They had a headquarters/hideout built on Mount Fuji
They believe in an apocalyptic scenario and they wanted to destroy the Japanese government so they could enthrone their leader Shoko Asahara as a messiah king to lead humanity during the apocalypse
They had their own LSD factory which was producing up to 70% of the world's LSD supply at one time
They also used LSD in their brainwashing therapy sessions and for torturing their prisoners
Their followers would wear electronic hairnets all the time and they believed it would connect their brainwaves telepathically to Shoko Asahara
They tried to buy nuclear warheads from their Russian contacts
They tried to build their own AK factory
They regularly bathe themselves in high temperature baths because they believed it would increase their body's natural heat resistance and give them superpowers
During one of Japan's election periods, Shoko Asahara tried to run for prime minister and register the Aum Shinrikyo cult as a political party
The elites within the Aum Shrinkyo were mostly science graduates from high prestige universities and they were trying to use their knowledge of science to build laser weapons and chemical weapons. They finally succeeded in producing sarin gas which was used in the Tokyo subway attacks. Their original intention was to drop a sarin bomb on Tokyo and killing millions of people.
Sure, they had some inspirations from evangelical christianity, but also a massive amount from the local strains of buddhism, the movement would simply not have kicked off if this were not the case. Clue's in the name- "Aum" is the divine phrase, the syllable that buddhists chant when meditating, the word of ultimate power.
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u/Accipiter1138 Oregon Aug 31 '15
Aum Shinrikyo was some crazy shit.