider themselves
skeptics are incredibly militaristic and over zealously dismissive of people
who are trying their best, you know what I mean,
even if you don't agree, if they're not harming folks,
just like the government of Japan said, then do as
thou wilt.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, yeah, I almost want. We're about to talk about
the organization, right, about the religion part that this person,
this individual gets into. And I would just I think
this is a good place to say it. Even in
interviews that were conducted in the late twenty teens in
(38:11):
the early twenty twenties of individual followers who at one
point were a part of this organization. They still maintain
their time in this organization was one of, if not
the best portions of their life from a spiritual perspective,
from a growth perspective. So before we even get into
(38:33):
any of it, there's positivity to be found in most
things that we would look at and go.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Ooh yeah, yeah. We would go why is your diet
like that? And they would say, oh no, it works
for me, I dig it. And a lot of these
folks that you could be tricky to call them survivors
of this movement, but a lot of them continue those
practices today under different name and are by the way,
(39:02):
I think we should say this now too. We'll reiterate
at the end of the series. They are not criminals,
oh in any way, right, just it's kind of like
the argument with Christianity, Right, you meet someone who is
a Christian, that doesn't mean they're part of the inquisition
that the Spaniards did, you know, can't really put that
on them.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
But we're going to talk about the the legal overwatch.
Let's say, of some can you there's a little tease,
But can you imagine if everybody who is a part
of one of the world's major religions or all of
the major religions because of past atrocities had the same
(39:44):
kind of like checkups and surveillance.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
At that level.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Oh buddy, yeah, man, that's crazy and okay, So let's
let's set the stage for the providence the origin story
of a man who has not yet come to call
himself Shoko Asahara. He joins around the time he's having
these legal troubles a little bit before. He is a
member of a new spiritual movement called Alanshu, and this
(40:12):
combines elements of Hinduism and Buddhism. Again pretty common, not
particularly unusual for a movement of its sort in Japanese culture.
At this time, people are all in search for those
deeper truths unless you're really out there folks, you know,
in your neighborhood, your coworker's casual friends. If it ever
(40:32):
comes up, they're gonna kind of talk to you about
it in a positive way, like a hobby, even if
they're not into it. It's kind of like if you
met somebody who was super duper into what's an unproblematic.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Hobby, magic the gathering, duper to.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Magic the gathering or collectible card games, and then you think, okay, yeah,
that's just my pal. That's that's what they do on
the weekends, and sometimes they take off work because there's
a magic tournament.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Just because the planes Walkers are really important to them
doesn't mean they're a weirdo.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah, we're just gonna move the meeting because the final
Fantasy iteration came out. We didn't Those cards do look sick.
So this is the issue for this guy, who again
is still going by the name Matsumoto. He doesn't find
(41:28):
the current combinations of belief in agon shoot will be
interesting right or to really get the job done, and
they can't carry him through the pain, the trauma, the
social embarrassment, legal woes, so.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
It doesn't push him to that place where he finds
the next set of actions he needs to take right. Yeah,
to me, that's what it. In a lot of ways,
like we rely on society or a loved one, a teacher,
you know, a mentor of sorts to get us where
we're going, and sometimes that can just be a set
of beliefs that kind of lets you know, Okay, my
(42:06):
in order of operations of what I need to be
doing in life. This this thing lets me know that's
my next step. But he didn't find that there, right,
and and but what what does he decide to do?
Speaker 3 (42:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, he didn't find the metaphysical signposts, the
guided guardians. So he says, I'll be the change. I'm
going to do it myself. There's a better way to
figure this out, and I am the man for the job.
I'm establishing my own spiritual movement, my own spiritual movement.
(42:40):
I am going to call it am Shinsen no Kai,
which will later become known to critics and devotees alike
as am Shinrikyo or in English something like Ohm Supreme Truth.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Whoa.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
And with that, let's take a quick break here word
from our sponsors. We'll be back soon.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
He doesn't just figure this out right, it is apartment
and stay in his apartment. He doesn't get a job
at the Coombini or anything. He hits the street. He's
out there, you know, putting his h what well, we
used to say, okay, well he's out on the streets,
and I can't remember the cool English phrase for it,
but he's handing out pamphlets. He's proselytized as street corners.
(43:30):
He's like, you know what you need to do? Learn
yoga with me. Also, here's some gen z.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah. Well, did you see that picture of him that
got circulated early early on where it's allegedly him meditating
and then floating off of the ground in his you know,
the cross legged stance that you see in meditation. There's
this one where there's a he's got a real grimace
(43:57):
on his face and he's floating. It looks like, which
you know, to my mind, it's like he did a
really hard jump move and then got into the position
in good photos.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, that also feels like.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
You're entering the land of con artistry at some point,
you know what I mean. This works, though, Whatever he's doing,
whatever spectacles he's creating in his evangelical approaches, it works.
He starts to get more and more followers who say, hey,
I'm disillusioned too by the frantic materialism. I actually don't
(44:36):
want to work all the time. I kind of miss
seeing my spouse, which will be funny later in an
evil way, And so they join up. They start following
this guy. Now, at first, they're not starting a commune. Immediately,
they're buying his literature, they're listening to him, they're telling
other people about him. By nineteen eighty four, this guy
(45:00):
has a large enough following and therefore funding to support
the creation of the ALM Spiritual Academy. And it's right
in downtown Tokyo, which sounds impressive until you realize that
Tokyo is so freaking big that it has multiple downtowns.
Oh wow, one of the downtown Tokyos.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
You know, I've never again, I've never been there, so
I don't know what that looks like and feels like.
Ben How just for anybody who hasn't been to Tokyo, how
would you compare it to being somewhere near the center
of Manhattan.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, maybe one way to describe Tokyo would be to say,
imagine several New York cities all just scrunched together and
each being unique, having their own sort of reputation, and
similar to New York an exception here in the west.
(45:53):
Tokyo has amazing public transit, so you really can get anywhere.
It can be confusing, but yeah, New York City is Checkers.
Tokyo is chess. Wow, Okay, we're in terms of like complexity.
I guess that's not the perfect analogy, but here's the
(46:15):
best way to put it. Imagine if one fourth of
the US population all lived in the New York metro area,
one fourth of the population roughly of Japan lives in
the Tokyo metro area.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Wow. Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Shout out to anybody who's anxiety just kicked up a notch.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah. Seriously, here in Atlanta, I'm imagining, you know, someone
saying downtown but then referring to like Buckhead or something,
but also maybe referring to Litll five points or as
a downtown, or you know, specific areas that are bustling
but aren't necessarily the same thing as the major downtown area.
Speaker 4 (46:58):
Right like the Epicenter, etc.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
My mom, this is so funny that you're talking about
different downtowns and like what that could mean. And my
mom the other day lives like five minutes away from me.
I'm in like south to cab East Atlanta village. She
lives over in Ormwood Park, which is like very Obviously,
if you're in Atlanta, you probably know the neighborhoods, and
(47:22):
if you're not that's so specific. But she literally was like, yeah,
I was walking over to downtown Glenwood Park the other
day and I said, that's not a thing. What are
you talking about? She goes, but did you know what
I was talking about, like where all the shops and
the Genny's ice cream is over there? And I said so,
like yes, but I'm a little mad that you called
(47:42):
it downtown Glenwood Park. That's not a thing. She goes, Yeah,
there's also a downtown East Atlanta Village And I'm like,
I think that people just call that East Atlanta Village
and like the general area is East Atlanta. But she's like,
every neighborhood can have a downtown. And I'm like, Ormwood Park,
where you lived, not have a downtown. Girl, Grant Park,
(48:03):
I would not say has a downtown, but it's not
a downtown.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
It's the Zebra downtown, I guess, or the draft since
we're Richard, that's a great point.
Speaker 5 (48:15):
Yeah, anyway, that was like I was like, that's so
funny that that's coming up anyway, So I just wanted
to share that you.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
We'd love to hear your downtown's as well, folks. And
and you've inspired us here. How far can we take this?
Maybe I can pick a room in my house and
start calling it the downtown.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
I'm going to town.
Speaker 5 (48:37):
Yeah, kitchen room, it's.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Just my basement.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
Yeah, well your basement was pretty sick man.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Honestly, that's going downtown.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
From what they used to say on that video game
from downtown, that's NBA, NBA jam, NBA jam, He's on fire.
So uh yes, So maybe downtown is a matter of
your own perspective, as a GNOME's mom so beautifully pointed
out there.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yeah, so the idea without getting too far aside into
Japanese geography here or urban centers, typically people who live
in that area are maybe not gonna say downtown. They're
gonna say the specific area they're talking about, like the
notorious Shinjuku or something. Shinjuku is where you see a
(49:35):
lot of tourists who enjoy partying.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Oh, I don't know what that means, often in a
legal way, but not always.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Okay, that's like, you know, that's that's where you'll see
a lot of Westerners drinking sketchy bars.
Speaker 4 (49:54):
That it's there's a.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Big uh, there's big sex trade. There's some organized crime
kind of things, but still very much safer than a
lot of places in the United States.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
But cost leon.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Safer than the neighborhood of our old office, by a
country mile, by a long, long way. I didn't tell
you the Yams guy is back, oh, a few days ago.
