Customer Reviews

The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult, from the Subways of Tokyo to the Nuclear Arsenals of Russia

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As several other reviewers have noted, this story is so strange that it would be impossible to believe if it were not true. It is the story of Shoko Asahara, nee Chizuo Matsumoto: a fat, possibly blind, hardscrabble con artist who somehow transforms his scam of the moment, the Aum Association of Mountain Wizards, to Aum Supreme Truth, a cult of tens of thousands of adherents worldwide who gave away their life's savings, and apparently all capacity of independent thought or moral judgment to this unlikeliest of messiahs.

Murder, kidnapping, Nazi-like medical experimentation, drug taking, and sexual abuse follow. In a moment verging on parody Asahara declares that the world is threatened by a conspiracy that includes the Jews, Bill Clinton, the Queen of England and Madonna. Mr. Asahara, please meet Mr. LaRouche and Mr. Bin Laden.

This alone would be awful enough, but Asahara had truly global ambitions: first to stage a coup d'etat in his native Japan, and then initiate an Armageddon that would destroy the world. For these purposes he penetrated nearly every Japanese public institution including the army and the police and set about obtaining by hook or crook weapons of mass destruction: chemicals, biological agents, nuclear weapons, and - I kid you not -- death rays.

Asahara's scheme would culminate in Aum's poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 14 and injured thousands more. Asahara was eventually apprehended and as of October 2001 his trial continues to drag on. Aum continues to exist in Japan, though with a much smaller membership, much smaller coffers, and one hopes a much smaller capacity for inflicting mayhem.

This book is disturbing on its own terms; it is particularly disturbing in light of the events of September 11: Asahara succeeded to a frightening extent and he had huge disadvantages relative to what Al Qaeda must possess today. Rather that working from an established religion and the resentments of potentially millions of adherents, Asahara had to invent theology on the fly and recruit his following from scratch. Moreover he had to constantly fund raise to keep his group in operation: he had no family wealth or network of contributors to fall back on. Finally, and most importantly, while the Japanese police certainly come off as incompetent in this telling, Asahara had no state support, indeed had to constantly deal with legal harassment and threats. It is truly frightening to think about how far he got given the obstacles he faced and how far someone equally charismatic and diabolical could go if dealt a better hand of cards.

The only reason I don't give this book 5 stars is that I didn't feel that it ever got into the heads of the Aum adherents. But given how strange this story is, perhaps that is asking too much of any author.

I lived in Japan when the subway attack happened and I will never forget the reaction from the Japanese people: they were terrified! When this book came out, I bought it immediately, expecting the usual quality level of non-fiction books that hit the stands soon after an event. Boy, was I surprised: This is an excellent, excellent read. No exagerations, so sensationalism, but still both fast-paced and revealing. As a reader of Japanese newspapers I had a fairly good picture of what had happened before, but this book gave me so much more background. As another reader commented, the scary thing is that the authorities did nothing, not wanting to "rock the boat".

If this story was to be written as a novel, the only suitable genre would be science fiction, for that is how amazing, otherworldly and fantastical this tale is. The authors leave no stone unturned in this extensively researched missive about a group of inhumane terrorists masquerading as harmless members of a Buddhist cult. After devouring this book (since that is what I did) one will probably realise that as dangerous as Jim Jones and David Koresh were, compared to Asahara and his league of demented adherents, they were Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny combined into one entity! Kaplan and Marshall inform us that we can no longer afford to exist in a Philistine society - we must do everything in our power to rid the world of impious religious cults where man is worshipped instead of God, and they draw much needed attention to a very frightening, yet little known fact - that with the advent of highly sophisticated firearms and biological weapons, which are inexplicably becoming more and more accessible to lay people, if World War Three does occur, it is most likely to be started by a group of terrorists similar to the fanatical Aum Supreme truth religious cult - people who say they worship all life and this planet, then spend millions of dollars in an attempt to destroy it.

This book is a wake-up call that cults can be both kooky and exceptionally dangerous at the same time. We dismiss their rants at our own peril. The book culminates with the sarin attacks of 1995, most of the book describes how Aum and its bizarre leader acquired scientific talent, money and facilities. Surprising to most will be the ties that Aum had to Russia. Useful for professionals engaged in CBRN protection, this book gives the reader a feel for how easy it was for the cult to synthesize Sarin, VX and some biological strains.
Was this a one-time unfortunate confluence of money, crazy ideology, and lax governmental oversight that will never be repeated? Or is it a blue-print for future terrorism, cults and extremists? The reader can form his or her own opinion, the author refrains from injecting personal opinion which is refreshing.
Because the impact of this attack still echoes across the world and has resulted in application of billions of dollars of US Government funding towards homeland security, a thorough understanding of the event is necessary for homeland defense and CBRN professionals. Highly recommended.

David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall obviously have an amazing amount of knowledge to share when it comes to the underworlds of Japan. In this book, they do an outstanding job of telling the true story of AUM. Whether you like fiction or non-fiction, you will be capitivated by the story of this Doomsday cult. I give it 5 stars on a 5-star scale.

Kaplan's book about the Yakuza was very well written, but this book was an eye-opener. It was among the scariest tales I've ever read, and it featured lurid stories about Master Asahara's cult apparatus. This is a story every public security official should read, one about a ruthless group of religious fanatics who went the whole nine yards in their attempt to murder 90% of the Japanese peole so as to launch a holy war between Japan and the United States, and to bring about the end of the world. The accounts of the physical and mental abuse to recruits may stun even the most seasoned reader. It reminded me of the Holocaust. But most important is Kaplan and Marshall's exposure of Japanese society, which many of us view as a utopia. In this book and in "Yakuza", we see Japan as it really is, enslaved by corruption, hiding abject poverty, and losing many of its children to fanatics like Chizuo Matsumoto.

Like all of the other people who read this book, I had to keep on reminding myself that it was real and a lot of people did actually have these thoughts and intentions. The thing that really got me was how recent it all was, I'm 17 and I'm so used to everything like that being ages ago - world war 2 for example. After I had read the book I realised that it was only written in 1996 so I searched to find some recent news on them only to find that Shoko Asahara's trial is still going, the cult have relaunched themselves and they even have their own website. They managed to do all what they did 10 years ago, technology has moved on a lot since then and I dread to think what they are capable of now. If you do buy this book, I would recommend you read the last few pages carefully, its like reading the terrorist forecast of New York, very scary and yet very true.

The most scary in this book is that the japanese law enforcement had information about AUM years before the subway gassing happened, but they never did anything, even when people were kidnapped and murdered. Sadly, today US law enforcement has a similar attitude, and we'll certainly see many more Jonestown "religious events" before the year 2000.

What is even more sad is that the usual cult apologists now claim that the leader Shoko Asahara didn't know what was going on and that he was fooled by fanatic followers. This book shows that Asahara not only approved the crimes, but that he ordered them.

This book reads like a fast paced thriller, except if it was a thriller you'd think it was too far fetched. Great research and just the right balance of high tech descriptions and the human side. Japanese law enforcement agencies come off very badly; as someone who lived in Japan during Aum's build up to the subway attack, reading this book made me consider myself lucky to be alive. The most terrifying thing is how easy it all was for Aum, and how that means it could (will?) happen again. A great and thought provoking read.

This is the story of a cult--a cult that began with fliers offering free yoga lessons and unraveled with the now-infamous Tokyo subway massacre.

I cannot emphasize how disturbing this story is--for the reality of the cult and its leader and its victims, and for the implications the story carries with it--about government incompetence and religious zealotry--about the ability of a small group to create and plan enormous havoc without being stopped in time.

This book is incredibly fast-paced, a thrill ride of the most horrifically real sort. I read it years ago, and I have never forgotten the story it tells. It has stayed with me--everything from the kids in cages to the mandatory electrode caps to the high-decibel brainwashing sessions to the neighborhood poison gas tests.

It is, literally, unforgettable. Read this book, read it as a warning, and be prepared to make it a part of you.