Aum Shinrikyo Case Study

How did reputation spur the Japanese cult, Aum Shinrikyo, also known as Aum, to use violence and how did they utilize said violence to create a new reputation? An act of domestic terror in 1995, and several smaller scale terroristic acts committed in the early 90s, is the kind of violence used by this cult to change and build a new reputation for themselves. After trying to gain political legitimacy, and failing, cult leader Shoko Asahara turned to building up his credibility and reputation by using violence. Reputation is a difficult thing to build, which explains why they chose to take the extreme route of creating it. The reputation of Aum Shinrikyo mattered to Shoko Asahara, as he cared most about gaining power, and violence helped his attempt to achieve that power.
Aum Shinrikyo is a Japanese cult that followed several beliefs core to the way that it operates. To create an initial cult following, Asahara began his organization out of the power vacuum left from the Japanese economic boom, promising a rebirth for young Japanese people who did not feel they fit into the rigid Japanese society (“Nerve Gas Attack on Tokyo Subway”). Their ideas …show more content…
In the case of Aum Shinrikyo, they repeatedly committed acts of violence after failing to receive political legitimacy. These various acts leading up to the 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system helped leader Shoko Asahara create a reputation, that he would hope would make the Japanese government and people believe them to be politically legitimate and serious. Many of the acts were aimed at law enforcement and members of the government, even though many other people were harmed in the process, the violence was a means to an end of political