I guess he must have just gotten released. But there
was a guy who is speaking of specific references, Matt Nomes,
(50:31):
there was a guy who disappeared a few years back
in the neighborhood, and he was locally famous to my
neighbors and myself because for some reason, in the wee
hours of the night, you would just hear him yelling
about Yams. He would just be running around, and it
(50:51):
was always the same guy, and he was just going Yaams,
sometimes as a question, sometimes as a statement.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
But he's back, Baby's back, baby Yam.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Time, he's on fire, He's on Yam. Anyway, we've diverged.
Tokyo has, of course, like any other large population, it
has its share of esoterics, eccentrics, characters. This guy who's
not yet calling himself as Sahara, he becomes one of these,
and his system is I don't want to say plagiarized
(51:26):
because I don't think that's fair. But it is an
amalgamation of pre existing belief systems, including some of the
new spiritual movement stuff that he encountered in the past,
notably Hinduism and Buddhism.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, it goes heavy on the karma here about you
don't you don't want karma to build up, and there's
specific things you need to do to make sure you
don't have karma. And if you get too much of
the karma, you can you can come back and you
will be reborn. But there are consequences for you know,
certain ways of living, certain actions you take, and all
(52:01):
that stuff. So there is like a it's got built
into it a system of punishment and a way of life.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
And as you said, that all important guideline right, the
metaphysical milestones, the instructions for a well lived life that
you should treat as an investment in your spiritual future.
And look just like a lot of other movements of
(52:27):
its type, A is a work in progress, and similar
to the belief systems of David Koresh or Charles Manson,
it evolves over time and it takes a more pessimistic
path as time continues. So later later, the leader will
begin to incorporate aspects of apocalyptic prophecies from Christianity for
(52:52):
just one example. And he's pulling from a lot of
stuff as well as ancient Indian spiritual traditions. But at
this point, it's nineteen eighties, right. He knows he's onto something.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
He's positivity. It's the supreme truth stuff, you know.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Yeah, yeah, let me help you help yourself, you know
what I mean. I'm going to teach you how to fish.
And so he expands the brand name. It's nineteen eighty seven.
This is where he starts calling it not ULM Spiritual Academy,
not the original name, but um Shinrikyo. And he legally
at this point changes his own name, his personal name,
(53:29):
to Shoko Asahara. And he is so strategic, he's very smart.
He is strategic and targeting followers. He's not going to
turn away you know, some outcasts, someone of low's social importance,
who didn't go to the right school or what have you.
But similar to scientology, he and the AUM members are
targeting and prioritizing highly educated followers. They want computer programmers,
(53:53):
they want the wiz kids, the scientists they love people
who are in the police, the military, or high LFE
levels of government expertise, social pool positions of authority and influence. Matt,
would you agree that's kind of how Scientology is operated?
Speaker 2 (54:09):
What they would? I don't know what you're talking about, man.
We talked about that, you know, pretty extensively with former
leaders of Scientology about their practices there. But we I
would just say there's a strategic aim at those folks
(54:31):
as specialists, as people have influence, but also aiming at
young people who are either headed in that trajectory to become,
you know, members of the society, but then almost plucking
them out or at least being making the organization be
extremely attractive to those younger people in institutions, especially to
(54:52):
get them to come over and begin to believe in
kind of his stuff and specifically in him as a
leader and as a spiritual symbol, almost so that once
those younger folks get to where they're going in their careers,
sometimes leaving their careers to just join up and bring
in what they've learned thus far, other times staying where
(55:13):
they are in that world and still being a follower.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
Right again, totally legal in all of these professions. Right,
you can perhaps join the national diet hypothetically right, the
legislative body, and you can still be a member of all.
This is not a bad thing, you know. It would
actually be kind of weird and undemocratic to persecute you
(55:41):
or your harmless spiritual beliefs. But you nailed it there, Matt,
because it's very much what osaharas offering at this point
is a message similar to Timothy Leary back in the
mid nineteen sixties. Turn on, tune in, drop out, right,
follow me to a greater truth. People are digging it.
(56:02):
By nineteen eighty nine, AM is in its halcyon days.
It has grown to the point where the Japanese government
officially co sides it. They recognize the movement as a
religious organization. This is a huge win and still not
particularly unique. It's just now considered legitimate, as are thousands
(56:22):
of other similar movements, and AM system is evolving, Asahara's
understanding of his role is likewise evolving. He always was
kind of a teacher and a mentor, right, and he
was helping people help themselves. But by the time OLM
gains official recognition, he started getting his followers to call
(56:46):
him some nicknames in addition to his newly claimed his
legally changed name. He likes it when they call him
things like Savior of the country, the Holy Pope, or
a personal favorite of ours, Tokyo's Christ.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
Oh, yes, Tokyo's christ. I think this is a good
time to insert just the fact that this gentleman took
a little trip pretty far away from where he lives,
a journey to go and see the Dalai Lama and
made a big deal about taking pictures with himself because
(57:22):
he got a meeting with the I think it was
the fourteenth Dalai Lama, and having those images, the pictures
of himself as a spiritual leader with the Dali Lama,
who is often an accepted spiritual leader, especially for if
you've got a group that's basing itself on Buddhism and
(57:43):
Hinduism and some of these other beliefs. It's a really
great picture to have because it's almost as though this
major accepted spiritual leader is accepting him by just being
in his presence and meeting with him. And I'm just
imagining him operating that in some way that we don't
even really fully understand, but with his.
Speaker 4 (58:04):
Followers one hundred percent. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
For another similar comparison, think of it like, if you're
an up and coming musician or an MC, one of
the biggest things you can do for your own credibility
is to have material that associates you with an established
source or another established force in your pursuit. Right, So
(58:31):
he's by associating himself with the Dalai Lama, he's also
kind of through cognitive osmosis, appearing to be like the
Dalai Lama.
Speaker 4 (58:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
That being said, don't take any pictures with ya. Just
pass up pictures of Kanye West. I'm glad we skipped
on that one.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
But but if you know, if Killer Mike is in
a good mood, definitely get one with him.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, if Mike's if Mike's in town, yeah,
just if Mike's downtown.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
Second.
Speaker 3 (59:01):
So this is important because all of this, his followers
are super on board with this. They're very rarely disillusioned.
At this point, more and more people are joining, and
as they join, we see the emergence of an inner hierarchy.
There are senior members, there is an inner circle. There
are therefore more and more strict rules for the rank
(59:25):
and file. You're eschewing most of your material possessions because
they're preventing you from attaining your spiritual goals. You cut
ties with your friends and your family, not violently, you
just ghost them or you give them a letter and
you say, hey, we're on different paths. You know, good hustle,
Thanks mom, set And.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
There's a documentary from Endeavor that talks with a specific
follower that describes that exact thing that, again we've described
with almost every breakaway spiritual group that we've ever covered
on this show, that gradual, eventual split from everybody, and
you have to do it in order to live the
way that your leaders want you to live.
Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
And there's nothing wrong with having a chosen family, of course,
and there are people who have to go no contact
with their family members and their loved ones for any
number of reasons. To be clear, that is not what
is happening here. These families are not necessarily evil people,
nor abusive, neglectful, or any of that. They are just
(01:00:28):
a contradicting source of information for al Sahara and for
alm And so he sets up a new center on
the slopes of Mount Fuji in nineteen ninety and his
followers are practicing living life under his direction strict rules
of that we described a couple of them. These are
(01:00:49):
all the hits if you're starting a cult. What you
can or cannot read, what you can or cannot eat,
who you can or cannot speak with, and what to believe? Right,
And it's all in pursuit of saving your.
Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Soul and the souls of everyone else who's there with you.
We're all saving each other together.
Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
You must proselytize this is not a pyramid scheme, right
there just happens to be one guy at the top.
But you know, think of it as a reverse funnel,
as they say on Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Right you.
Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
Remember that one?
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
What was that revigron guy?
Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
I can't remember remember the image of Think of it
as a reverse funnel.
Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
Right Asahara is a global phenomenon.
Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
Now he is.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
This will be familiar to some of us in the crowd,
but some of us who are a little bit younger
may not have clocked this. This guy is Tory, He's
in lectures. He knows the Dadley Lama say his supporters.
He also, I know this is mentally fascinating to both
of us. He also creates this amazingly effective publishing and
(01:02:00):
propaganda initiative. Think of Jack Chick tracks spelled Jack c
Chick tracks here in the West. If you haven't read them,
you're in for a treat. Think of that Times ten,
sort of like how Tokyo is New York Times in
order of magnitude, Right, Matt, Can we talk about the
(01:02:21):
books the literature. I love the cartoons, honestly.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Yeah, the cartoons are amazing. It be okay. So one
of the things we do know about this leader is
that as a kid, he loves comic books in comic
style like graphic novel writing, manga and all that stuff.
He just the concept of it. He loved it. He's
a big fan. And what he did, he and his followers,
(01:02:47):
they turned him into a superhero of sorts, like a
religious superhero. In some of these cartoons and stuff, wearing
you know, the ones that I've seen, at least in clips,
are him wearing his it's almost a purplely row like outfit.
And he's just he's very soft in his movements and
(01:03:08):
very smooth, and just very contemplative and quiet in his demeanor,
but happy, and he just he shines on screen with
these things as somebody you would be interested in, you know,
as a character. You might go, oh, what's that character's name,
or what's that superheroes?
Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
What are his powers? Yeah? What are his attributes?
Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
Right? What is the message here? People are captivated and
it's doing something very clever format wise. It is meeting
people where they're at right, that is, that is a
key for all initiatives of this sort, good or bad, right,
ethical or unethical, evil or noble. He is getting so
(01:03:55):
much attention from this, and I love the point about
how the followers are in intructed to the followers are
instructed to transmit these messages. So it was not uncommon
for family members to be trying to contact their loved
ones and then receive some literature in reply. Like I
(01:04:17):
saw this, I thought of you, let's talk again. I
can't wait to hear what you think about this?
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Yeah, uh yeah, because it's controlling. I was gonna say,
just thought control. What is the phrasing you use for
that been shaping the context in which you can have
conversations like the open to the window, That's what it is.
That's what it becomes to where if you're going to
(01:04:44):
even contact your family, it's going to be about this thing.
Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
And I hope it's okay to say this on the air.
I think it's an important note. Our guest producer Gnomes
just pointed out a second ago that Koresh, who we
mentioned previously, is a little bit different from Osahara in
a way that I think means Osahara operationally fumbled. I
know that sounds evil. I'm not saying either of these
(01:05:10):
are good guys. I'm just saying operationally, Gnomes, we think
you made a good point about how Osahara kind of
fumbled the back. Can you tell us about it?
Speaker 5 (01:05:19):
Yeah, I just Koresh was very open. So David Koresh
obviously not a good guy. I would never say that
David Koresh is a good guy. He was. In fact,
I had a file. However, he really like the whole
thing was like I don't want to separate you from
your family. I want your family to come and join us,
(01:05:40):
and you're going to come and live on this compound
with us, and we're all going to be a family.
So he's like inviting people to bring their families. He's
getting people to bring their families from the UK and Australia,
like all across the ocean to come live in Waco,
Texas on a weird compound. The coveat is that he
will marry your daughter and also maybe your wife, and
(01:06:02):
he'll probably have a child with both of them. And
and you know what, that's a big coveyat.
Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Was that in the pitch? Gnomes? Do you think that
was in the pitch to the husbands?
Speaker 5 (01:06:13):
And so, like, I just I have to imagine that
they the pitch was Listen, this is how it has
to happen. I am, however, the new prophet. So when
you want me to impregnate your wife, that's going to
make her even more special. Did I feel like how
that was pitched?
Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
You know, Yeah, we'll do the sunk cost fallacy and
wait till they get there.
Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 5 (01:06:39):
Surprise.
Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
By the way, first off, welcome, how is the flight?
Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
Also? Also, yeah, this happened.
Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
This reminds me of something we discussed with the Brides
of Christ cult back in Oregon, way way back in
the day, wherein their cold leader, a German dude who
was pulling people from his former colleagues in the Salvation Army,
he convinced these families temporarily to allow that kind of
(01:07:11):
sexual and reproductive control, with the idea being that he,
as a holy figure, had to sleep with as many
female cult members as possible because eventually one of those
children from those interactions would be the return of Christ.
And then later he said, oh wait, fake out, psych
(01:07:32):
I'm Jesus, which happens often similar Corge a little bit.
Speaker 5 (01:07:39):
I don't know it just like a lot of Jesus
is floating around. It's really hard to tell which one's
the real one, you know, easy to get.
Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
Infused, so think critically. The last note on this one.
It reminds me of that old anecdote I know we
mentioned on the show before, but about those three guys
who all claimed that they were Jesus Christ in an asylum,
and they got some doctor who must have just been
having a weird day, put them all at a room
(01:08:10):
together and said, you can't come out until you figure
that until you guys solve this. So they're in like
a real Jesus escape room, and according to the story,
they eventually say.
Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
Okay, it's all copa setic.
Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
We agreed, so let us out, and then they the
doctor lets them out and interviews them one on one.
Oh there it is, Yeah, and they each privately say, well,
you know, those other two guys are very troubled, and
as Jesus Christ, I wanted to, you know, do my
best for the flock. So I just agreed to whatever,
(01:08:49):
and we all said yes, I left, and I hope
this is a good message for you, doctor.
Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
It's about acceptance, love, oh man, all the good things.
Speaker 4 (01:09:01):
Ooh, hold the phone.
Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
The story is taking a turn thanks to the magic
and poetry of editing and nonlinear time. We're not exactly
sure where this story is going to break, but we
all agreed as a team that this needs to be
a two parter, so stay tuned later in the week
(01:09:23):
for part two of the terrifying story of am Shinrikyo.
In the meantime, we hope this finds well. We hope
that you were safe. We're so grateful for our guest
super producer Gnomes. Shout out to you, Nomes, and we
want to hear your thoughts at this point, especially if
you have been involved in something that you did not
(01:09:43):
realize until much later was a cultic organization. Find us online,
Conspiracy Stuff, conspiracy Stuff Show, wherever you tag a little
at sign on stuff when you're sipping the social meets.
You can also give us a good old fashion email
or call us on a telephonic device.
Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
You can definitely call us and in between before you
call us. If you want to hear more of gnomes work,
why not check out Monster BTK. It's freaking fantastic. They
did a ton of the work. Amazing. Hey, you can
call her number. It is one eight three three s
T d W y t K. It's a phone number,
it's a voicemail. You've got three minutes. Give yourself a
(01:10:21):
cool nickname and let us know if we can use
your name and message on the air. If you want
to send us an email. We are the.
Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Entities the read each piece of correspondence we receive. Be
well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Speaker 4 (01:10:35):
Pro tip if.
Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
You are interested in very specific things, you can right
now visit Alith dot t O A L E P
H dot t O. Tell us what you think and
then tell us about the cults in your name of
the Global Woods Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app.
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is on an adventure.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
And will be returning suit They called me Ben. We're
joined with our guest super producer, the one and only
g Nomes Griffin.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Most importantly are you. You are here?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to
know and what may potentially be a two parter. This
is going to be a deep dive, folks, and thank
you for tuning in. We previously explored cults you've never
heard of, and in conversation you may remember, we noted
(01:03):
that many of those groups we mentioned could themselves be
the subject of their own episode, entire or indeed a series.
So we're continuing our exploration with one of the most
infamous and dangerous cults in recent Japanese history. This is
the story of what is now known as a left
(01:24):
better known in the West as am Shinrinkio. It's a
story that we cannot tell without first telling the story
of its founder, who went by the name Shoko Asahara.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh yes, Oh yes, And the story has been talked
about a whole bunch since the mid nineteen nineties, when
some of the major incidents that we're going to be
talking about occurred. Much of the reporting that at least
I've seen ben came out of the BBC and British
broadcasting companies, and much of that was translated from Japanese. We, however,
(02:00):
are not Japanese speakers, so many of the names places
and things like that, we're going to do our best
to pronounce correctly and spell.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
If pronunciation doesn't quite get us there with our fumbling
American tongues, which does sound like the name of an album.
I don't know what kind of genre it would be met,
but I think we're onto something.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Here's the deal, folks.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
A lot of the context, as you just indicated Matt
gets missed in the West, so at the beginning of
this series, it is absolutely crucial to provide a little
more context about Japan in general as a society, without exoticizing,
without othering, without you know, couldn't have fumbling around on
(02:47):
Google or whatever. Please be aware of the following episodes
may not be appropriate for all listeners. We're going to
pause for a word from our sponsors. Here are the facts,
all right. We've heard this often in something that I
(03:07):
think really bugs all of us, the exoticization of Asian
countries in the past and in the present day. Japan
is often called a land of contradiction. And that's true.
But you know, the US is often called a land
of contradiction.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, because of God and guns? That why?
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Yeah, God of guns.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, a radically divergent interpretation of Christian ideology at times. Right,
this happens to a lot of countries. And look, of course,
every country is a special baby, every country is unique.
In the Japanese case, we could define the contradictions as
things like how it's home to some of the most
(03:56):
advanced electronics and robotics on the entire planet, but still
holds this rigid, surreal dedication to older technology or older processes,
especially in bureaucracy, like the facts machine or the stake
you got to sign stuff with a little stamp.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Oh wow, Okay, so I didn't know that. Fax machines
are still a big.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Deal, dude. They're huge.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
If we start if the podcasting doesn't work out.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
You know, you and I.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Had nomes if you're in we're going to start a
fax machine company in Japan.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
No heck, yeah, this this whole email thing is really
taken off though, and they just feel like Japan's for
maybe checking out.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Oh man, oh man, I've got some war stories to
share with you off air. There's also, you know, the
fact that Japan is a world leader in a lot
of aspects of environmental sustainability. Remember when we both found out,
gosh it was many years ago, we both found out
(04:58):
about the the ability to turn trash into plasma.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, oh, I cannot remember the name plasa something plasmosis,
And it was incredible. You could just shoot plasma at
any trash, literally any trash, and create building materials and
specific gases that would be helpful in other manufacturing, and
you literally turn trash into usable stuff. And for some
(05:26):
reason society said and not interested.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, you guys didn't send the pitch to us via fax.
