On the 26th of March 1995, sarin gas was released in a Tokyo subway station crammed with morning rush hour commuters and all hell broke loose. In the aftermath of anguish, death, painful injuries and broken lives, the deadly action was traced back to a cult called Aum Shinrikyo. What lay behind this ferocious lashing the cult had given to the orderly, uncluttered society Japan was so proud of? What dark sinister secrets lay behind the walls of the Aum Shinrikyo compound in Kamikuishiki at the peaceful foothills of Mount Fuji? Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a Yokohama lawyer took up the challenge of finding answers to these questions and one cold, gray November morning in 1995, the young attorney, his wife and ten month old son disappeared without a trace. This is the chilling story of how a young lawyer sacrificed his life and that of his poignantly young family to stem the reign of terror of the cult's guru, Shoko Asahara. The investigation into the cult that followed uncovered a chilling trail of murders, disappearances and evil plans to destroy mankind with nerve gas and other weapons of mass destruction. For six long years, Tsutsumi Sakamoto called out from his lonely hillside grave and on September the 6th, 1995 he was heard at last. His body was discovered and the crab shells strewn all around told a chilling tale of how his killers had coldly feasted on crabs as they threw his body into that lonely unmarked grave he did not deserve. Sakamoto and his family had died to right a social wrong and to expose the evil plans of deadly terrorists crouching dangerously behind the cloak of religion, the rest was up to the living.

Analyzes the vast impact that Aum has had on Japanese society, including its appeal to Japanese youth. In-depth study of the question of civil liberties now that many Japanese wish to ban sects. Also details political questions raised by the Aum crisis, Aum's revivalist mission to Russia, and attempts by Aum and other New Religions in Japan to gain money and fame by pushing an "Armageddon" theme.

Aum Shinrikyo and Japanese Youth offers insights into Japanese spirituality by analyzing the motivations of those who joined the Aum Shinrikyo religious sect. This group attracted worldwide attention after its poison gas attack on the Tokyo subways in March, 1995. Daniel A. Metraux explores the reasons that thousands of Japanese people, many of them youths, joined the sect. He questions why they joined it, what they expected of their membership, and why they stayed involved or left. Metraux finds that most of the members got involved for religious and social reasons and did not partake in the terrorist and criminal activities of the leaders of Aum Shinrikyo. In addition, the author examines how the Aum situation reflects a growing sense of alienation from the traditional Japanese religion and culture among some of the young and middle-aged Japanese people, providing important information about the present status of the Japanese people.

The Tokyo subway attack in March 1995 was just one of a series of criminal activities including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and the illegal manufacture of arms and drugs carried out by the Japanese new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo, under the guidance of its leader Asahara Shoko. Reader looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks, why did a religious movement ostensibly focussed on yoga, meditation, asceticism and the pursuit of enlightenment become involved in violent activities? Reader discusses Aum's spiritual roots, placing it in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns. Asahara's teaching are examined from his earliest public pronouncements through to his sermons at the time of the attack, and statements he has made in court. In analysing how Aum not only manufactured nerve gases but constructed its own internal doctrinal justifications for using them Reader focuses on the formation of what made all this possible: Aum's internal thought-world, and on how this was developed. Reader argues that despite the horrors of this particular case, Aum should not be seen as unique, nor as solely a political or criminal terror group. Rather it can best be analysed within the context of religious violence, as an extreme example of a religious movement that has created friction with the wider world that escalated into violence.

This study examines the functional relationship between millenarian-inspired terrorism and the process of political change. Through an exhaustive investigation of late Twentieth-century movements, Aum Shinrikyo, Sendero Luminoso and Hezbollah, it concludes that in each case, apocalyptic expectations performed a significant group mobilization, leadership and therapeutic function.

Can a Japanese samurai of impeccable lineage in Edo period Japan get away with being gay? Can he break all the rules of society and get away with it? It all started when an aging samurai took an eccentric interest in a teenage peasant boy who had the unusual gift of writing. One day he brought his son, Lord Okimoto to the peasant’s house. Immediately when their gazes met, the samurai’s son and the teenage peasant, a forbidden love affair formed, an affair which broke all the rules of Japan’s Edo period society and a feudal class so sharply defined that it could cut like a knife. Four centuries later, an ancestor of Lord Okimoto finds a diary written by his peasant lover unfolding the anguished tale of a forbidden life went wrong, leaving behind a trail of broken hearts, shattered dreams and destroyed lives. The tale of the gay samurai who put duty and obligations above his poignant love travels one whole circle to arrive to the 21st century in a final twist to this intriguing story of how two young men dared to break all the rules in conservative unforgiving 18th century Japan.

This book explores the innovations and advances in terrorist tactics and technologies to help fill the gap in the contemporary terrorism literature by developing an empirical theory of terrorist innovation. The key question concerns the global historical trends in terrorist innovation, as well as the critical factors responsible for the differences in practices among terrorist organizations. The first part of the book provides an overview of the tactics and technology used by terrorists in the last century and identifies the key trends for the future. The second part compares four differing terrorist organizations with the aim of identifying key factors in producing innovative tactics and weaponry. The volume provides a historical explanation of the trends in terrorist innovation and also has policy relevance, as the ability to identify signature characteristics of innovation-prone terrorist organizations is a critical element in predictive threat assessment. Understanding Terrorist Innovation will be of great interest to students of terrorism studies, security studies and political science in general.