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 (Hardcover)

by David E. Kaplan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
By the time Japan's bizarre Aum Shinrikyo cult launched its 1995 nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 and injuring thousands, the wealthy religious sect, which received generous tax breaks, had a global network of at least 37 companies, according to this exhaustively researched page-turner. Aum had acquired powerful lasers and was planning a military assault on Japan's parliament so that its bearded, near-blind leader, Shoko Asahara, a fanatical admirer of Hitler, could install himself as head of a new religious state. Asahara, now on trial for mass murder, recruited physicists, engineers and doctors into a crackpot New Age cult whose members popped LSD and wired shock-inducing electrodes to their heads while chanting mantras. Aum's hit squads allegedly abducted and murdered opponents and former members. Forging ties with yakuza (Japan's mafia) and KGB veterans, Aum attempted to get Russian nuclear weapons and prospected for uranium in Australia's outback. A superb job of reporting, this account unfolds like a scary cyberpunk thriller presaging a new era of high-tech terrorism, and it brings the cult into sharper focus than D.W. Brackett's Holy Terror (Forecasts, May 6). Tokyo-based reporter Kaplan wrote Yakuza and Fires of the Dragon (on the murder of Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu). Marshall is Asia correspondent for British Esquire. First serial to Wired; condensation rights to Reader's Digest.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American
(A) fascinating horror story... so outlandish and violent that it sounds like a Hollywood adventure movie. But it's a lot scarier than that: It really happened.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: Crown (May 21, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517705435
• ISBN-13: 978-0517705438
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #501,330 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a truly disturbing book, October 21, 2001

By	m_noland "m_noland" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important and impressive book, October 7, 1998

By	Peter Andersson ([e-mail]) (Gothenburg, Sweden) - See all my reviews

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".

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I can sum this book up in two words - totally unbelievable!, June 28, 2000

By	Becky (Ellalong, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

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.