But despite all these innovations, Japan still has some serious
environmental issues right the industries there can be nuts with packaging,
So that's another contradiction, a contradiction that we have to mention,
(05:49):
we're ethically required to mention this is that while continually
rated one of the overall safest countries on the current planet,
this is a nation that's still struck with serious issues
within the justice system and particularly with sexual violence that
cannot be left un set.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Well, it's true. I noticed in documentaries about the subject
we're going to be covering today, they continually talk about
this concept of social cohesion that at least existed in
Japan in the nineteen nineties. I would say it continues
on today. And that just means to say that many
many folks in society there in Japan function similarly to
(06:33):
one another and have an outlook about the law, about rules,
about what people do and how they operate on a
daily basis. Yeah, and that's why the group we're going
to be talking about today was so interesting, because it's
a complete break from the norms of society, a purposeful
break from those norms.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, well said, it's an interrogation of and rejection of,
a reaction to the established collective homogeneity right of a
society wherein and you always hear this reference. All my
Japanese friends say this to me pretty often. The nail
(07:16):
that stands out shall be hammered down. That's a very
real thing. And there's another there's another contradiction here when
we talk about religion and spirituality, which is something human
beings still haven't quite gotten their heads around. Japan is
often going to be portrayed as a secular, atheistic land,
(07:40):
but calling it that depends on how you define religion,
and the religion definition is a little different in the West, right,
you know, you will know followers of any number of
religions here in the United States.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
In Japan, there's more.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Of a without sounding dismissive, there's almost more of a
Chipotle approach. Right, So I think, well, you know, like
a buffet, like you mix and match the stuff you
like from belief systems. Okay, get a little avocado of Islam,
get a little you know, get get a side of
lettuce from Shinto, put it together in your own spiritual burrito.
(08:22):
Whereas if how weird would it be? I'm sure we'll
get some emails about this, I hope we do. How
weird would it be for you to run into someone
in the Bible Belt and they tell you that they're
sort of a Buddhist Baptist.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
I think that's a very interesting person.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Oh yeah, me too. I'm into it. Let's let's let's
do more mix and mix and matches on spirituality. It
reminds me of the Unitarian Universalist Church that my grandparents
were a part of, where you would go in one week,
like go into church. But oh wait, we're learning about
Hinduism today. Okay, cool? Oh wait, we're reading for the
Torah today. Oh wait next week? Wait? What? What what
(09:04):
is going on?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I love the Unitarians, man, that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Well, the concept of a personal philosophy on spirituality is
pretty compelling to me as a human, So I like it.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, I think most people would. I think everybody kind
of has to address that on a personal level. I
think that's a universal experience, a universal personal experience, universal
personal another album name.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
But what I really want is just one guy with
a beard. It's going to tell me everything that I
need to know and what to do and how to
live and where to live and who to talk to.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Oh, I have some literature for you after this. It's
not it's not me though, it's another guy. So like,
all right, Japan does have talked about um Shinriko. In
the past, we've talked at length about different cults and
cultic activities and the tactics, like how a cult is
(10:09):
essentially best defined as a utility belt of tactics similar
to fascism. Japan has a lot of organizations that locals
and outsiders would describe as cults. And again we're not
dunking on this country because the United States has a
lot of organizations that are in no way religious that
(10:30):
could be defined as cults. In Japan, it often draws
from the indigenous religious makeup like Shinto, right, which was
still remains. Like when I go to Japan, I end
up visiting holy sites of the Shinto religion and also
holy sites of the Buddhist religion. Buddhism arrived in Japan
(10:53):
around the sixth century CE, and the interaction, again the
sort of vin diagramming on a personal and social level,
of these two religions greatly influenced Japanese society. So you'll
find people who say they're not particularly religious, but they
do go to insert holy site here on insert significant
(11:17):
day here.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Well, yeah, even if you have never fully paid attention
to the specifics about Japanese culture, you would likely have
at least encountered some of the imagery, the architecture, the
vision of Shinto and the veneration of ancestors and some
of the places like that you're talking about the holy sites.
(11:40):
They just they end up proliferating throughout especially pop culture,
as almost a touchstone of something either very I don't know,
I was going to say very cool, but I think
maybe that's my interpretation of it from when I was
a kid like, man, that's cool, whatever that is, that's cool,
which you know, comes to like the obsession of comic
(12:01):
books and some of the other things where you actually
see that imagery. Yes, I do think it's interesting how
that is that is a representation of religion, and you
maybe don't understand that when you're viewing it as an
outsider just looking in.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right, especially from the American perspective or from the US perspective,
I should say, the prioritization of a separation between church
and state not quite the same thing in this culture.
I'd like to share an anecdote with one of my
(12:37):
old professors that I, as you know, I visited every
few years or so. One time this guy said, look,
here's the deal. You'll be eating at like a corporate
food court, right, and you know, you've got the big
brand names, the fast food, the noodle shop, all all
that stuff. And you look around and in an especially
(13:00):
prominent or prestigious place, boom, there's a shrine.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
There's a holy site.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You next to the toborro, right next to the sbarro,
you know, two meters from the McDonald's. And you might
say this commodification is depressing what happened to humans, But
then again, in the exact same situation, you'll be eating
at the same food court and boom, you see that
(13:28):
shrine and you realize the existence of spirituality amid this
hubbub is inspiring. The past stays with us, even in
a country that evolves at such a breakneck pace. And
that's why what we would call diplomatically new age spiritual movements.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Up until the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Were very highly tolerated in Japan, and a lot relied
upon interpretations of Shinto and Buddhist and Hindu belief systems,
incorporating Christianity, aspects of Islam and Judaism as well. All
the hits, all the big ones just sort of melded
(14:16):
together in people's personal explorations and the teachings of those
people to their followers. So look, we've.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Seen it time and time again.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You can easily correlate a rise in new spiritual movements
or even cultic organizations to times of social unrest. Cults
exploded in the United States during the Great Depression, right,
cults exploded in the social unrest of the advot of
the Internet. And no country is an exception to this rule.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, and stuff went really bad as the turn of
the New Century was on its way. In the New millennium,
that's when that's some stuff seems to really have gone
wrong with New Age spiritual movements.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Yes, yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
We know that in the past due to a number
of variables, particularly the end of widespread emperor worship. You know,
that's like the final the final boss of ancestor worship
in parts of Japan leading through World War Two. After
World War Two, there's a lot of Western influence. The
(15:31):
practice of Shinto is not banned, but it is abolished
as the state sponsored religion.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
You don't have to do it anymore.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
And because of that and the massive horrors of World
War two and the unrest, we see a boom of
spiritual movements without this sort of to your point about homogeneity,
Without this state sponsored Shinto prioritization, millions of people in
the country experience a spiritual vacuum, and so naturally they
(16:03):
seek to fill that vacuum with something else. The West
is pushing heavy on the Japanese government for all kinds
of things. One of those things is lifting censorship rules
on these new spiritual movements and then also allowing for
these religious movements to have those tasty tax exemptions, which
I'm gonna say, Matt, I still think it's kind of
(16:26):
beat me or Nomes.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
I still think it's kind of bull what.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
That's what it's all about, baby, The pursuit of tax
free stuff. That's the that's the dream. That's the post
World War two dream for every nation. Seriously, Well, we've
talked about this a little bit before the post World
War two world for each individual country and what that
(16:51):
meant rebuilding whatever it is, the identity of individual countries
that because there was a lot of rebuilding that had
to be done, especially in Japan after you know, if
you imagine the reputation hit that a country takes after
it's involved in something like that, you know, even the
United States went through its own cultural shift there in
(17:13):
the nineteen forties and fifties, and this concept of what
the dream of being a citizen of a particular country is, like,
what does it mean to be a citizen of this country?
What should I be? How should I live?
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Right?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
What should my work look like and my family look like?
And what goals should I be striving towards? All that
stuff starts changing post World War Two? Yeah, yeah, yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Who are we? Who am I in this miliu? You know?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And for a lot of people, the answer is cults. Again,
not to other any country. This is as common as
what's the most common magic, the gathering card, probably like
a lands card.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
That's probably a goblet or something. I don't know, an island.
Who an island?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Hey go, we'll go with islands. It's as common as
an island.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Well, but I guess what I want? What I was
What I was getting at there, Ben, is that so
many people view themselves as kind of attempting to fit
the picture of the thing that society is kind of
reflecting back at them, right, And that that I think
about baby boomers and my grandparents and my you know,
(18:26):
then up to my parents, and I think about how
people were trying to fit the mold of the thing,
do the right things right for themselves and for their family.
And I would say, these these alternate religious movements are
it's just a way to not get stuck in that
same thing that especially young people are observing their parents,
like maybe getting caught in the trap of some of
(18:48):
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Right, right, reacting to the expectations. Right, who what there's
a wave?
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Right? Yes?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Am I just a meaningless part of the wave?
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Am I a drop of water my own? Right?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And that's why you know, this is very familiar to
folks in the United States who are notoriously individualistic.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Right, you could pick a what's that old joke? It's
a mean joke.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
But you can go up to so many people in
the United States and tell them the definition of narcissism
and their first question and the dangers of narcissism, and
their first question will be, yeah, but how do we
make that about me?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Though? Right?
Speaker 3 (19:33):
And that's a danger that's like a systemic flaw in
this society, but it has advantages. Anyway, fast forward, It's
the nineteen seventies nineteen.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Eighties World War two.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
The legacies and the horrors remain, obviously, but Japan is
on a massive upswing and society is moving on mass
towards the grand game of capitalism, materialistic pursuit. You better
get in the right unit, You better get the right job,
because that will set you for life. Also, here's when
(20:05):
you're supposed to marry. Here is when you are supposed
to have kids, and woe betide any nail that stands out.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, and you better work your ass off, like the
for the entirety of the time that you're in school
to the entirety of the time that you get into
this corporate rat race. You work until you can work
no more. And if what we talked about in a
previous episode, if your boss is going out for drinks,
you're going out for drinks and you're staying up until
he's done or whatever, that that whole thing that we
(20:37):
talked about.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
You better be back at work at seven yeah, because
you're at seven am, because you're.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
Supposed to be there.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
And you know, in these since I have to go
to this country on a semi regular basis, I can
confirm some of that's loosening up, but it's still very
much exactly as you're describing. And if you A lot
of people have almost kind of PTSD from this, because
if you make a mistake, it can be very difficult
(21:07):
to repair that mistake, to repair your reputation. As Robert W.
Chambers would say, this is why there are so many
people who feel left behind in the seventies and the eighties,
the disillusioned. You know, you're seeking, as all humans do,
a deeper meaning to the world in which you live.
(21:28):
The big questions like the ones we asked Dan Bush earlier.
I mean, you can get you can graduate from the
top university. You can manage to move to Tokyo and
make a living. You marry right, you get a good job,
satisfy your ancestors, have an air. But then you look
around one day and you say, you know, why am
I old?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Now? Why did I do all this stuff? What does
it mean?
Speaker 3 (21:52):
That's why people look for alternate explanations. That's why people
in this nation, in particular in Japan, start at this
point in time joining various new religious movements at an
unprecedented pace. Recent estimates tell us there are no less
than one hundred and eighty three thousand officially registered religions
(22:18):
in Japan.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Whoa, oh, those delicious tax branks, o Ben. I'm just
looking back to remember some of the major Japanese corporations
that are having a heyday at this time. Corporations that
have been around for a long time. If you think
about I think it was Toyota. So Toyota Whi's been
(22:40):
around since like the thirties, right post war times, they
start exporting cars to the US. This is like boom
time for Toyota. It's becoming one of the big names
in car manufacturing and purchasing well, especially in the United
States and in western markets. Then you've also got things
coming around in the eighties there like Nintendo coming around, Sony,
(23:04):
you know, really giving birth to all kinds of new technology.
Like you talked about at the beginning of the show. There,
Hitachi was a major player. It's just interesting just imagining
I mean, there's so many more, by the way, but
you just imagine some of these huge corporate entities that
are also helping to get the corporate profits are crazy high, right,
(23:27):
And then you're imagining all these other organizations that are
doing the tax thing that you're describing here, right, And
I just see I just see this picture of people
trying to escape those big corporate settings to get to
a place that's a little more internal, maybe a little
more again use words spiritual for that kind of stuff,
(23:48):
but just less stuffy. I would almost say.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, the Zaibatsu, they're called the big companies that are
beyond the legislation of monopoly, right, vertically integrated, financially integrated,
a touch in every industry. If I can build you
a car, let me build you a dishwasher, and hey,
do you want some shoelacers that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, well that's very real.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And you and think about the even just the dress
associated with a corporate environment like that, you know, the suits,
the dresses, the thing, the way you appear as you
walk around, and then you look in the mirror. People
trying to get the heck away from that. And if
you know, if you've got an idea, you've got some
ideas rolling around, Hmmm, what if we packaged this as
(24:35):
a religion, you could you you could get people probably
to jump ship out of that corporate structure pretty easily.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, and well said on the dystopian side of that coin,
that yen would be.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Uh before we go to a break. I don't know
why it's.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Just occurred to me, but what's stopping these very big
companies from making their own religions. That'd be like, would
you join the church the zayabots Zaibatsu church? Ah, if
they were like Mitsubishi is also a religion.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Look, I'm gonna draw parallel here, and that's not real,
but I feel it sometimes. All right, if you think
about the devotees of Sony or Microsoft, depending on the
gaming system that you grew up with or that you
currently play, and it's almost brand loyalty. But it goes
deeper than that, I think. Yeah, the Nintendo, the Nintendo people.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
I mean, I don't.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Know, it's prevalent in electronics and in automotives.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Is it not like the.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Ama Toyota boy?
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
And I've I actually did have an interesting conversation with
a girl I was dating whose father described them as
very very much a Nissan family.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah, he was super cool with me until we walked
out of his house and he saw my Ford.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That is really interesting and that is a wow. That's
a thing. I know several friends, like families of friends
that are Honda folks and they will just always drive
a Honda. It doesn't matter what it is. It's a
Honda if it's in my garage.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, yeah, I think we're touching on something that could
be a really cool sci fi story in the future,
while it's still science fiction.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
We also want to tell you.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Before we go to a quick break that of those
almost two hundred thousand officially registered religions in Japan only like,
they're not.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
All created equally.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
In terms of size, only about two thousand are pretty
big in their own right. But if you math out
the math right and play with the demographics a little,
what this teaches us is that something like ten to
twenty percent of Japanese nationals are in some way connected
(27:06):
to what we would loosely describe as new religions. We'll
pause here for a word from our sponsors, and we've returned,
so again, before we dunk too hard on organizations that
can be called cults, we're being very careful with our
(27:28):
language here. It's important to know that the vast majority
of these organizations are just what they say on the
ten they're harmless, they're hopefully helpful to people on a
spiritual level. They're ways of encountering, processing, understanding reality. They're
countless gurus, you know, everywhere you can't throw a stone
without hitting a guru's compound. These days are an ikey guy,
(27:52):
if you like. In Japan, they come and go right
and maybe maybe their ideas esoteric or eccentric to some people,
but for their followers this is very important. So Japan,
like any modern society, should they tolerate these groups. You know,
go do your thing right. If you think the giraffe
(28:12):
is the final form of evolution, tally ho for you
just don't hurt anybody.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Well yeah, well, because you find groups coming out of
Japan like Happy Science. Remember when we talked about them.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Yes, I love the name.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
It's such a beautiful it's a beautiful concept of an organization.
You got some venus stuff, throw that in there, you know,
it's just it's really fun. It was fun. I remember
when we covered that. It was really it was literally
a happy time to talk about that organization.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
All three of us are gritting.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, well, many describe it as a cult. Rio was
his name, Rio who Okawa I think was the leader's name.
And you know, if you look at the guy and
he's always smiling and it's called Happy My gosh, I'm in.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Yeah, yeah, riojo Okawa.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, Institute for Research and Human Happiness, Sign me up.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Come on.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
I mean it sounds scientific, says like there's work to
be done. There are probably pizza parties. I like, this
is a cool job. So we are taking time and
making space to establish that the vast majority of these things,
and these leaders and these self taught spiritual experts are
not bad people.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
They are people with conviction, but spiritual conviction, not legal conviction.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
And that'll be more later.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Right from this milieu arrives on stage of fascinating a dangerous,
frankly terrible guy who sees himself as a prophet and
eventually goes by the name Shoko Asahara. But that's not
his original name.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
No, I think you would pronounce his name Chizuo. Maybe
I'm wrong? Is it? Is that a cha sound with
a ch? Chizuo Matsumoto. He was born on March second,
nineteen fifty five, and one of the main things you'll
hear about him when he's reported on in a documentary
(30:18):
or stated about him is that he was partially blind
or mostly blind. Yeah, he had to go to a
special boarding school because of that condition, and he was
there until the age of six, and then he ended
up graduating well, I guess it's graduating from high school
or the upper level schools in nineteen seventy three. And
(30:38):
at that time he came out of a place called
the Kumamoto Prefecture. And I don't know where that is
in Japan, to be honest, ben.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
No, no worries.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
That's one of the places I have not been to.
It's in a central area of Japan, or it's a
prefecture in Kyusho.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
And Kyusho, I should say.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
If you picture Japan as kind of an elbow of
an archipelago, right, and Hokkaido, the most northern part is
up where your hand is. If you raise your arm
and you know the elbow is kind of central Japan,
then Kushu Island is sort.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Of like armpittish Okay, wow, not an insult.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
That's just to establish the geospatial.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Relationship, got it, Okay?
Speaker 4 (31:23):
It my my.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
The reason I'm wondering about that is just I wonder
what kind of the societal pressures. I wonder what it
was like to live in that area, right, to grow
up as a kid, right, because I just don't know,
you know, I don't know. We don't know all of
his personal life stuff. Nobody's got a you know, a
full bio of this guy from a child going on? Right,
(31:47):
what are the major events in his life in these
some of these things that occurred. We know he was
facewood challenges right as he's growing up and probably learned
a lot of lessons as he's going through these schools.
And then finally he graduates and he applies for medical
school at Kumamoto University. Yeah, and like this is this
(32:10):
is formative time, right for somebody who is moving on
from a child to becoming an adult and they're going
to further their studies. What happens to him?
Speaker 4 (32:19):
Then?
