Causal Mechanisms for Strategic Subcultures: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo

1. Causal Mechanisms for Strategic Subcultures: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo Alex Burns (Alexander.Burns@monash.edu) SPS Symposium, 30th October 2018 PhD Candidate, School of Politics & Social Inquiry, Monash University

2. Progress Report 2019 • Pre-Submission Seminar / Final Review milestone completed on 14th November 2018 with thanks to committee Associate Professor Benjamin MacQueen, Associate Professor Steve Roberts, and Dr Bill Flanik • Associate Professor Pete Lentini joins as new main PhD Supervisor to augment Dr Luke Howie and Dr ZarehGhazarian (main and associate PhD Supervisors) • Two new data chapters written using process tracing methodology, and two unused new chapters which will inform future journal articles (on Theory-Building Insights and on the Accelerationist political philosophy and recent terrorist attacks) • Dr Brett Hough to copy-edit thesis on 11th November 2019 • Thesis submission to MGRO on 22nd November 2019

3. Subcultures and Terrorist Subcultures • Subculture analysis emerged in 1940s and 1950s: • Meso-level structures for beliefs and values in society • How new norms arise in society at the sub-group level • Social-psychological tension between deviant sub-group and the mainstream society (e.g. youth, aesthetic) • Chicago and Birmingham (Stuart Hall) schools • Terrorist Subcultures • Mark Hamm (cultural criminology) and Jeffrey Kaplan (Interpretivist analysis of new religious and terrorist groups) • Subcultural artefacts (art, music, books, symbolism, memes) • Examples: militias, post-Vietnam paramilitary, neo-Nazi, far right, and Alt-Right proponents who support extremist violence • Different to (terrorist) strategic subcultures I use in the thesis

4. Strategic Culture Defined: Jack Snyder • Formulated in 1977 by Jack Snyder for a RAND monograph on Ford and Carter administration détente and the Soviet Union • “Individuals are socialized into a distinctly Soviet mode of thinking . . . a set of general beliefs, attitudes and behavioral patterns . . . that places them on the level of “culture” rather than mere “policy” . . .” [emphasis added] (Snyder 1977: v) • “Culture is perpetuated not only by individuals but also by organizations.” (Snyder 1977: 9). • “Strategic subculture: . . . a subsection of the broader strategic community . . . Reasonably distinct beliefs and attitudes.” (Snyder 1977: 10).

5. Aum Shinrikyo • Founded in 1984 as a small yoga group • Founder: Shoko Asahara (Chizuo Matsumoto) • Developed a synthesis of religious beliefs • Hindu deity worship (Shiva experience in 1985) • Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana (esoteric practices) • Evangelical Christianity (End Times apocalypse) • Cultic milieu (Nostradamus) • Innovation (Perfect Salvation Initiation) • 20th March 1995: sarin gas attack on Tokyo subway • 13 people killed • 5500 people injured • Long-term psycho-social effects in Japanese society (the ‘Aum affair’) • Transformed from new religious movement to religiously motivated terrorist organisation

6. Aum Shinrikyo’s Pathway to Terrorist Violence • Asahara’s goal of recruiting 30,000 renunciates (very ambitious, led to Korea and Russia members) • Early, optimistic period (1984-90) became more pessimistic (Ian Reader, 2000): parallels to Bhagwan Rajneesh (Netflix 2018 documentary Wild, Wild Country) • Failed ‘populism’ of Asahara’s micro-party political campaign for the Japanese Diet (1990) • Asahara’s interest in conspiracy theories (priming) • Chemical and Biological Weapons experimentation • Pathway to violence: Matsumoto (June 1994) and Tokyo (March 1995) when Aum Shinrikyo was under investigation by Japanese authorities

7. CM1: Cultural Transmission • Shiva experience in 1985: Asahara’s religious mission as an avatar to liberate humanity • Anthropologist Frederick M. Smith (The Self Possessed): ‘deity yoga’ experiences in South Asian tantra as transcultural model • Indo-Tibetan worldview influenced by Hindu (Shaktipat Initiation) and shift in 1989-90 to Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana • Syncretic beliefs: also interested in Evangelical Christian religious narratives about Armageddon (Asahara, Declaring Myself The Christ) • Forecast the apocalyptic counterfactual of a ‘limited’ nuclear war between United States and Japan in 2003, after a period of global economic collapse (US, Europe, Japan)

8. CM2: Social Learning • Aum Shinrikyo counter-elite functioned as an attachment-rank hierarchy (Anthony Stevens & John Price, evolutionary psychiatrists, Prophets, Cults and Madness) • Initiatory, religious sub-system: a way for Asahara to reach his goal of 30,000 renunciates in order to liberate humanity • Indoctrinability: provided the belief system for ‘wandering’ seekers to quickly become renunciates and donate assets • Social bonds, initiatory practices, and ritual ordeals were important for renunciates • Compartmentalised: renunciates unaware of Chemical and Biological Weapons experimentation

9. CM3: Folklore • Aum Shinrikyo interacted with Japan’s cultic milieu and with anime/manga media imagery (Space Battleship Yamato) • Renunciates had background interest in the occult that pre-screened them (Haruki Murakami, Underground interviews) • Narratives around experimentation at Bhajaran cattle station, Western Australia (Jake Hanrahan, Vice Motherboard and Sarah Hightower, @nezumi_ningen) • Psychiatric diagnosis of “functional megalomania” (Robert Jay Lifton) and “florid schizophrenia” (Daniel Shaw): earlier susceptibility to schizotypal thinking (ideas of reference) in the cultic milieu (1978-84)

10. Thesis Lessons • Aum Shinrikyo transformed from a guru-led new religious movement to a religiously motivated terrorist organisation • Japanese Government execution of Asahara and other Aum members (6th and 26th July 2018) before Heisei era’s end and Reiwa era began • The three posited causal mechanisms converge on the indoctrinability of renunciates • Academic contribution: new analytical theory of strategic subcultures and new process tracing causal tests for terrorist organisations • Policy relevance: cross-domain counter-coercion capabilities and terrorist organisation deterrence

11. Discussion