A Study of the Aum Supreme Truth Phenomenon to Understand the Present-day Society

1998 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 08451053
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 社会学(含社会福祉関係)
• Research Institution: Konan Women's University
• Principal Investigator: ASHIDA Tetsro Konan Women's University, 文学部, 教授 (20151053)
• Project Period (FY): 1996 – 1998
• Keywords: the AUM cult / new new religion / affluent society / community / mass media / anxiety

Research Abstract

The purpose of our study is to grasp some traits of the present-day Japanese society and people by investigating the Aum Supreme Truth Phenomenon. By the Aum Supreme Truth Phenomenon we mean some particular phenomena which contain the Aum Supreme Truth cult's belief and practice, especially its brutally antisocial behavior such as the sarin attacks, and the much confused responses of common people to them.
To attain our aim we collected a lot of informations from newspapers, journals, books and TV etc.. We also interviewed many persons who had been concerned with the cult at Tokyo, Kumamoto, Shizuoka, Yamanashi and so on. The data obtained through our researches are so enormous that we need a little more time to analyze them completely.
This time, I think, we should be satisfied to have suggested that there are some obscure but deep-rooted anxieties spread in the contemporary society. We guess those anxieties are maybe shared with the cult In order to induce this hypothesis we examined the countermeasures of two communities, Kamikuishiki Village in Yamanashi Pref. and Namino Village in Kumamoto pref., which had coped with the Aum cult's activity.
We have aspirations to continue the researches of this theme further. And we have intentions to clarify the total meanings of the Aum Supreme Truth Phenomenon in the present-day Japanese society before long.