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, we have to we have to underline that point
you made, Matt, because most of the information you will
find about chizu Wo Matsumoto's childhood comes from him and
comes from all followers. So it's very much an unreliable
narrator situation. But there's no escape in it, like you said,
(32:42):
especially in this society at the time. He is overcoming
tremendous challenges. He does not he does not pass the
entrance exams in Kumamoto University. He later moves to a
prep school in the big city where almost everybody wants
to live, Tokyo, and he applies to Tokyo University again,
(33:04):
looking to go pre med prestigious, very prestigious school, highly ambitious.
It's a huge win if you get in there.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
He did not.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
He doesn't get into either school, but he's not going
to let this keep him down. He maintains a deep
interest in medicine, especially what we'll call traditional medicine, acupuncture,
Chinese herbal remedies, pharmacology. He is an autodidact. He is
self taught, and he eventually opens up his own traditional
(33:38):
Chinese medicine spot of pharmacy in Funabashi, Chiba, which is
sort of like northeast of Tokyo.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
So we've got a picture here already of a young
ambitious man who is probably pretty intelligent but just can't
pass these entrance exams, already feeling a lot of resentment
against the establishment, you know, side that he wanted to
gain access to, but they wouldn't let him in.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yeah yeah, And like you articulated earlier, he is increasingly
feeling like one of those people left behind by this
breakneck system. But at this point in his life we
could consider him a fairly successful guy. He's overcome those
tremendous challenges. He's got his own business. He seems set
for a happy, long career. He's not locked into the
(34:27):
slavery of being a salaryman. He's essentially a faith healer.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
But also he's.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Got some romance going on. He marries a fellow student
from that prep school he visits in Tokyo, and things
start to go sideways. In nineteen eighty two, he is
arrested by the authorities. They say, you're selling fake remedies, Bud.
Ultimately he's convicted for the term they use is selling
(34:54):
medicine without a license, the less diplomatic term is straight
up fraud and gets in massive trouble. He gets fined,
the fine really wallops, and his business goes bankrupt.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
YEP, this is a great time to talk about this
practice of faith healing, laying on hands, all of these
things we've talked about in the past. We have full episodes.
You go check them out right now.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Oh yeah, really dig those man.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Actually, oh yeah, there was a weird moment in those
where you know, I know, we're under something when we
we counterintuitively start to support something that both of us
thought was just hogwash or Yeah, there was some point
in the Faith Healing episode it was about placebo effects, yes,
where I remember thinking, I don't know, man, if it works,
(35:41):
it works.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah. Your mind can do incredible things with your body
when it comes to like rejuvenating yourself based sometimes on
your belief that you are being rejuvenated, which is intense.
And you know, we also talked about the connection between
certain parts of your brain and the chemicals and hormones
(36:04):
and stuff that they release, and how that can actually
affect your body in positive ways. So some of this
stuff isn't completely bunk. And when we talk about the
individual human beings that are attempting to sell those services
and those goods, you know, it's really tough to get
into the mind of an individual and say, oh, does
this person just like know that they're selling water that's
(36:26):
not actually wholly.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Its activated water? Yeah, But.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Or do they fully truly believe that this water has
healing properties? And if they do, then it it's a
whole different thing to I think, to me, at least,
when I imagine the reasons people are doing things right.
But there is the con man aspect that flows through
all of it, and that is the fact that you
(36:55):
know you're doing something that's getting over on somebody else
simply for monetary gain.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Right, what are your intentions monetary gain or influence over people?
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (37:06):
That's when it gets real gnarly. And I think that
is so well put man, And it's important to remember
that people can be perhaps scientifically mistaken, without being jerks
or without being pills, you know what I mean. They
really are trying to help. And so it's I think
it's something that irritates you and me and hopefully all
(37:28):
of us listening at home when folks who consider themselves
skeptics are incredibly militaristic and over zealously dismissive of people
who are trying their best, you know what I mean,
even if you don't agree, if they're not harming folks,
just like the government of Japan said, then do as
thou wilt.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, yeah, I almost want. We're about to talk about
the organization, right, about the religion part that this person,
this individual gets into. And I would just I think
this is a good place to say it. Even in
interviews that were conducted in the late twenty teens in
(38:11):
the early twenty twenties of individual followers who at one
point were a part of this organization. They still maintain
their time in this organization was one of, if not
the best portions of their life from a spiritual perspective,
from a growth perspective. So before we even get into
(38:33):
any of it, there's positivity to be found in most
things that we would look at and go.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Ooh yeah, yeah. We would go why is your diet
like that? And they would say, oh no, it works
for me, I dig it. And a lot of these
folks that you could be tricky to call them survivors
of this movement, but a lot of them continue those
practices today under different name and are by the way,
(39:02):
I think we should say this now too. We'll reiterate
at the end of the series. They are not criminals,
oh in any way, right, just it's kind of like
the argument with Christianity, Right, you meet someone who is
a Christian, that doesn't mean they're part of the inquisition
that the Spaniards did, you know, can't really put that
on them.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
But we're going to talk about the the legal overwatch.
Let's say, of some can you there's a little tease,
But can you imagine if everybody who is a part
of one of the world's major religions or all of
the major religions because of past atrocities had the same
(39:44):
kind of like checkups and surveillance.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
At that level.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Oh buddy, yeah, man, that's crazy and okay, So let's
let's set the stage for the providence the origin story
of a man who has not yet come to call
himself Shoko Asahara. He joins around the time he's having
these legal troubles a little bit before. He is a
member of a new spiritual movement called Alanshu, and this
(40:12):
combines elements of Hinduism and Buddhism. Again pretty common, not
particularly unusual for a movement of its sort in Japanese culture.
At this time, people are all in search for those
deeper truths unless you're really out there folks, you know,
in your neighborhood, your coworker's casual friends. If it ever
(40:32):
comes up, they're gonna kind of talk to you about
it in a positive way, like a hobby, even if
they're not into it. It's kind of like if you
met somebody who was super duper into what's an unproblematic.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Hobby, magic the gathering, duper to.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Magic the gathering or collectible card games, and then you think, okay, yeah,
that's just my pal. That's that's what they do on
the weekends, and sometimes they take off work because there's
a magic tournament.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Just because the planes Walkers are really important to them
doesn't mean they're a weirdo.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah, we're just gonna move the meeting because the final
Fantasy iteration came out. We didn't Those cards do look sick.
So this is the issue for this guy, who again
is still going by the name Matsumoto. He doesn't find
(41:28):
the current combinations of belief in agon shoot will be
interesting right or to really get the job done, and
they can't carry him through the pain, the trauma, the
social embarrassment, legal woes, so.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
It doesn't push him to that place where he finds
the next set of actions he needs to take right. Yeah,
to me, that's what it. In a lot of ways,
like we rely on society or a loved one, a teacher,
you know, a mentor of sorts to get us where
we're going, and sometimes that can just be a set
of beliefs that kind of lets you know, Okay, my
(42:06):
in order of operations of what I need to be
doing in life. This this thing lets me know that's
my next step. But he didn't find that there, right,
and and but what what does he decide to do?
Speaker 3 (42:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, he didn't find the metaphysical signposts, the
guided guardians. So he says, I'll be the change. I'm
going to do it myself. There's a better way to
figure this out, and I am the man for the job.
I'm establishing my own spiritual movement, my own spiritual movement.
(42:40):
I am going to call it am Shinsen no Kai,
which will later become known to critics and devotees alike
as am Shinrikyo or in English something like Ohm Supreme Truth.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Whoa.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
And with that, let's take a quick break here word
from our sponsors. We'll be back soon.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
He doesn't just figure this out right, it is apartment
and stay in his apartment. He doesn't get a job
at the Coombini or anything. He hits the street. He's
out there, you know, putting his h what well, we
used to say, okay, well he's out on the streets,
and I can't remember the cool English phrase for it,
but he's handing out pamphlets. He's proselytized as street corners.
(43:30):
He's like, you know what you need to do? Learn
yoga with me. Also, here's some gen z.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah. Well, did you see that picture of him that
got circulated early early on where it's allegedly him meditating
and then floating off of the ground in his you know,
the cross legged stance that you see in meditation. There's
this one where there's a he's got a real grimace
(43:57):
on his face and he's floating. It looks like, which
you know, to my mind, it's like he did a
really hard jump move and then got into the position
in good photos.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, that also feels like.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
You're entering the land of con artistry at some point,
you know what I mean. This works, though, Whatever he's doing,
whatever spectacles he's creating in his evangelical approaches, it works.
He starts to get more and more followers who say, hey,
I'm disillusioned too by the frantic materialism. I actually don't
(44:36):
want to work all the time. I kind of miss
seeing my spouse, which will be funny later in an
evil way, And so they join up. They start following
this guy. Now, at first, they're not starting a commune. Immediately,
they're buying his literature, they're listening to him, they're telling
other people about him. By nineteen eighty four, this guy
(45:00):
has a large enough following and therefore funding to support
the creation of the ALM Spiritual Academy. And it's right
in downtown Tokyo, which sounds impressive until you realize that
Tokyo is so freaking big that it has multiple downtowns.
Oh wow, one of the downtown Tokyos.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
You know, I've never again, I've never been there, so
I don't know what that looks like and feels like.
Ben How just for anybody who hasn't been to Tokyo, how
would you compare it to being somewhere near the center
of Manhattan.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, maybe one way to describe Tokyo would be to say,
imagine several New York cities all just scrunched together and
each being unique, having their own sort of reputation, and
similar to New York an exception here in the west.
