Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Shoko Asahara - Sarin Gas Attacker and Cult Leader

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Shoko Asahara - Sarin Gas Attacker and Cult Leader · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ready for a deep dive today. It's a story it's
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  both captivating and honestly pretty unsettling. We're going deep into
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  the nineteen ninety five Tokyo subway attack and the group
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  behind it, allum Shinrikio.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, a story that I mean, it really gripped the world,
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  and not just because of the attack itself, because it
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  made everyone question like faith, power, what believing even means?
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  Speaker 1: You know, absolutely, and speaking of belief, we have to
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  start with the leader of abum Shinrikio, Shokouasahara. Your research
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  materials about his early life. It's like looking back and
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  seeing maybe how things were headed in this direction. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Like Asahara, he didn't just pop into existence, as you know,
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  this powerful figure. He came from nothing, grew up poor,
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  had vision problems, and it's almost like he was constantly
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  trying to prove himself to do something big, something important.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that really comes through in what we read. It's
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  almost like he was searching for, I don't know, something
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  more than just everyday life, and that let him down
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  some really interesting paths like Chinese medicine, acupuncture. Almost like
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  he was interesting in these alternative ways of thinking about healing.
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  Speaker 2: And enlightenment totally, and eventually that search it leads him
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  to religion. But even there, typical religious paths like they
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  weren't enough. He was part of this Buddhist group, a Gunshoe,
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  known for their super intense, strict practices. We're not talking
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  about dabbling here. This was full on commitment. He did
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  this thing, this one thousand days of offerings practice intense.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, it sounds like he was really pushing himself, testing
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  his limits as much as finding enlightenment.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe that's it. That's the core of it, This total dedication,
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  this drive to reach like a higher level of being.
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  It becomes the foundation of what he teaches later in
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  oujumphin Rikio. But it's also where we see him how
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  he's willing to kind of, I don't know, bend the rules,
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  reinterpret things to get to his ultimate truth.
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  Speaker 1: You know, which is what makes his time in a
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  Gunsho even more fascinating. Yeah, because even with how disciplined
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  they were, he ends up clashing with the leadership there,
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  like he never quite found a belief system that fit
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  all of his ambitions.
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  Speaker 2: It's like this constant dissatisfaction, you know, and that combined
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  with everything he learned in a Gan show. It laid
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  the groundwork for him to create his own group, a
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  group where well, he would be the one calling all
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  the shots.
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  Speaker 1: It's like all that ambition that need to be in control,
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  it just explodes when he starts a jandum shinrikio.
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  Speaker 2: And that's where it gets well scary. To be honest,
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  a Gadam's belief system. It wasn't just your typical religious
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  stuff a gunner he throws in apocalyptic predictions, this idea
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  of like spiritual warfare. Even technology gets mixed up in it.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, that weird mix that gets me. It's like you've
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  got people meditating, doing yoga, but then on the other hand,
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  they're stockpiling weapons, experimenting with.
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  Speaker 2: Nerve gas exactly. And that's what made them so dangerous.
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  They weren't just like searching for enlightenment. They were preparing
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  for a fight, a real violent fight. They actually called
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  it armageddon. And Asahara, he was telling everyone only those
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  who reached enlightenment his way through Agam would survive.
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  Speaker 1: Man, it's like straight out of some thriller movie or something,
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  but this was real life. And then March twentieth, nineteen
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  ninety five, it all comes to a head the Tokyo
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  subway attack a day that.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's burned into Japan's memory, a brutal reminder
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  that extremism it has real consequences. Yeah, imagine this morning,
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  rush hour, packed subway cars and I members release Saren gas,
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  a deadly nerve agent.
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  Speaker 1: I was reading the details in your research. Just awful
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  people gasping for air, blinded by the gas, collapsing, the panic.
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  It must have been unreal, and it.
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  Speaker 2: Was planned, thought out to the smallest detail. They had
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  the saren in liquid form in these plastic bags, and
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  they punctured them with get this, sharpened umbrella tips designed
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  to spread the gas as far as possible in those
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  crowded subway cars.
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  Speaker 1: It is just twelve people died that day and thousands
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  were injured, some permanently. And the thing is this wasn't
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  even their first time using saren, Right.
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  Speaker 2: You're thinking of the Matsumoto incident a year earlier. They
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  tested saren gas in a residential area, killed seven people,
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  hundreds injured. They tried to play it off as an accident,
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  but everything points to them testing how the gas would spread,
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  seeing what it would do on a smaller.
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  Speaker 1: Scale, just horrifying, using people like guinea pigs for their
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  messed up plan. How could a Sahara, their supposed spiritual leader,
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  be behind something like this, Like what was going on
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  in his head? You know? That became the big question
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  during his trial. Did he know? When? Did he know?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? The trial it was huge. I mean they called
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  it the trial of the century over in Japan. The
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  prosecutors they presented Asahara as this mastermind, right yeah, driven
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  by power, this idea that he was like a god,
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  a messiah.
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  Speaker 1: It's almost impossible to wrap your head around, even with
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  like the most extreme beliefs.
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  Speaker 2: Right, But you got to remember how much influence he had.
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  He had his followers convinced he had these supernatural powers,
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  predicting earthquakes, even starting the apocalypse. To them, he wasn't
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  just some guy, he was practically a divine being.
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  Speaker 1: And then during the trial, it's like a switch flips.
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  He's mumbling, not talking for days, even saying he doesn't remember.
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  It's hard to square that with a guy everyone was.
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  Speaker 2: So totally It makes you wonder was that all in
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  act trying to get out of the trial, or had
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  he just gone so far down this rabbit hole of
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  his own beliefs that he lost it. And then when
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  they brought in psychiatrists to evaluate him during the trial,
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  it got even weirder.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what happened.
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  Speaker 2: He'd be totally lucid one minute answering question, then bam,
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  silent or just rambling nonsense.
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  Speaker 1: To this day, it's like, how much was him and
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  how much was all in act? And what about the
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  people who actually carried out the attack. Did they really
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  believe in all of this or were they victims too?
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  Speaker 2: That's what's so haunting about all this. You look at
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  someone like Yazuwa Hayashi, one of the AMUM members who
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  released the serin his trial his defense, it's a window
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  into what was going on in their minds.
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  Speaker 1: So what did he say?
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  Speaker 2: Hayashi? He said he was just following orders, that he
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  really believed what he was doing was right, that it
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  was going to save people from something even worse.
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  Speaker 1: He was releasing nerve gas killing people, but thought he
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  was the good guy. It's just, I don't know, messed
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  up on so many levels.
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  Speaker 2: It shows you the power how a group can have,
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  especially one like a hoe. They offer the sense of belonging,
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  a purpose, the certainty in a world that often feels
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  totally random. They latch onto people's fears, give them easy
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  answers and a leader who seems to have it all
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  figured out.
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  Speaker 1: And in a home's case, those answers they led to
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  something truly awful. So what can we take away from
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  all of this.
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  Speaker 2: It's a story that keeps reminding us to think for ourselves,
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  to question what we're told, to get information from different sources.
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  That's more important now than ever, right especially with how
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  much information is out there, how easy it is to
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  get pulled into these echo chambers online.
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  Speaker 1: The Tokyo subway attack, it was a horrific thing, but
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  looking back on it, learning about it, it forces us
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  to really think about ourselves, about the world in ways
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  that maybe aren't always easy. But in the end, that's
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  how we learn, how we grow, how we prevent something
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  like this from ever happening again.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely,