Aum Shinrikyō

Millennial Buddhist–Hindu sect founded in 1987 in Japan. Members believed that the world would end in 1997 or 1999 with a bloody war or nuclear explosion. Its leaders were held responsible for the sarin nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995. At that time the sect claimed to have 10,000 followers in Japan, as well as branches in Russia, the USA, and Germany.

The founder and leader of Aum Shinrikyō, Shōko Asahara (adopted name of Chizuo Matsumoto), organized the sect on political lines, and wished to set up a nation of self-supporting villages. Initiates were put through a severe ascetic regime and encouraged to drink Asahara's blood and semen. In the 1990 general election, 24 cult members stood for the Diet wearing elephant masks or masks of Asahara's face. Asahara was arrested in 1995 in connection with the Tokyo nerve-gas attack, which killed 12 people and injured 5,500. In July 2001, a Japanese court ordered the leader of the sect to pay more than US$3 million to victims of a 1994 gas attack in Matsumoto, Japan.