(45:53):
Tokyo has amazing public transit, so you really can get anywhere.
It can be confusing, but yeah, New York City is Checkers.
Tokyo is chess. Wow, Okay, we're in terms of like complexity.
I guess that's not the perfect analogy, but here's the
(46:15):
best way to put it. Imagine if one fourth of
the US population all lived in the New York metro area,
one fourth of the population roughly of Japan lives in
the Tokyo metro area.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Wow. Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Shout out to anybody who's anxiety just kicked up a notch.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah. Seriously, here in Atlanta, I'm imagining, you know, someone
saying downtown but then referring to like Buckhead or something,
but also maybe referring to Litll five points or as
a downtown, or you know, specific areas that are bustling
but aren't necessarily the same thing as the major downtown area.
Speaker 4 (46:58):
Right like the Epicenter, etc.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
My mom, this is so funny that you're talking about
different downtowns and like what that could mean. And my
mom the other day lives like five minutes away from me.
I'm in like south to cab East Atlanta village. She
lives over in Ormwood Park, which is like very Obviously,
if you're in Atlanta, you probably know the neighborhoods, and
(47:22):
if you're not that's so specific. But she literally was like, yeah,
I was walking over to downtown Glenwood Park the other
day and I said, that's not a thing. What are
you talking about? She goes, but did you know what
I was talking about, like where all the shops and
the Genny's ice cream is over there? And I said so,
like yes, but I'm a little mad that you called
(47:42):
it downtown Glenwood Park. That's not a thing. She goes, Yeah,
there's also a downtown East Atlanta Village And I'm like,
I think that people just call that East Atlanta Village
and like the general area is East Atlanta. But she's like,
every neighborhood can have a downtown. And I'm like, Ormwood Park,
where you lived, not have a downtown. Girl, Grant Park,
(48:03):
I would not say has a downtown, but it's not
a downtown.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
It's the Zebra downtown, I guess, or the draft since
we're Richard, that's a great point.
Speaker 5 (48:15):
Yeah, anyway, that was like I was like, that's so
funny that that's coming up anyway, So I just wanted
to share that you.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
We'd love to hear your downtown's as well, folks. And
and you've inspired us here. How far can we take this?
Maybe I can pick a room in my house and
start calling it the downtown.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
I'm going to town.
Speaker 5 (48:37):
Yeah, kitchen room, it's.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Just my basement.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
Yeah, well your basement was pretty sick man.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Honestly, that's going downtown.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
From what they used to say on that video game
from downtown, that's NBA, NBA jam, NBA jam, He's on fire.
So uh yes, So maybe downtown is a matter of
your own perspective, as a GNOME's mom so beautifully pointed
out there.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yeah, so the idea without getting too far aside into
Japanese geography here or urban centers, typically people who live
in that area are maybe not gonna say downtown. They're
gonna say the specific area they're talking about, like the
notorious Shinjuku or something. Shinjuku is where you see a
(49:35):
lot of tourists who enjoy partying.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Oh, I don't know what that means, often in a
legal way, but not always.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Okay, that's like, you know, that's that's where you'll see
a lot of Westerners drinking sketchy bars.
Speaker 4 (49:54):
That it's there's a.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Big uh, there's big sex trade. There's some organized crime
kind of things, but still very much safer than a
lot of places in the United States.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
But cost leon.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Safer than the neighborhood of our old office, by a
country mile, by a long, long way. I didn't tell
you the Yams guy is back, oh, a few days ago.
I guess he must have just gotten released. But there
was a guy who is speaking of specific references, Matt Nomes,
(50:31):
there was a guy who disappeared a few years back
in the neighborhood, and he was locally famous to my
neighbors and myself because for some reason, in the wee
hours of the night, you would just hear him yelling
about Yams. He would just be running around, and it
(50:51):
was always the same guy, and he was just going Yaams,
sometimes as a question, sometimes as a statement.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
But he's back, Baby's back, baby Yam.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Time, he's on fire, He's on Yam. Anyway, we've diverged.
Tokyo has, of course, like any other large population, it
has its share of esoterics, eccentrics, characters. This guy who's
not yet calling himself as Sahara, he becomes one of these,
and his system is I don't want to say plagiarized
(51:26):
because I don't think that's fair. But it is an
amalgamation of pre existing belief systems, including some of the
new spiritual movement stuff that he encountered in the past,
notably Hinduism and Buddhism.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, it goes heavy on the karma here about you
don't you don't want karma to build up, and there's
specific things you need to do to make sure you
don't have karma. And if you get too much of
the karma, you can you can come back and you
will be reborn. But there are consequences for you know,
certain ways of living, certain actions you take, and all
(52:01):
that stuff. So there is like a it's got built
into it a system of punishment and a way of life.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
And as you said, that all important guideline right, the
metaphysical milestones, the instructions for a well lived life that
you should treat as an investment in your spiritual future.
And look just like a lot of other movements of
(52:27):
its type, A is a work in progress, and similar
to the belief systems of David Koresh or Charles Manson,
it evolves over time and it takes a more pessimistic
path as time continues. So later later, the leader will
begin to incorporate aspects of apocalyptic prophecies from Christianity for
(52:52):
just one example. And he's pulling from a lot of
stuff as well as ancient Indian spiritual traditions. But at
this point, it's nineteen eighties, right. He knows he's onto something.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
He's positivity. It's the supreme truth stuff, you know.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Yeah, yeah, let me help you help yourself, you know
what I mean. I'm going to teach you how to fish.
And so he expands the brand name. It's nineteen eighty seven.
This is where he starts calling it not ULM Spiritual Academy,
not the original name, but um Shinrikyo. And he legally
at this point changes his own name, his personal name,
(53:29):
to Shoko Asahara. And he is so strategic, he's very smart.
He is strategic and targeting followers. He's not going to
turn away you know, some outcasts, someone of low's social importance,
who didn't go to the right school or what have you.
But similar to scientology, he and the AUM members are
targeting and prioritizing highly educated followers. They want computer programmers,
(53:53):
they want the wiz kids, the scientists they love people
who are in the police, the military, or high LFE
levels of government expertise, social pool positions of authority and influence. Matt,
would you agree that's kind of how Scientology is operated?
Speaker 2 (54:09):
What they would? I don't know what you're talking about, man.
We talked about that, you know, pretty extensively with former
leaders of Scientology about their practices there. But we I
would just say there's a strategic aim at those folks
(54:31):
as specialists, as people have influence, but also aiming at
young people who are either headed in that trajectory to become,
you know, members of the society, but then almost plucking
them out or at least being making the organization be
extremely attractive to those younger people in institutions, especially to
(54:52):
get them to come over and begin to believe in
kind of his stuff and specifically in him as a
leader and as a spiritual symbol, almost so that once
those younger folks get to where they're going in their careers,
sometimes leaving their careers to just join up and bring
in what they've learned thus far, other times staying where
(55:13):
they are in that world and still being a follower.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
Right again, totally legal in all of these professions. Right,
you can perhaps join the national diet hypothetically right, the
legislative body, and you can still be a member of all.
This is not a bad thing, you know. It would
actually be kind of weird and undemocratic to persecute you
(55:41):
or your harmless spiritual beliefs. But you nailed it there, Matt,
because it's very much what osaharas offering at this point
is a message similar to Timothy Leary back in the
mid nineteen sixties. Turn on, tune in, drop out, right,
follow me to a greater truth. People are digging it.
(56:02):
By nineteen eighty nine, AM is in its halcyon days.
It has grown to the point where the Japanese government
officially co sides it. They recognize the movement as a
religious organization. This is a huge win and still not
particularly unique. It's just now considered legitimate, as are thousands
(56:22):
of other similar movements, and AM system is evolving, Asahara's
understanding of his role is likewise evolving. He always was
kind of a teacher and a mentor, right, and he
was helping people help themselves. But by the time OLM
gains official recognition, he started getting his followers to call
(56:46):
him some nicknames in addition to his newly claimed his
legally changed name. He likes it when they call him
things like Savior of the country, the Holy Pope, or
a personal favorite of ours, Tokyo's Christ.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
Oh, yes, Tokyo's christ. I think this is a good
time to insert just the fact that this gentleman took
a little trip pretty far away from where he lives,
a journey to go and see the Dalai Lama and
made a big deal about taking pictures with himself because
(57:22):
he got a meeting with the I think it was
the fourteenth Dalai Lama, and having those images, the pictures
of himself as a spiritual leader with the Dali Lama,
who is often an accepted spiritual leader, especially for if
you've got a group that's basing itself on Buddhism and
(57:43):
Hinduism and some of these other beliefs. It's a really
great picture to have because it's almost as though this
major accepted spiritual leader is accepting him by just being
in his presence and meeting with him. And I'm just
imagining him operating that in some way that we don't
even really fully understand, but with his.
Speaker 4 (58:04):
Followers one hundred percent. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
For another similar comparison, think of it like, if you're
an up and coming musician or an MC, one of
the biggest things you can do for your own credibility
is to have material that associates you with an established
source or another established force in your pursuit. Right, So
(58:31):
he's by associating himself with the Dalai Lama, he's also
kind of through cognitive osmosis, appearing to be like the
Dalai Lama.
