Aum Shinrikyo’s Madness: Sarin Attack, Fragile Peace
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Sunday, March 19, 1995, I am inside a Tokyo subway station. No one except the perpetrators themselves knows what horrific event will unfold here around 8 a.m. the next day. The safety and peace of the world are often in such a state: fragile like terracotta struck by a hammer, yet people delude themselves into believing it is fixed on bedrock and immutable. The “Tokyo Subway Sarin Incident” refers to the tragedy in which followers (organization members) of Aum Shinrikyo, a cult led by its leader Asahara Shoko, released sarin (a nerve gas) on five cars across three subway lines in Tokyo on March 20, 1995, killing 14 people (later increased to 15 after a woman who died in March 2020 was recognized as a victim) and injuring more than 6,300. The toxicity of sarin is 500 times that of potassium cyanide.
Aum Shinrikyo had been implicated in multiple violent crimes. Cornered, Asahara Shoko decided to carry out terrorism to divert public attention and disrupt police investigations. He divided people into “spiritual humans” and “animal humans.” The cult’s ultimate goal was to reset the human species by exterminating the “animal humans” and establishing a utopia called Jinrigoku (Truth Nation) after overthrowing the government.
The cult members who released sarin in the subway included cardiac surgeons, electrical engineering majors, top graduates from Waseda University’s Department of Applied Physics, graduates from the University of Tokyo’s Department of Applied Physics, doctoral candidates from top Japanese research laboratories, and artificial intelligence researchers from Kogakuin University. The least likely people fell for superstition—and that is also human nature.
Of course, like the 9/11 attacks, there were several predictive warnings. For instance, in novels and films, protagonists persistently alert others to danger despite ridicule, fighting evil. Reality, however, rejected this narrative. What we should truly wonder is why such seemingly intelligent people fell for a despicable figure. No one can confidently claim they are unrelated to such pseudo-religious cults, for such madness primarily arises from “politics.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.chosun.com/english/opinion-en/2026/03/18/HO75NGA2RJGPJN5PX7GITHH6ZE/.