Speaker 4 (58:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
That being said, don't take any pictures with ya. Just
pass up pictures of Kanye West. I'm glad we skipped
on that one.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
But but if you know, if Killer Mike is in
a good mood, definitely get one with him.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, if Mike's if Mike's in town, yeah,
just if Mike's downtown.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
Second.
Speaker 3 (59:01):
So this is important because all of this, his followers
are super on board with this. They're very rarely disillusioned.
At this point, more and more people are joining, and
as they join, we see the emergence of an inner hierarchy.
There are senior members, there is an inner circle. There
are therefore more and more strict rules for the rank
(59:25):
and file. You're eschewing most of your material possessions because
they're preventing you from attaining your spiritual goals. You cut
ties with your friends and your family, not violently, you
just ghost them or you give them a letter and
you say, hey, we're on different paths. You know, good hustle,
Thanks mom, set And.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
There's a documentary from Endeavor that talks with a specific
follower that describes that exact thing that, again we've described
with almost every breakaway spiritual group that we've ever covered
on this show, that gradual, eventual split from everybody, and
you have to do it in order to live the
way that your leaders want you to live.
Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
And there's nothing wrong with having a chosen family, of course,
and there are people who have to go no contact
with their family members and their loved ones for any
number of reasons. To be clear, that is not what
is happening here. These families are not necessarily evil people,
nor abusive, neglectful, or any of that. They are just
(01:00:28):
a contradicting source of information for al Sahara and for
alm And so he sets up a new center on
the slopes of Mount Fuji in nineteen ninety and his
followers are practicing living life under his direction strict rules
of that we described a couple of them. These are
(01:00:49):
all the hits if you're starting a cult. What you
can or cannot read, what you can or cannot eat,
who you can or cannot speak with, and what to believe? Right,
And it's all in pursuit of saving your.
Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Soul and the souls of everyone else who's there with you.
We're all saving each other together.
Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
You must proselytize this is not a pyramid scheme, right
there just happens to be one guy at the top.
But you know, think of it as a reverse funnel,
as they say on Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Right you.
Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
Remember that one?
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
What was that revigron guy?
Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
I can't remember remember the image of Think of it
as a reverse funnel.
Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
Right Asahara is a global phenomenon.
Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
Now he is.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
This will be familiar to some of us in the crowd,
but some of us who are a little bit younger
may not have clocked this. This guy is Tory, He's
in lectures. He knows the Dadley Lama say his supporters.
He also, I know this is mentally fascinating to both
of us. He also creates this amazingly effective publishing and
(01:02:00):
propaganda initiative. Think of Jack Chick tracks spelled Jack c
Chick tracks here in the West. If you haven't read them,
you're in for a treat. Think of that Times ten,
sort of like how Tokyo is New York Times in
order of magnitude, Right, Matt, Can we talk about the
(01:02:21):
books the literature. I love the cartoons, honestly.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Yeah, the cartoons are amazing. It be okay. So one
of the things we do know about this leader is
that as a kid, he loves comic books in comic
style like graphic novel writing, manga and all that stuff.
He just the concept of it. He loved it. He's
a big fan. And what he did, he and his followers,
(01:02:47):
they turned him into a superhero of sorts, like a
religious superhero. In some of these cartoons and stuff, wearing
you know, the ones that I've seen, at least in clips,
are him wearing his it's almost a purplely row like outfit.
And he's just he's very soft in his movements and
(01:03:08):
very smooth, and just very contemplative and quiet in his demeanor,
but happy, and he just he shines on screen with
these things as somebody you would be interested in, you know,
as a character. You might go, oh, what's that character's name,
or what's that superheroes?
Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
What are his powers? Yeah? What are his attributes?
Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
Right? What is the message here? People are captivated and
it's doing something very clever format wise. It is meeting
people where they're at right, that is, that is a
key for all initiatives of this sort, good or bad, right,
ethical or unethical, evil or noble. He is getting so
(01:03:55):
much attention from this, and I love the point about
how the followers are in intructed to the followers are
instructed to transmit these messages. So it was not uncommon
for family members to be trying to contact their loved
ones and then receive some literature in reply. Like I
(01:04:17):
saw this, I thought of you, let's talk again. I
can't wait to hear what you think about this?
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Yeah, uh yeah, because it's controlling. I was gonna say,
just thought control. What is the phrasing you use for
that been shaping the context in which you can have
conversations like the open to the window, That's what it is.
That's what it becomes to where if you're going to
(01:04:44):
even contact your family, it's going to be about this thing.
Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
And I hope it's okay to say this on the air.
I think it's an important note. Our guest producer Gnomes
just pointed out a second ago that Koresh, who we
mentioned previously, is a little bit different from Osahara in
a way that I think means Osahara operationally fumbled. I
know that sounds evil. I'm not saying either of these
(01:05:10):
are good guys. I'm just saying operationally, Gnomes, we think
you made a good point about how Osahara kind of
fumbled the back. Can you tell us about it?
Speaker 5 (01:05:19):
Yeah, I just Koresh was very open. So David Koresh
obviously not a good guy. I would never say that
David Koresh is a good guy. He was. In fact,
I had a file. However, he really like the whole
thing was like I don't want to separate you from
your family. I want your family to come and join us,
(01:05:40):
and you're going to come and live on this compound
with us, and we're all going to be a family.
So he's like inviting people to bring their families. He's
getting people to bring their families from the UK and Australia,
like all across the ocean to come live in Waco,
Texas on a weird compound. The coveat is that he
will marry your daughter and also maybe your wife, and
(01:06:02):
he'll probably have a child with both of them. And
and you know what, that's a big coveyat.
Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Was that in the pitch? Gnomes? Do you think that
was in the pitch to the husbands?
Speaker 5 (01:06:13):
And so, like, I just I have to imagine that
they the pitch was Listen, this is how it has
to happen. I am, however, the new prophet. So when
you want me to impregnate your wife, that's going to
make her even more special. Did I feel like how
that was pitched?
Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
You know, Yeah, we'll do the sunk cost fallacy and
wait till they get there.
Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 5 (01:06:39):
Surprise.
Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
By the way, first off, welcome, how is the flight?
Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
Also? Also, yeah, this happened.
Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
This reminds me of something we discussed with the Brides
of Christ cult back in Oregon, way way back in
the day, wherein their cold leader, a German dude who
was pulling people from his former colleagues in the Salvation Army,
he convinced these families temporarily to allow that kind of
(01:07:11):
sexual and reproductive control, with the idea being that he,
as a holy figure, had to sleep with as many
female cult members as possible because eventually one of those
children from those interactions would be the return of Christ.
And then later he said, oh wait, fake out, psych
(01:07:32):
I'm Jesus, which happens often similar Corge a little bit.
Speaker 5 (01:07:39):
I don't know it just like a lot of Jesus
is floating around. It's really hard to tell which one's
the real one, you know, easy to get.
Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
Infused, so think critically. The last note on this one.
It reminds me of that old anecdote I know we
mentioned on the show before, but about those three guys
who all claimed that they were Jesus Christ in an asylum,
and they got some doctor who must have just been
having a weird day, put them all at a room
(01:08:10):
together and said, you can't come out until you figure
that until you guys solve this. So they're in like
a real Jesus escape room, and according to the story,
they eventually say.
Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
Okay, it's all copa setic.
Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
We agreed, so let us out, and then they the
doctor lets them out and interviews them one on one.
Oh there it is, Yeah, and they each privately say, well,
you know, those other two guys are very troubled, and
as Jesus Christ, I wanted to, you know, do my
best for the flock. So I just agreed to whatever,
(01:08:49):
and we all said yes, I left, and I hope
this is a good message for you, doctor.
Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
It's about acceptance, love, oh man, all the good things.
Speaker 4 (01:09:01):
Ooh, hold the phone.
Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
The story is taking a turn thanks to the magic
and poetry of editing and nonlinear time. We're not exactly
sure where this story is going to break, but we
all agreed as a team that this needs to be
a two parter, so stay tuned later in the week
(01:09:23):
for part two of the terrifying story of am Shinrikyo.
In the meantime, we hope this finds well. We hope
that you were safe. We're so grateful for our guest
super producer Gnomes. Shout out to you, Nomes, and we
want to hear your thoughts at this point, especially if
you have been involved in something that you did not
(01:09:43):
realize until much later was a cultic organization. Find us online,
Conspiracy Stuff, conspiracy Stuff Show, wherever you tag a little
at sign on stuff when you're sipping the social meets.
You can also give us a good old fashion email
or call us on a telephonic device.
Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
You can definitely call us and in between before you
call us. If you want to hear more of gnomes work,
why not check out Monster BTK. It's freaking fantastic. They
did a ton of the work. Amazing. Hey, you can
call her number. It is one eight three three s
T d W y t K. It's a phone number,
it's a voicemail. You've got three minutes. Give yourself a
(01:10:21):
cool nickname and let us know if we can use
your name and message on the air. If you want
to send us an email. We are the.
Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Entities the read each piece of correspondence we receive. Be
well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Speaker 4 (01:10:35):
Pro tip if.
Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
You are interested in very specific things, you can right
now visit Alith dot t O A L E P
H dot t O. Tell us what you think and
then tell us about the cults in your name of
the Global Woods Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app.
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